Bøger i Top Drawings serien

Highly illustrated look at the Yakovlev Yak-3, considered one of the best World War II fighter planes.

The Mitsubishi J2M Raiden was constructed as an interceptor with high horizontal speed and climb rate. Achieving good performance in the aforementioned parameters resulted in worse maneuverability, but it was still a very successful design.

The English Electric Lightning (later known as BAC Lightning) is the first British fighter to achieve twice the speed of sound. The plane was constructed in the 1960s (339 copies were built).

The Fiat G.55 Centauro fighter was designed by Giuseppe Gabrielli in 1942 and flown in the spring of the same year (April 30). The plane was to be a response to the demand for an interceptor capable of operating at high altitudes, which was dictated by the increasing intensity of Allied air raids on Italian cities and military infrastructure.

The Bristol Blenheim was one of the most popular British aircraft at the beginning of World War II. It was a very versatile and modifiable machine, and therefore typical bomber, reconnaissance, and fighter (including night) versions were created.

"Suzutsuki" was the third ship in a series of large Akizuki-type destroyers specifically designed as anti-aircraft defense ships, whose main armament consisted of 8 universal guns of 100 mm caliber, with excellent ballistic characteristics.

Junkers Ju 188 - German bomber during World War II, successor of the Ju 88, was flown in January 1943.

The British battleship HMS "Vanguard" was built in the years 1941-1946 at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank.

This is how the tank destroyer based on the Tiger (P) chassis was born.

The Focke-Wulf Ta 154 Moskito was a fast twin-engined German night fighter aircraft. The German Ta 154 night fighter which supposed to be an answer to the British Mosquito.

A full-colour exploration of the development of the Messerschmitt Me 140, a bomber destroyer in WWII.

An exceptionally detailed examination of Sturmpanzer IV Brummbar featuring full-colour profiles.

Clearly illustrated and effectively described; an excellent guide to the Japanese Battleship Kongo from WWII.

Highly illustrated look at the ship in the years 1944-1945 including descriptions, technical data and professional drawings.

Sd.Kfz. 173 Jagdpanther is a German tank destroyer developed by Krupp and Daimler-Benz. The order was placed in August 1943 and the vehicle entered service in the first months of 1944. It was armed with a very effective anti-tank tank gun. PaK 43 cal. 88 mm. The destroyer's combat compartment was armoured with 40 to 100 mm thick (front plate) armour plates. From January 1944, 415 pieces were produced (at the MIAG, MNH and MBA factories). The vehicle was based on the chassis of the Panther Ausf. G, but it didn't have as many technical problems as the mentioned tank. Due to the favourable power-to-weight ratio, Jagdpanther had good performance and maneuverability. Together with a powerful cannon, which was able to destroy any allied armoured vehicle that time, it made it an extremely effective and dangerous destroyer. Vehicles were used by independent tank destroyer battalions. Jagdpanthers debuted in Normandy in 1944 (within 555th and 654th Panzerjagerabteilung), achieving great successes. Also during the offensive in the Ardennes, the Allies took a toll on them. They appeared on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1944, effectively fighting all Soviet armoured guns and heavy tanks, including IS-2. The vehicle was produced in two main variants. The early version - designated as G1 - had a smaller yoke that was welded to the hull, a modified engine compartment from the Panther Ausf. A and two driver's visors. In the later version - G2 - the Panther Ausf. G engine compartment was used, one driver's visor and a larger yoke which was bolted to the front plate with screws. There were also many hybrid variants combining the features of both versions. Until September 1944, Jagdpanthers were covered with Zimmerit in the form of characteristic squares, and not the more popular "snakes". Jagdpanthers proved to be the most effective German tank destroyers, but they appeared too late and in too few numbers to significantly influence the course of the war.

Gloster Gladiator is a British fighter constructed at the Gloster Aircraft Company. The prototype was created in 1934. It was powered by a 645 HP Bristol Mercury VIS engine. Gloster Gladiator Mk I had a 8382 mm long fuselage, which consisted of four numbered sections. The first of these included the engine bed. The second front fuselage, the third - the rear fuselage, and the fourth - tail. The arrangement of instrumentation and equipment inside the truss was marked with letters or numbered from one to eight fuselage partitions corresponding to the distances between the frames. Clearly straight main panels with a span of 9845 mm were built around two Hawker steel girders. The upper and lower supports of the girders were made of rolled octagonal elements, and the wavy lining provided strong points for attaching four aerodynamically profiled transverse struts. Such wing structure was finished with light alloy ribs, stringers and steel and duralumin spreader bars.

The PzKpfw III (Panzerkampfwagen III) is a German medium tank designed by Daimler-Benz AG. The first tests of the vehicle took place in 1936. The construction of the PzKpfw III consisted of four main modules: the turret, the front of the hull, the rear of the hull with the engine compartment cover and the lower hull. The first version of PzKpfw III - Ausf. A - was produced in May 1937. Soon after, the Ausf. B and C versions also entered production. Ausf. D version was introduced in January 1938. Early PzKpfw III models were prototype vehicles and were not suitable for mass production on a large scale. They were powered by Maybach HL 108 TR petrol engines with 250 HP. They were armed with 37mm guns and three MG-34 machine guns (two in the turret and one in the hull).

A French World War II fighter aircraft that saw combat service in North Africa, Bulgaria, and the Eastern Front.

The Sturmgeschutz III was Germany's most-produced fully tracked armoured fighting vehicle during World War II.

Covers a variation of the German Fighter plane Messerschmitt Bf 109, designed to be used on the Kriegsmarine's aircraft carrier, Graf Zeppelin.

The standard carrier-based torpedo bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy for much of World War II.

Covers the last single-seat fighter biplane to be manufactured during the Second World War.

The M16 Multiple Gun Motor Carriage (M16 MGMC) also known as M16 half-track, was a US self-propelled antiaircraft gun built during World War Two.

The work on the design of future long-range active anti-aircraft and anti-submarine ship ¿ as it was initially determined ¿ was conducted by the Leningrad CKB-17 in close cooperation with OKB-938 led by N.I. Kamov. The author of the ship¿s design, which was given the number 1123 and the code ¿Kondor¿, was A.S. Sawiczew, and from 1967 ¿ A.W. Marinich. The main task of the ship was to search and destroy American nuclear submarines carrying ¿Polaris¿ ballistic missiles in the Antarctic Ocean and Barents Sea.

M3 General Lee ¿ an American medium tank from World War II era, also used by the British army. In the US, known as Lee, in the United Kingdom as Grant. M3 tank was created as a result of the need to replace the obsolete M2 tank, which did not match the WWII battlefield. The serial production began in August 1941. The M3 tank had many components from the M2 light tank,including chassis, Wright R975 EC2 star engine and the shape of the combat compartment.