German Battleship Helgoland - detailed in the original builders' plans

German Battleship Helgoland HB By Aidan Dodson The Great War battleships were the epitome of early stage battleship design. Whilst virtually every ship of the period is gone, there lives on a catalogue of information and design data that provides those of us living one hundred plus years later an insight into the workings of these great warships. Aidan Dodson’s book reflects the wonderful collections held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich and this book on one of the premier German battleship designs of the era is an amazing look back. SMS Helogland, was launched in 1909 and was the lead ship in a class of four such battleships designed for the German High Seas Fleet. With her modern 12 inch guns she was far superior to the preceding Westfalen Class and could easily match anything the Royal Navy had in their possession. SMS Helgoland fought at the Battle of Jutland and survived only to be ceded to the British in 1918 at the wars end and broken up six years later. This book is the latest in a series that takes the original draughtsman drawings and in minute detail show how these ships were put together. Model makers the world over must wait in anticipation for the next release as the level of detail must make their task all that much easier, or conversely much harder as they try to make fine details visible. The publishers of the book have utilised the 21st Century’s latest scanning technology to make early 20th century drawings clear in reproduction, whilst each of the drawings has been given detailed captions to explain the various notations and other marks. Personally, I would have liked to have seen more of the ship’s history but this is only a small criticism of an otherwise excellent book.