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.

The classic reference on the Royal Navy’s battleships and battlecruisers, now expanded with dozens of additional photos. Offering an unprecedented range of descriptive and illustrative detail, this naval history reference describes the evolution of the British battleship classes through all their modifications and refits. As well as dealing with design features, armor, machinery and power plants and weaponry, the author examines the performance of the ships in battle and analyzes their successes and failures. In addition to covering all the Royal Navy’s battleships and battlecruisers, he also looks in detail at the aircraft carrier conversions of the WWI battlecruisers Furious, Glorious and Courageous. British Battleships 1919-1945 is a masterpiece of research, and the comprehensive text is accompanied by tabular detail and 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 never before published. A delight for the historian, enthusiast, and ship modeler, it is a volume that is already regarded as an essential reference work for this most significant era in naval history and ship design.

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.

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.

Norman Friedman brings a new perspective to an ever-popular subject in The British Battleship: 1906–1946. With a unique ability to frame technologies within the context of politics, economics, and strategy, he offers unique insight into the development of the Royal Navy capital ships. With plans of the important classes commissioned from John Roberts and A D Baker III and a color section featuring the original Admiralty draughts, this book offers something to even the most knowledgeable enthusiast.

“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

The development of aircraft carriers and carrier operations sparked a revolution in military affairs, changing completely and irrevocably the prosecution of war at sea. Previous studies and histories of carrier aviation have focused on just one or two factors, such as individual leadership or advances in aviation technology, to explain the development of carrier forces. By contrast, this new history compares the development of carriers and carrier aircraft by two very different navies to illuminate the many factors that effect the adoption of new military technology. Focusing on the critical years after World War I, the authors trace the personal, organizational, and institutional elements that moved the U.S. Navy and the Royal Navy along different paths of aircraft carrier development and operations. In a clear, almost conversational tone the authors draw on years of research to explain why and how the Royal Navy lost its once considerable lead in carrier doctrine and carrier aircraft development to the Americans in the years after 1919. Originally asked to produce a study for the Office of the Secretary of Defense that would maximize the value of decreasing defense funds through wise investment in new technologies, the authors revised and expanded that work after a wide-ranging, international search for previously unused primary sources. This new effort offers both compelling history and a trenchant essay on how and why military organizations adopt and develop revolutionary technology. Its unconventional approach should appeal to readers interested in modern naval history and in revolutions in military affairs.

Warship Builders is the first scholarly study of the U.S. naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe. A colossal endeavor that absorbed billions and employed virtual armies of skilled workers, naval construction mobilized the nation's leading industrial enterprises in the shipbuilding, engineering, and steel industries to deliver warships whose technical complexity dwarfed that of any other weapons platform. Based on systematic comparisons with British, Japanese, and German naval construction, Thomas Heinrich pinpoints the distinct features of American shipbuilding methods, technology development, and management practices that enabled U.S. yards to vastly outproduce their foreign counterparts. Throughout the book, comparative analyses reveal differences and similarities in American, British, Japanese, and German naval construction. Heinrich shows that U.S. and German shipyards introduced electric arc welding and prefabrication methods to a far greater extent than their British and Japanese counterparts between the wars, laying the groundwork for their impressive production records in World War II. While the American and Japanese navies relied heavily on government-owned navy yards, the British and German navies had most of their combatants built in corporately-owned yards, contradicting the widespread notion that only U.S. industrial mobilization depended on private enterprise. Lastly, the U.S. government's investments into shipbuilding facilities in both private and government-owned shipyards dwarfed the sums British, Japanese, and German counterparts expended. This enabled American builders to deliver a vast fleet that played a pivotal role in global naval combat.

The exciting account of the famous German battle cruiser which sank 152,000 tons of Allied shipping. A LUCKY SHIP The Germans called her their “lucky ship”—the heavily gunned, heavily armoured Admiral Scheer, sister ship of the ill-fated Graf Spee and the Deutschland. With and operational range of 19,000 miles, she quickly became a nightmare to the British Admiralty. This is the dramatic story of one of the most successful fighting ships in the German Navy, told by two German officers: who commanded her. It also contains the thrilling account, as seen for the first time through German eyes, of the sinking of the Jervis Bay. This lightly armed auxiliary cruiser went down with all guns blazing in a daring and gallant attempt to protect her convoy from the mighty dreadnought. “This story of a great raider, searching out enemy; commerce under the nose of powerful naval forces is always enthralling.”—N. Y. Herald Tribune “A first-rate account of warfare at sea.”—Cleveland Plain Deale “Gives an unusual glimpse into what the Nazi side of the war was like.”—Chicago Tribune