ShipCraft 35 - British Anti-Aircraft Cruisers (Paperback)
Series: Ship Craft
Pages: 64
Illustrations: 130 colour and b/w photos and line drawings
ISBN: 9781036153175
Published: 18th March 2026
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The ‘ShipCraft’ series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject, highlighting differences between ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the subjects, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic gallery of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references – books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.
This volume completes Les Brown’s coverage of British cruisers of the Second World War, concentrating on ships with a primarily anti-aircraft role. It begins with the innovative inter-war conversions of old ‘C’ class ships and moves on to the Dido class – not originally designed as AA ships but armed with a new 5.25in dual-purpose gun that made them effective air-defence ships. Also included are the small number of merchant ships converted to cruiser-standard AA ships.
With its unparalleled level of visual information – paint schemes, models, line drawings and photographs – this book is simply the best reference for any modelmaker setting out to build one of these famous cruisers.
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"It's another fine addition to the series, and more so if you put together plastic WWII ship models. Enjoyed it."
Historical Miniatures Gaming Society
“…very valuable sources of information on their subjects and well recommended to the modeler or the history buff that is looking for a little more detailed information.”
IPMS/USA
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As featured by
Military History Research Group
"In summary, this book provides a wide range of potential readers with information about some important RN fleet units that played a significant part in World War two in addition to giving insight into what is both available and possible for those who might wish to model them. While none of them served with the RAN, several served alongside RAN units in the Mediterranean and British Pacific Fleets and are mentioned in G Hermon Gill’s History of the RAN. I am very happy to recommend this book highly."
Australian Naval Institute
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About Les Brown
LES BROWN spent his working life at the specialist warship builder Vosper Thornycroft so is particularly well-equipped to write this book. In addition, he is a leading light in the Small Warships Group of the IPMS and the editor of their newsletter. He is the author of a number of titles in the ShipCraft series, and also wrote the volume on Black Swan Class Sloops in Seaforth’s ‘Original Builders’ Plans’ series.






