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British Battleships 1919-1945: New Revised Edition Hardcover – March 15, 2012
Offering an unprecedented range of detail on all of the Royal Navy's battleships and battle cruisers, R.A. Burt describes the evolution of the battleship classes through many modifications and refits. He also details design features, armor, machinery, power plants, and weaponry, while examining and analyzing the performance of the ships in battle.
A delight for the historian, enthusiast, and ship modeler, this new volume is regarded as an essential reference work for one of the most significant eras in naval history and ship design.
- Print length448 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherNaval Institute Press
- Publication dateMarch 15, 2012
- Dimensions10 x 1.25 x 12 inches
- ISBN-101591140528
- ISBN-13978-1591140528
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Product details
- Publisher : Naval Institute Press; Reprint edition (March 15, 2012)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 448 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1591140528
- ISBN-13 : 978-1591140528
- Item Weight : 4.7 pounds
- Dimensions : 10 x 1.25 x 12 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #3,352,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #7,340 in Naval Military History
- Customer Reviews:
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In my opinion, this is one of the two masterpieces on this subject, the other being Alan Raven and John Roberts' (R&R) British Battleships of World War Two: The Development and Technical History of the Royal Navy's Battleships and Battlecruisers from 1911 to 1946 . Other works pale in comparison. The two books have many things in common, in particular their focus on the design of the ships and their changes over time. Thus, it does not surprise that the contents of the two books overlap quite a bit, and both contain a lot of excellent information, photos and line drawings. Nevertheless, I still believe any BB/BC enthusiast like me could not be wrong getting both Burt's book and R&R's book.
Both books cover Renown, Repulse and Hood in addition to the Queen Elizabeths, Royal Sovereigns, Rodney, Nelson, and King George Vs. Highlight of the key differences between Burt's and R&R's:
(1) The BB/BC classes pre-dating the Queen Elizabeth class BB are covered by Burt but not by R&R, i.e. the 13.5" gunned BB/BCs such as the Iron Dukes and Tiger. R&R starts with the QE class BBs.
(2) The light battlecruisers (Glorious, Courageous, and Furious) and their new lives as aircraft carriers are covered by Burt but not by R&R.
(3) R&R has a lot of details on the designs that were never built/completed, e.g. G3, N3, and the Lion Class BB. Only the G3 is briefly mentioned in Burt's book.
(4) Vanguard is covered by R&R but not by Burt, who ended his book with the King George V class BBs.
(5) Burt covered the ships class by class. R&R first by the time period and then class by class. Both ways have their goods and bads.
(6) Burt gave a rather short conclusion and spent paragraphs defending the British designs, with virtually no comparison with foreign counterparts. R&R provided a much more in-depth comparison of post-treaty British BB with foreign counterparts together with his conclusions, though some new information became available after the book had been written.
(7) While there are many excellent drawings in Burt's book, they span at most just the two adjacent pages with a gap in between. On the other hand, R&R has many even larger profile and deck plan drawings in fold-outs, of a similar high quality.
It also puzzles me a bit why sometimes there are minor discrepancies between the two books, even though this revised edition by Burt is more than 30 years later than that by R&R. Neverthless, most of the times they agree with each other. They both have details/opinions that are not found in the other and complement each other quite well.
All in all, this book contains lots of information. Get this book and you would not regret, as long as you are interested in BB/BC of this period. If you do not already have R&R's book, this book is an absolute must. It worths every dollar spent.
The pattern of the book is fairly simple. After some introductory chapters Burt follows each class of ship and each ship in the class until its final disposal whether in action or in the breakers yard. There is a fairly brief background, design, and development history followed by a fairly detailed technical description. Then the appearance changes of the ships are enumerated. Brief histories of each ship are given except when the ship was damaged or sunk in action. In these cases the histories become quite detailed. All is supported by tables, black and white photographs, and especially Burt's quite detailed line drawings which are numerous and quite detailed. Especially interesting are the one's detailing the battle damage reports that can be quite difficult to follow otherwise. Camouflage is also covered in depth supported by colored endpaper drawings.
Interestingly, the aircraft carrier conversions of Furious, Glorious, and Courageous are also covered in precisely the same detail even after their conversions all the way through to their final fates. There is even a short chapter describing the development of the aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy.
This book basically describes the "what" of these ships although it doesn't completely ignore the "why". Raven and Roberts' "British Battleships of World War Two" is superior in the "why" respect although Burt is preferable otherwise. Neither however can be considered the definitive history of the British battleship. Both books are aimed more to the "rivet counters" than the historically minded. Hopefully, Norman Friedman's attention will turn to battleships once the second book of his history of British cruisers is published.
The book could have also used a glossary and a more comprehensive index. Numerous three letter abbreviations are used with abandoned and the reader is assumed to be intimately familiar with them all. This is not a book for the complete naval tyro.
Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in this subject despite the high retail price. If you missed it the first time around don't miss out this time. Burt's books command high prices on the secondhand market. A revised edition of his "British Battleships of World War One" is in the works as well.
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5stars
It is amazing how much information was crammed into a book covering such a vast subject. Having said that, obviously single class, or single ship books would expand on the information here greatly. But for a very good overview, I highly recommend this book. Thumbs up.