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 authors of British and German Battlecruisers have detailed the fast and formidably-armed battlecruisers developed before and during World War I in a way that has never been attempted before. They begin by looking at the relationship and rivalry between Great Britain and Germany and how foreign policy, strategic and tactical considerations, economic, industrial and technological developments, as well as naval policies led to the commencement of the battlecruiser programs in both countries. Chapters are then devoted to the development of the ships in each country, to design and construction, protection, propulsion plants, weapons, fire control, and communication systems. Particular focus is paid to the innovative aspects of the designs and their strengths and weaknesses. These ships eventually clashed in the North Sea at Dogger Bank, in January 1915, and while neither side suffered losses, the differences in their design and handling were apparent. These differences would be starkly highlighted a year later at Jutland when three British ships were destroyed. This is a major new work for naval enthusiasts everywhere.

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.

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 '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.

“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 new edition of a classic work on British battleships is the most sought after book on the subject. Containing many new photographs from the author's exhaustive collection this superb reference book presents the complete technical history of British capital ship design and construction during the dreadnought era. Beginning with Dreadnought, all of the fifty dreadnoughts, 'super-dreadnoughts' and battlecruisers that served the Royal Navy during this era are described and superbly illustrated with photographs and line drawings.

“A valuable stand-alone text . . . Contains large amounts of data on all of the vessels officially classified as battlecruisers in the Royal Navy.” —International Journal of Maritime History The brainchild of Admiral Sir John Fisher, battlecruisers combined heavy guns and high speed in the largest hulls of their era. Conceived as super-cruisers to hunt down and destroy commerce raiders, their size and gun-power led to their inclusion in the battlefleet as a fast squadron of capital ships. This book traces in detail the development of Fisher’s original idea into first battlecruiser Invincible of 1908, through to the Splendid Cats of the Lion class, and culminating in HMS Hood in 1920, the largest warship in the world for the next twenty years. The origins of the unusual light battlecruisers of the Courageous type are also covered. “The author is still the foremost authority on battleships from Dreadnought and, although now retired, he continues to research the subject. This new edition of the definitive book on battlecruisers has been updated with the latest findings from his research. An outstanding review of the subject.” —Firetrench “It is good to see this book back in print with this improved edition.” —Warship, “Naval Books of the Year”

Military historian Smith offers an authoritative study of British battleships in World War II, highlighting stirring episodes of naval combat around the globe.

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 30. Chapters: HMS Hood, Renown class battlecruiser, Admiral-class battlecruiser, HMS Repulse, HMS Renown. Excerpt: HMS Hood (pennant number 51) was the last battlecruiser built for the Royal Navy. One of four Admiral-class battlecruisers ordered in mid-1916, her design-although drastically revised after the Battle of Jutland and improved while she was under construction-still had serious limitations. For this reason she was the only ship of her class to be completed. She was named after the 18th-century Admiral Samuel Hood. Hood was involved in a number of flag-waving exercises between her commissioning in 1920 and the outbreak of war in 1939; these included training exercises in the Mediterranean Sea and a circumnavigation of the globe with the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924. She was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet following the outbreak of the Second Italo-Abyssinian War. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, Hood was officially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until she had to return to England in 1939 for an overhaul. At this point in her service, Hoods usefulness had deteriorated because of advances in naval gunnery. She was scheduled to undergo a major rebuild in 1941 to correct these issues, but the outbreak of World War II forced the ship into service without the upgrades. When war with Germany was declared in September 1939, Hood was operating in the area around Iceland, and spent the next several months hunting between Iceland and the Norwegian Sea for German commerce raiders and blockade runners. After a brief overhaul to her engine plant, she sailed as the flagship of Force H, and participated in the destruction of the French Fleet at Mers-el-Kebir. Relieved as flagship of Force H, Hood was dispatched to Scapa Flow, and operated in the area as a convoy escort and later as a defence against a...