Battleship Books

This latest installment of the Anatomy of the Ship Series focuses on the Battleship Fuso. Like the earlier books on the Takao and Yamato, this book covers practically every detail on this ship from the deck planking to the 14" barrel rifeling. Unlike the Yamato, the Fuso had a long life and went through several refits which drastically altered her appearance. These changes are doculmented in the photographs and drawings which point out which changes were made when. Nevertheless the majority of the drawings tend to focus on her appearance later in her service life. The one problem with this book, a major problem especially for the model builder, is that none of the drawings in the book are to the scale which is printed with the drawing. This was not a problem with the Yamato book, and I can only assume this is the publisher's fault since Skulski's work is very thorough to say the least. Thankfully, nearly all the drawings have at least one labeled dimension so one can calculate the actual scale of each drawing on his/her own if he/she so desires. Despite this flaw, this book is a terrific source of information on this class of ships which (like the Yamato book) is not likely to be surpassed any time soon.

With the publication of his third book in the Anatomy of the Ship series, Janusz Skulski has produced one of the best single references on any Japanese naval vessel. Most of the best sources for the IJN are unaccessible to the average reader due to language difficulites and Skulski does an admirable job in acccessing Japanese sources. This is an excellect modeler's reference and the drawings are finely detailed.

I would give this book five stars if only there were not so many errors in captioning (for examples, please refer to the previous review). There are some mismatched captions, errors in scale, and a badly malformed drawing of the Fuso's mainmast on page 128, but don't let these problems put you off in buying the book. Now I wish Janusz Skulski can do more IJN books! Let's see, some books on the Japanese carriers at Pearl Harbor would do for a start. How about a book on the seaplane cruiser Mogami? Or a book on the destroyer Yukikaze (took part in almost all of the major actions of the war and survived until 1970 in the service of the Taiwanese Navy).

With the publication of this third book in the Anatomy of the Ship series, Janusz Skulski has produced one of the best single references on any Japanese naval vessel. Most of the best sources for the IJN are unaccessible to the average reader due to language difficulites and Skulski does an admirable job in acccessing Japanese sources. This is an excellect modeler's reference and the drawings are finely detailed; I would give this book five stars if only there were not so many errors in captioning (for examples, please refer to the previous review). There are some mismatched captions, errors in scale, and a badly malformed drawing of the Fuso's mainmast on page 128, but don't let these problems put you off in buying the book. Now I wish Janusz Skulski can do more IJN books! Let's see, some books on the Japanese carriers at Pearl Harbor would do for a start. How about a book on the seaplane cruiser Mogami? Or a book on the destroyer Yukikaze (took part in almost all of the major actions of the war and survived until 1970 in the service of the Taiwanese Navy).

JANUZ SKULSKIS' LATEST VOLUME IN THE ANATOMY OF THE SHIP SERIES IS PERHAPS THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE ONE-BOOK DATA SOURCE ON A SINGLE JAPANESE WARSHIP EVER PUBLISHED. THE BATTLESHIP FUSO IS NOT ONLY COVERED FROM STEM-TO-STERN, BUT IS MINUETLY DISSECTED! EVERY DETAIL OF THIS REMARKABLE SHIP HAS BEEN EXAMINED AND RECORDED IN (IN MANY CASES) NEVER BEFORE SEEN PHOTOGRAPHS AND, OF COURSE, AN EXPERTLY EXECUTED SET OF SCALE DRAWINGS THAT HAVE BEEN A BENCHMARK OF MR. SKULSKIS' PAST WORK. THIS BOOK IS A TREASURE FOR HISTORIANS AND SCALE MODELERS ALIKE, AND IS DESTINED TO BECOME A CLASSIC IN THE TECHNICAL HISTORY OF NAVAL WARFARE.

A fabulous and interesting book about a fascinating part of history. Much of the artistry is actually in the pictures, diagrams, and text themselves.

Mr. Powers actually got some of the original Navy blueprints from the ship's construction, and this was the source of the drawings in the book. Occasional compromises were made in the amount of detail the diagrams offer due to space constraints.

Nonetheless this is a beautiful and fascinating way to learn more about this historic ship.

I just bought this as a gift for my father. He lives in the Houston area and we have been on the hard hat tours of the USS Texas twice in the last 2 years. The boat is an awesome collection of history and engineering feats and this book makes a nice addition to the memories of our visits. The pictures are all black and white, and a little grainy. However, there are many old wartime photos that i have never seen, even when touring the ship, that are in this book. And the text is lacking a bit, but still gives a nice overall view of the ship. There are individual sections of the ship with pictures of each section they are writing about (ex:AA guns, officers wardroom, helm station, etc..). Some of the text for each section is brief, but still gives enough detailed info to make it interesting.

Overall, a good book if you have ever visited the Texas. If you haven't been on board the ship, you need to make an effort to go. Especially the hard hat tour which gives you an inside look at the workings of the ship you will never see on the regular tours like the stearing gear room or the actual boilers which are still an engineering marvel from the early 1900's. And all of the staff on board know more about the ship than you could ever imagine. Except for this little cable system tucked up on a wall in the emergency steering room. No one on board has been able to figure that one out.....

But still, a worthwhile trip. And this book like i said makes a great addition to the memories of being on board.

The reason to buy this book is the excelent photographs of the details of the ship. As a B&W picture book, it is excelent.

The text is generally weak with a number of technical errors. The author comes across as a fawning admirer rather an expert.

The book could have been much improved with more complete diagrams of the ship. (Has plans but not of the superstructure or lower decks.)

The Battleship Texas, now a museum, is a great attraction for tourists to the San Jacinto Monument and Battlegrounds near Houston, Texas.

Normal tourists wander through the ship, shoot a few pictures and leave.

Hugh Power, who lives on Galveston Island nearby, fell in love with the ship, its history and photo opportunity. He spent, to my knowledge, 3 years photographing every nook and cranny of the Battleship.

He took pictures morning and evening, at noon, with and without flash, from this angle and that. He spent hours in his darkroom developing the pictures, experimenting with different exposures and using all the tricks in the trade to create black & white art.

The effort was well worth it. The book is superb, a delight to both, the lover of good photography and ships.

Breyer manages to provide the reader with a work packed with all sorts of technical and historical goodies. Loaded with tables, schematics, and other data, this single volume encyclopedia gives the reader with a wide body of data to draw from. Armor, guns, machinery, modifications, line drawings, this has it all. The book is in need of an update, but still extremely useful for the warship enthusiast or historian. Some might complain that Breyer doesn't give the right amount of hardtack in a ship's galley. Nevertheless, this extensive work is worth having on your bookshelf.

It is most unfortunate if you were too late to acquire a copy of this out-of-print classic when it was published. After more than 25 years, it is still my favorite book on the subject, and the only title in my collection for which I own 2 copies. Although it has been surpassed by later works in depth of detail, it is, in my opinion, the finest overall book in its class. The format is unique; no photographs; superb line drawings in constant scale; a uniform format for data and symbolic abbreviations; ship-by-ship histories; and much more. It is a purists delight of detail, and yet contains syntheses and conclusions drawn from the facts presented. Translated from German, the author covers all battleships and battlecruisers built or projected since HMS Dreadnought into all their offshoots -- if they were converted into carriers, the book details the carrier. The only flaw with the book is an arguable bias toward German ship designs although it is hard to dispute that the WW1 Lutzow and WW2 Bismarck classes were indeed "among the best ever built". The same thing could easily be said about the Queen Elizabeth or New Jersey classes but wasn't. However, that's a trifle; if you don't have a copy, put it down as number one on your search list.

Crammed with data, often using symbols and icons to save space. Even the humble boat crane gets a special symbol. Drawings are not quite to the standard of Raven and Burt, but compensate by having such a quantity, all in the same scale, by the same artist. This makes it an excellent wargamers resource.

However, you have to wade through a breathlessly enthusiastic analysis of all things German. German ships are "excellent", a "triumph of warship design", reach a "peak of perfection", and so on.

Breyer's utter contempt for British ships, designers and strategy is unbecoming. They are "doubtful and poor", "inadequate", "extremely poor". Yet features ridiculed on British ships (e.g. Agincourt, lots of turrets = "bound to affect adversely the strength of the ship") he exalts on German ships (e.g. Nassau class, lots of turrets = firepower on disengaged side!). Thus his bitterness spoils his commentary. Breyer even claims the all-big-gun revolution of the Dreadnought was anticipated by a German ship of 15 years earlier.

Siegfried Breyer's volume on the world's battleships and battlecruisers from 1905-1970 is dated because it does not include the last commissioning of the US Iowa class battleships from 1980 to 1992. Much of his data and technical drawings are just plain inaccurate. His drawings of the Russian Sovietskii Soyuz class battleships are extremely poor and he includes data on a Russian battlecruiser named Tretl Internationale with 8-15inch guns which never existed. I originally bought this book in German and then acquired it in English. As time has passed and more accurated information published, this book although a massive effort has become as obsolete as the ships it describes.

This book covers the operational history of the King George V class, the last battleships to see combat service in the Royal Navy. To author's credit, the many shortcomings that plagued the class during operational life are thoroughly investigated. Tarrant describes how the units were built according to design limitations enforced by the Washington treaty (imposing unsatisfactory trade-offs), and the Admiralty's incapacity to freeze the ships' basic design. In fact the Royal Navy went on the naval building holiday without an alternate plan, relinquishing the expertise that proved to be so vital at dockyards when the work resumpted. To complicate matters further, the Navy had controversial attitude towards the balance of armor and armament; it was never satifactorily settled. During the description of engagements and missions operated by the class, the author is quite steadfast in showing defects that have to be traced to these original misconceptions. A second point is highlighted by the author in the episode of the doomed sortie of Prince of Wales and in the closing chapters dedicated to Pacific operations. Tarrant is very clever when he explains all the failures leading to the loss of P.of W. in Singapore. The central evaluation of the british policy is summarized by the statement " to have a two Hemisphere Empire defended by one Hemisphere Navy". The extended logistic lines and the composition of the Pacific fleet were the key elements in shaping the secondary role, albeit an important one, played by the Britons in the theater.

The book comes pretty close to be the definitive history of the KGV class. The authoritative text is always attentive to human drama behind the engagements and the fatigues endured by the crews. Tarrant's narrative style is highly readable and absorbing, indulging in the magnitude of war at sea without loosing the sight of accademic treatise. An engrossing reference in recent British naval history.

The King George V class battleships seem to have been a classic example of the dangers of "design by committee". Given the limitations of the Washington Disarmament Treaty and the constraints of tight budgets and an apathetic Parliament they were probably the best that Britain could have done at the time, and Tarrant has done a wonderful job of showing us the history of their development, their strengths and their weaknesses. He also points out that in spite of all their drawbacks & indeed the overall decline of battleships as weapons of war, the KGVs probably prevented Britain from losing the war. Had PRINCE OF WALES not holed BISMARK in her fuel tanks, BISMARK would have continued into the North Atlantic & shut down the vital Atlantic convoy system. Had DUKE OF YORK not sunk SCHARNHORST a similar disaster could have been in the making. No mean feat. Lavishly illustrated -both in terms of text and photos- the book provides us with an in-depth look at the entire class & includes the often neglected stories of the later members ANSON & HOWE. My one quibble with the book -and it is really with the publisher- is that it has a somewhat "cheap' feel in terms of paper & cover. Given the quality of the content the book deserves more attention to physical structure, but battelship enthusiasts everywhere need this text on their shelves. Now, wouldn't it be nice if Tarrant did the same sort of job on the QUEEN ELIZABETH class battleships (possibly the most successful group of warships yet built) that he does here on the KGVs?

V.E. Tarrant's history of the King George V class battleships is superb and well worth the time of anyone interested in battleships in general, in the naval aspects of WWII, or those who enjoy reading first-hand accounts from veterans.

Tarrant is unsparing about the KGVs; built to the restrictions of the Washington treaty (which limited battleships to 35,000 tons full-up displacement and restricted them to 16 inch guns at maximum), they suffer badly in comparison to the US Navy Washington and South Dakota class ships, also built to the treaty restrictions. The selection of 14 inch guns badly limited their hitting power (and faulty turret design was an additional crippling factor in action), their relatively narrow beam compromised their underwater protection systems (fatally in the case of Prince of Wales), and their inefficient engineering plants badly restricted their range. That said, the five ships of the class served nobly and well during WWII, thanks to the men who commanded and manned them so ably.

Tarrant opens with a discussion of the design of the ships, including the mini-controversy over their naming. The lead ship was originally to be named King George VI, but the King insisted that the ship be named for his father instead; two later ships were to be HMS Beatty and HMS Jellicoe, but unfortunately the Jutland controversy was still too sore a self-inflicted wound and the remaining ships were named Prince of Wales, Duke of York, Anson, and Howe.

The careers of the five ships follow, discussed chronologically. Tarrant covers in fascinating detail the pursuit and sinking of the Bismarck, the Force Z disaster, and the sinking of the Scharnhorst, as well as the more mundane activities of the ships (Anson was so late completing she never had the chance to fire her main battery in anger). Tarrant's analysis of the loss of Prince of Wales and Repulse is especially well done; while being somewhat gentle to the memory of Admiral Phillips and Captain Leach, who were lost with their ship, he points out how well the captain of Repulse handled her, while poor handling of PoW certainly contributed to her destruction.

A great feature of the book is Tarrant's use of first-hand accounts to illuminate the activities of the ships. Ranging from officers to the lower deck, these accounts have been well chosen and give the human factor often missing in books of this type. The reminiscences of Petty Office Bill Batters of HMS Howe are particularly wonderful.

As a modeler, I would have liked to see more and more detailed diagrams, but the illustrations are good and the many photographs showing the ships throughout their careers are excellent and useful and often interesting (ammunitioning Duke of York after her encounter with Scharnhorst, for example).

All in all, this is one of the best histories of a class of ships I have seen, with only a few typos to watch for. Sadly, the four surviving KGVs were scrapped in the late 50s, but this history remains to give these ships and their brave crews their due.

This book is a very good summary of this series of WW2 battleships. There is a lot of technical information on the ships combined with quality historical data and good pictures in balance. This is great book at reasonable cost.

This is a good size for slipping into your purse or backpack. The puzzles are good and fun, and there is a helpful introduction if you're new to these type of logic puzzles. I just wish there had been more puzzles to do! The only drawback or negative is they made an error on every page of the number of ships you have to find. Not hard to work-around the error, as every puzzle should have the same number of ships in each of the four categories.

Love it! Love it! Love it! Love the wonderful new puzzles (totally different from sudoku) Love the paper that is is on, yo can erase without going through the paper, and love the compact size. My only complaint would be that it needs more puzzles! These are so hard to find! ; )

This book was absolutely wonderful,I few years ago I found a single battleship puzzle in a mixed logic book and I have never been able to find another. When I ordered this book I had spent forever trying to find these puzzles again and they are still the most fun logic puzzles I have ever done. The book is absolutely amazing and I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys logic puzzles.

-TK

These are great puzzles and this book provides 6 levels of difficulty, starting at easy and progressing to the most challenging. So if you've never done them before you can solve quite a few successfully without getting too frustrated. My only issue is that each page displays the wrong number of ships youneed to locate in the grid. There should be THREE Destoyers and only TWO are shown. The grids themselves are correct, though, as are the answers. So it's a small issue but if you're new to these puzzles, that error might throw you off. It's consistent throughout the book but shown correctly in the directions at the front. Can't believe it went to press that way. Otherwise, great book, nice size, good quality paper.

This book is the second of a series of five written by D. K. Brown covering the design of ship for the Royal Navy from 1800 to the late 1980s. Brown retired from the Royal Corps of Naval Constructors as Deputy Chief Naval Architect in 1988 and is hugely qualified as well as deeply interested in history. I have read the last four of the volumes and recommend them all, but I think this one is really special. My view is that the period covered actually is one in which the rate of technology change in marine architecture and engineering was extremely high, arguably more rapid than it is today. A warship of 1960 might have had some value in 2005 but a warship of 1860 had NO value in 1905. The author is able to take us into the past to understand why technical decisions in various directions were taken and what our modern understanding of their implications were. Yet he is fully cognizant of the state of knowledge of the time that led to those decisions. One of the best features of this volume, also found in the others, are technical appendices that provide introductions to some fundemental concepts of naval architecture such as ship stability, rolling, strength of ships,and so on. The technical level is below that to be found in introductory texts in naval architecture but with enough quantitative material to allow clear knowledge of the issues involved.
Yet Brown is quite cognizant of the fact the ships are tools for war and must be fit for that purpose and the effect of the technical characteristics on fitness for that purpose is a theme repeatedly sounded in the couse of this and the other texts. The book is quite well illustrated with many contemporary photos and drawings as well as simple charts and graphs to cover various technical points. It might be nice to have had the old plans reproduced in larger scale but one can only put so much in a book of a certain price and size.
One last good thing (and I have no bad things) to say about this work is that Brown is very aware that naval ship design is a human activity carried out by real people just like himself and he does not fail to delve into the personalities and politics of naval ship design of the period, drawing conclusions as he sees appropriate.

This book is not for the faint of heart. It is very detailed and technical. However, it is not prohibitive in its presentation, and anyone interested the capital ship design and development will already have the vocabulary under his belt to tackle this book. Yet, what this book offers is much more than a simple chronology of ship development. It provides telling insights into all the research and politics which went into making these 45 years, perhaps the most fecund in ship development, ever--the ships themselves were only the final products of a convoluted design process carried out in the face of both the comfort of unchallenged-empire, and the uncertainty as to the future of naval warfare. With this book (and ideally a copy of the now out-of-print but excellent Steam Steel and Shellfire) you'll be set to intelligently explore this very exciting period in warship design.

Amateur naval enthusiasts, with little or no background in naval engineering, tend to accumulate isolated bits of knowledge about warship design from Jane's, Brassey's, Conway's and random photographs and diagrams in sundry sources. Warrior to Dreadnought provides a wealth of basic information regarding the evolution of armored ships, in a single large-format volume. The information is largely technical, in keeping with the author's professional standing. Yet, it is presented in an accessible fashion. If you have read terms like "metacentric height" and "righting lever" -- or perhaps dropped them in conversation with a fellow hobbyist -- but don't really know what they mean, this book is your salvation.
The author sketches some of the key (and largely unknown) personalities who shaped the Royal Navy during the last half of the 19th century, though without rendering them in full detail. This is in keeping with the book's technical focus, but may leave some readers unsatisfied.
The book includes at least one photograph of each major warship discussed in the text, but seldom more than one. Additional views of some of the vessels would have been helpful. Despite its technical focus, the book includes only a few ship plans.
These criticisms aside, this book fulfills a specific -- and, for some of us, critical -- need for basic information concerning warship design, during the period when the modern capital ship evolved.

Very detailed descriptions of the naval architecture of the Royal Navy from the introduction of the ironclad through to the Dreadnought. The details will be of interest to architects and constructors rather than the general reader. The text assumes a naval architect's background and vocabulary on the part of the reader. Mostly deals with capital ships in the Royal Navy. Not enough detail on either the personalities of individuals behind the ships, ship engagements during the period, or developments in the ships of the Royal Navy's competitor nations. Interesting diagrams and photographs.

This book covers the history of the American battleship fleet from the commissioning of the prototype "coastal defense battleships" Texas and Maine in 1895 to the final retirement of the Iowa class in the early 1990s. Despite the title, the book concentrates completely on the American ships. But, it is a VERY enjoyable book nonetheless. As one might expect, the book covers all the major events of the period, including the destruction of the Maine, the Battle of Santiago, the cruise of the Great White Fleet, the fleet actions in World Wars One and Two, Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. The book is also full of personal stories and anecdotes from officers and sailors aboard these great ships, detailing such incidents as coaling aboard the old pre-dreadnoughts, a female stowaway aboard the USS Arizona, and the old prank of sending a lighted piece of paper floating down the trench on the ship's head. The book provides an excellent assortment of pictures. I especially enjoyed the up-close shots of the Spanish-American War-era ships, as well as the shots of the cage masts and bridge areas aboard the Florida and Wyoming class ships. Of course, a lot of the book is devoted to coverage of the Iowa class, both due to their long service and the fact that the author served aboard the USS New Jersey. I got this book as a Christmas present, and have already read through it twice. Plus, I find myself constantly pulling the book off the shelf, just to open it up and let my eyes rest on all the great pictures of these majestic ships. If you are a battleship enthusiast, or just generally a naval buff, I guarantee you will enjoy this book.

Filled with breathtaking photographs in color and black-and-white, Battleships is both a history and a tribute to naval craft designed specifically for the art of war. Chapters span centuries of history up through the modern day; a wealth of information fills every chapter. Erudite, powerful, and majestic, Battleships is a captivating and astounding giftbook for anyone with an interest in these signatures of naval power and a welcome addition to community library reference collections.

I originally got this expecting information on all battleships, not just the U.S. examples. However, despite the fact that comparisons cannot be drawn with their rivals overseas in this book does not undermine its effectiveness altogether. It has quite a lot of photos, in varying times in the boats' careers, from construction to their disposal. This is a book very helpful for modelers, and for battleship enthusiasts.

Their like will never come again simply because the age of the Battleship has long-since been eclipsed by that of the Aircraft Carrier. But, whilst it lasted, it produced some incredible ships which, in many cases, met equally incredible ends.

In this book by and acclaimed author and historian, we have the complete story of those iron and steel ships which replaced the wooden vessels of the Nelsonian age. Commencing with the ironclad "La Gloire" and ending with the USS New Jersey, we are taken on a thrilling ride of freakish ships, the first arms race, the Dreadnought, the end of European naval domination of the high seas and beyond. From the Japanese victory at Tsushima, the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in WW1 to Midway and Leyte Gulf in WW2, we find the even mightier ships - such as Hood, Bismarck, Tirpitz and Yamato disappearing from the face of the earth one by one. In this book we are able to relive some of the greatest-ever naval encounters.

With excellent illustrations, photographs, maps and charts, this is book which should be read by all those with an interest in the subject. Then leave it a short while - as I did, and read it again. Somehow it seems far more interesting second time around.

NM

Their like will never come again simply because the age of the Battleship has long-since been eclipsed by that of the Aircraft Carrier. But, whilst it lasted, it produced some incredible ships which, in many cases, met equally incredible ends.

In this book by and acclaimed author and historian, we have the complete story of those iron and steel ships which replaced the wooden vessels of the Nelsonian age. Commencing with the ironclad "La Gloire" and ending with the USS New Jersey, we are taken on a thrilling ride of freakish ships, the first arms race, the Dreadnought, the end of European naval domination of the high seas and beyond. From the Japanese victory at Tsushima, the inconclusive Battle of Jutland in WW1 to Midway and Leyte Gulf in WW2, we find the even mightier ships - such as Hood, Bismarck, Tirpitz and Yamato disappearing from the face of the earth one by one. In this book we are able to relive some of the greatest-ever naval encounters.

With excellent illustrations, photographs, maps and charts, this is book which should be read by all those with an interest in the subject. Then leave it a short while - as I did, and read it again. Somehow it seems far more interesting second time around.

NM

This lavishly illustrated book offers a concise history of the battleship from the end of the Age of Sail to the Iowa Class. Focusing on the world wars has been common in such books; this one also covers the pre-Dreadnaught era, and does it well. There are ample photos of the ships themselves, of scale models, and line drawings. The text was written by a lover of the big ships, as is evident in the section on H.M.S. Vanguard, the last British battleship, described as, "a magnificant sea boat," that handled beautifully, without the lumbering movements of less aquadynamic vessels. Having been a lifelong fan of the battleship, and having made the pilgrimmage to Wilmington, N.C. to see U.S.S. North Carolina, I can say that this is one of the best books in the genre, and a good one for beginners who want a short, conplete history of ships the like of which we'll never see again.

I am a buff of the first year of the war in the Pacific which drew me to this book. It is not a page turner but it is an excellent reference book. One thing that stands out is how little it was used between the wars because of the nation's financial crunch. It is odd to say the least to see this "ship" rise out of Manila Bay. I was fortunate enough to get a tour of the bay in a Philippine Navy patrol boat and we circled Fort Drum. It gave me goose bumps.

Concrete Battleship is filled with minute historical details about the daily operations of this fort located in Manilla Bay. A fun read with loads of detailed photos taken during the construction and final days of this fort. The fort with it's imposing size and isolated location is sure to be the subject of question for years to come.

Make sure you check other books in this series!

BOUGHT THIS BOOK ON A WHIM VERY INTERSTING ONLY 64 PAGES AND APROX 10X14 BUT PACKED WITH HISTORICAL INFORMATION, DETAILS ON CONSTRUCTION, COMBAT HISTORY AND LOTS OF BLACK AND WHITE PHOTOGRAPHS AND SOME EARLY DRAWINGS. CAPTIONS ARE WELL WRITTEN AND DO A GOOD JOB OF EXPLAINING THE PHOTOGARPHS. I RECOMEND THIS BOOK TO ANYONE WHO LIKES OFFBEAT MILITARY SUBJECTS. THE ONLY TWO THINGS I THOUGHT COULD BE IMPROVED WAS THERE WAS NOT ANY UP TO DATE DRAWINGS OF LAYOUT (DRAWINGS PROVIDED WERE OLD AND HARD TO READ) OR HARDLY ANY UP TO DATE OR COLOR PICTURES. MOST OF LATER PICTURES WERE TAKEN RIGHT AFTER WW2. IF YOU LIKE OFFBEAT MILITARY SUBJECTS THIS MIGHT BE THE BOOK FOR YOU.

This book is one of the best descriptions of the process of developing a new technology that I have ever read. As a project manager it was enlightening to see the path other tech projects have taken and how the interacting factors of cost, technology and personalities affect the final outcome, as well as the more obvious ones of actual technical merit. It is also wonderful to see such a well reaseached and even handed examination of the question of fire control development in the pre-WW1 Royal Navy.

In the long history of the big gun battleship, there was really only one battle between two nearly equal navies - Jutland. While the British was nominally the victor, both sides had enough success to claim victory. The German fleet did not venture out to sea again.

Although this battle took place almost 90 years ago, it is surprising to find that arguments of a technical nature are still being refreshed. One such argument has revolved around the fire control mechanism used by the Royal Navy at that time. It is clear that the Germans did better shooting, scoring 34 hits on British ships while the British bot some 11 hits on the Germans.

There were two competing fire control systems in the Royal Navy. One Developed by Arthur Pollen, a civilian, the other by Frederic Dreyer, a serving naval officer. The Navy selected the Dreyer system. This book is by John Brooks, a computer expert who was able to apply modern systems analysis technics to the two systems. He also analyzed the tactics used by the commanders to present a rather new conclusion about the battle.

Other recent research, not mentioned in this book is that the British fuzes were inferior and that several German ships returned to port with unexploded British shells embedded in them.

Brooks' premise in this book is an argument contrary to the prevailing view that Pollen's clocks were superior to Dreyer's, and that this contributed to the poor results obtained at Jutland. If you have never heard of Pollen (or Argo) or Dreyer, then this book is not for you.

To properly tell this story, Brooks goes into some detail about the complexities of long range gunnery, target prediction and so on. His refutation necessarily hinges on the dates of specific proposals, prototypes and tests. We are treated to a detailed description of exactly how fire control improved year-by-year between 1900 and 1918 - this is fabulous stuff for wargamers. This also gives him an excuse to delve into the Jutland controversy, in which chapter he portrays Beatty as an heroic figure but a hopeless tactician, and responsible for the defeat of his squadron.

The primary thrust of the book, though, is of secondary interest to me, namely, who of the protagonists Pollen and Dreyer stole what from whom. Both gifted individuals, Brooks describes them as being flawed characters, and he does so at great length including what must be every commercial transaction between Pollen and the Admiralty.

The book could use a few more diagrams. The ones included are pretty good although mostly they appear to be taken from either original blueprints or training manuals.

We now come to the question of value. If you are reading this review then you must be a battleship, Jutland or naval history nut (like me). We should be grateful that fresh works like this are even being published. Nevertheless, considering the price, I did something of a double-take when I beheld the smallness of the volume. While the content is a 5-star experience, I feel compelled to withhold a star on grounds of value.