The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeler through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring color profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modeling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey 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. Built in larger numbers than any fleet carrier before or since, the Essex class can claim to be the US Navy's most significant weapon in the defeat of Japan. Carrying up to 100 aircraft and capable of absorbing enormous punishment (not one was sunk), they spearheaded the Fast Carrier Task Forces for most of the Pacific War.