A guide for collectors and modelers—packed with photos, technical information, practical advice, and history. The origins of 1/1250 and 1/1200 scale models can be traced back to the first years of the twentieth century and their use as identification aids by the military during the First World War. When peace came, the manufacturers aimed their increasingly sophisticated products at collectors, and ever since then acquiring, enhancing, modifying, or scratch-building miniature ship models has been an avidly pursued hobby around the world. This new book focuses on models of the ships of the Second World War, and the author addresses all the practical issues that might confront collectors who like to enhance, convert, and modify their models, or even scratch-build models of ships not commercially available. The book covers both Allied and Axis warships, naval airplanes, merchant conversions, and even an Italian armed schooner, and provides historic and technical information on the ships represented as well as practical advice on modeling them—including twenty-five chapters covering everything from initial production techniques such as spin casting, silicon mold casting, resin casting, die-casting, plastic mold injection, and 3D printing through techniques for enhancing and modifying models to eventually researching and scratch-building an uncommon ship or type. The focus is always on particular vessels and the vast array covered builds into a fascinating panorama of the vessels that fought across the world’s oceans in that era. The combination of intriguing background and historical information, combined with detailed practical information and more than 300 stunning photographs, makes this book irresistible to collectors, modelers, or anyone with an interest in the navies of the Second World War.

The shocking story of Nazi Germany’s naval assault in American waters, told through the eyes of seafarers who experienced it off the Jersey Shore. It is January 1942. Six weeks after the United States entered World War II, Imperial Japan is annihilating American forces across the Far East while the Nazis stand triumphant over much of Europe. Adolf Hitler’s forces are about to commence an assault along the East Coast of the United States, but this “Atlantic Pearl Harbor” would prove far more devastating than Japan’s attack on Hawaii. The wolves are closing in, and few Americans realize their beaches and coastal cities are about to witness the worst naval defeat in American history. The Western Hemisphere holds the key to victory for the beleaguered Allies, but only if the vast economic and military resources of North and South America can be carried across the Atlantic by Allied merchant ships. These civilian-manned cargo vessels are the backbone of the American war economy and the lifeline enabling Britain and the Soviet Union to survive—but Hitler’s favorite admiral also knows this, and he has set in motion a plan of unprecedented boldness. Germany’s dreaded submarines, or “U-boats,” are going to the United States. The fiery months that followed would pit American servicemen against German U-boat sailors in a desperate struggle that stained East Coast waters with oil and blood. In the crosshairs of this deadly cat-and-mouse game was a stalwart contingent of civilian mariners who crewed the tankers and freighters supplying the war against the Axis Powers. Thousands of them would perish as hundreds of merchant ships were sunk. Every American coastal state became a battlefront in 1942, and the events that transpired off New Jersey illustrate the perils and brutality of this forgotten campaign. The seafloor along the Garden State is today strewn with shipwrecks that bear witness to the innumerable ways to die faced by friend and foe alike only miles from the boardwalk. Though these seafarers’ lives were forfeit, the battle they fought would decide the fates of millions.

[This work] is intended to provide intelligence professionals, scholars, and the general public with a detailed, topical accounting of the long and varied activities of U.S. Naval Intelligence on behalf of the nation. --from the Foreword.