The idea of a heavy cruiser emerged in the aftermath of World War I, and was closely linked to the limits set by the inter-war Washington Naval Treaty. The pre-World War I concept of armoured cruisers had been abandoned, but in their stead the Admiralty saw a place for powerful cruisers, able to patrol the sea lanes of the British Empire, and which were well-armed enough that they could destroy enemy commerce cruisers. The result was a group of British warships, known as the 'Washington Treaty Cruisers', that did everything the Admiralty wanted, but which conformed to the limits imposed by the treaty. These impressive cruisers were high-sided, spacious and stately – perfect peacetime ambassadors for British power. In war they also packed a considerable punch. During World War II the Royal Navy's thirteen heavy cruisers saw service in every theatre of the war, whether facing the Bismarck in the North Atlantic or enduring kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.

When war broke out in 1939, only three true battlecruisers remained in the Royal Navy including HMS 'Hood', the world's largest and fastest capital ship for much of her life, which would be destroyed in action against the German battleship 'Bismarck'. Out of the remaining two battlecruisers ('Repulse' and 'Renown') one was sunk by Japanese aircraft off Singapore, whilst the other served with distinction until the end of the war. This book traces the pre-war development of these spectacular warships, then describes their wartime exploits, using this to demonstrate their operational and mechanical performance. It examines what life was like on these wartime battlecruisers when they sailed into action.

The light cruiser was a natural development of the sailing frigate – a fast multi-purpose warship that could patrol the sea lanes, protect convoys and scout for enemy battle fleets. By the inter-war period the need for this type of ship was even more important, given the increasing need for protection from aircraft, and the need to screen the fleet from submarines or destroyers. Wartime experience had shown that the British light cruiser was one of the most versatile types of ship in the Royal Navy, able to protect other warships, bombard enemy shores, guard life-saving convoys and intercept and destroy enemy warships. These were truly the workhorses of the wartime Royal Navy. While the battleships and carriers grabbed the headlines, these sleek, elegant warships quietly got on with the job of securing control of the seas.

The task of Germany's new Große Kreuzer at the beginning of the 20th century was to form an independent reconnaissance division that was able to perform special tasks. With a speed superiority of at least 3 knots, they should also be capable of fighting in the line, and would thus require heavy armour and good defensive qualities. The battlecruisers that were built did indeed have a remarkable ability to withstand battle damage, as demonstrated by the Goeben, which suffered five mine hits on one occasion. This title details all the classes of German battlecruiser, with particular emphasis on each individual ship's battle experience and deployment in conflict.

This superb reference book achieved the status of ‘classic’ soon after its first publication in 1993; it was soon out of print and is now one of the most sought-after naval reference books. And with good reason. Offering an unprecedented range of descriptive and illustrative detail, the author describes the evolution of the battleship classes through all their modifications and refits. As well as dealing with design features, armour, machinery and power plants and weaponry, he also examines the performance of the ships in battle and analyses their successes and failures; and as well as covering all the RN’s battleships and battlecruisers, he also looks in detail at the aircraft carrier conversions of the WWI battlecruisers Furious, Glorious and Courageous. British Battleships 1919-1939 is a masterpiece of research and the comprehensive text is accompanied by tabular detail and certainly the finest collection of photographs and line drawings ever offered in such a book. For this new edition the author has added some 75 new photographs, many of them having never appeared in print before, and the book has been completely redesigned to fully exploit the superb photo collection. A delight for the historian, enthusiast and ship modeller, it is a volume that is already regarded as an essential reference work for this most significant era in naval history and ship design.

“An extraordinarily detailed account of the development of Royal Navy cruisers . . . a towering work” from the author of Fighting the Great War at Sea (Warship 2012). For most of the twentieth century, Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser—a multipurpose warship needed in large numbers to defend trade routes and police the empire. Above all other types, the cruiser’s competing demands of quality and quantity placed a heavy burden on designers, and for most of the interwar period, Britain sought to square this circle through international treaties restricting both size and numbers. In the process, she virtually invented the heavy cruiser and inspired the large 6in-armed cruiser, neither of which, ironically, served her best interests. This book seeks to comprehend, for the first time, the full policy background—from which a different and entirely original picture of British cruiser development emerges. After the war, the cruiser’s role was reconsidered, and the final chapters of the book cover modernizations, the plans for missile-armed ships, and the convoluted process that turned the “through-deck cruiser” into the Invincible class light carriers. With detailed appendices of ship data, and illustrated in depth with photos and A.D. Baker’s specially commissioned plans, British Cruisers truly matches the lofty standards set by Friedman’s previous books on British destroyers. “Wow! . . . Lavishly illustrated with a photograph or line plan on almost every page. The text is packed with technical information, detail, and description of design, construction and application of these important ships.” —Clash of Steel

This lavishly-illustrated volume, first published in 1976 and back by popular demand, presents the full story of the design and construction of every British battleship and battlecruiser class that served in World War II--from the Queen Elizabeth class to the Vanguard. Noted authors Alan Raven and John Roberts include a comperehensive review of each ship's initial configuration and refits as well as developments in weapons, gunnery, fire control, radar, protection, and propulsion. There are also sections devoted to combat actions involving British battleships and comparisons with battleships of other navies. Six hundred photographs and illustrations, including sixteen fold-out pages, complement the authoritative history of the vessels. For other books in the battleship series, see page 26.

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 class, highlighting differences between sisterships 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 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. The latest in this series covers the three ships of this First World War type, Hood, Repulse and Renown, which survived to fight in the Second. Still the fastest capital ships in the world in 1939, their protection was not up to contemporary standards and two were famously lost in action. Hood in an old-fashioned gunnery duel, but Repulse succumbed to the more modern threat of aerial attack. The one modernised ship, Renown, survived an adventurous wartime career.

The rival battlecruisers first clashed in January 1915 at Dogger Bank in the North Sea and although the battle was a British tactical victory with neither side losing any of its battlecruisers, the differences in the designs of the British and German ships were already apparent. The two sides responded very differently to this first clash; while the Germans improved their ammunition-handling procedures to lessen the risk of disabling explosions, the British drew the opposite lesson and stockpiled ammunition in an effort to improve their rate of fire, rendering their battlecruisers more vulnerable. These differences were highlighted more starkly during the battle of Jutland in May 1916. Of the nine British battlecruisers committed, three were destroyed, all by their German counterparts. Five German battlecruisers were present, and of these, only one was sunk and the remainder damaged. Fully illustrated with specially commissioned artwork, this is the gripping story of the clash between the rival battlecruisers of the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine at the height of World War I.

With war against Germany looming, Britain pushed forward its carrier program in the late 1930s. In 1938, the Royal Navy launched the HMS Ark Royal, its first-ever purpose-built aircraft carrier. This was quickly followed by others, including the highly-successful Illustrious class. Smaller and tougher than their American cousins, the British carriers were designed to fight in the tight confines of the North Sea and the Mediterranean. Over the next six years, these carriers battled the Axis powers in every theatre, attacking Italian naval bases, hunting the Bismark, and even joining the fight in the Pacific. This book tells the story of the small, but resilient, carriers and the crucial role they played in the British war effort.