Type of bind: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 623.82520904
EAN num: 9780004709970
ISBN number: 0004709977
Label: HarperResource
Manufacturer: HarperResource
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 192
Printing Date: 1996-11
Publishing house: HarperResource
Sale Popularity Level: 154364
Studio: HarperResource
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
The greatest arms race in history began in the very first years of the 20th century as World Powers expanded their fleets. Germany challenged the Royal Navy's global dominance, the U.S. and Japan established themselves as major naval powers. The revolutionary HMS Dreadnought was succeeded by even larger and more powerful warships that clashed spectacularly at the battle of Jutland in 1916. Plans for a new generation of 'super dreadnoughts' were delayed by international treaties, but Japanese ambitions eventually led to a new arms race with the U.S.. This naval race produced the world's largest and most heavily-armed battleships, like the Yamoto and Owa. Combat experience in World War II soon revealed that submarines and aircraft posed a lethal threat to even the greatest battleship. Only the U.S. Navy had the resources to maintain a battleship force after 1945, and these mighty warships have attached enemy coasts from Vietnam and the Lebanon to the 1991 Gulf War.
Acclaimed naval illustrator Tony Gibbons has painted all classes of twentieth century battleship for Jane's Battleships of the 20th Century. Every major battleship is shown in profile, with the 25 greatest battleships illustrated across the full width of the page, with accompanying plan and bow views.
Naval historian Bernard Ireland reveals the fascinating background to each class of battleship. Each entry includes comprehensive technical data. Special features investigate what happened when battleships opened fire: Why British battle cruisers were so vulnerable to German shellfire, how American radar helped USS Washington sink the Kirishiman off Guadalcanal and when was the Bismarck doomed to die.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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This is my favourite reference book on battleships, just because it is so attractively balanced. Coloured diagrams of most classes mentioned, together with plentiful photographs, supplement very readable text descriptions. Before the end of the contents, the reader has been thrilled by photographs of Royal Sovereign, Resolution and Revenge (seen from the subsequent ship ahead in line), the pre-dreadnought Agamemnon, and Malaya in company with Alabama and South Dakota off the coast of Norway.
The layout is a bit capricious, with some classes being relegated to brief mentions or telescoped into the sections on similar ships. Now and then, the author sees fit to pop in a "feature" - for instance the account of Heligoland Bight and the Falklands that appears opposite the text on the Invincible class battlecruisers. These are welcome, although they sometimes break up the logical progression of designs through the years.
I am not qualified to judge the book's accuracy, so I cannot dispute or confirm any statements made on this score. At least there were no errors gross enough to leap off the page at me.
Rated by buyers -
Not ground-breaking by any means, but did have some unusual photos, i.e. the Nevada after being A-bombed, battlecruiser casualties at Jutland, etc. A good survey or gift for a budding battleship nut.
Rated by buyers 
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GREAT BOOK. SUPERB ARTWORK WITH MANY DOUBLE PAGE AND 3 VIEW (TOP, FRONT, AND PROFILE)ILLUSTRATIONS OF THESE GREAT VESSELS. I BOUGHT IT FOR THE ARTWORK ALONE BUT THE TEXT IS ALSO HIGHLY INFORMATIVE THOUGHT NOT AS "DEEP" AS SOME OTHER BOOKS.
Rated by buyers 
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Seapower competition is history of strategic gambles and capital ships were the instruments to achieve control of sealanes. This volume presents a review of the most important units and classes that were the mainstays of fleets. Unfortunately this work is not organic because the author provides only a limited description of design and costruction evolution of battleships and battlecruisers.
The review of ship characteristics falls short of expectations since it fails to produce a good assessment of seakeeping features and of operational capabilities. Limited facts are reported to explain technical improvements implemented during ship life span to match the neverending changes in strategies. Just few hints are shown to reveal topmost aspects and defects of each design with some information on consequential wartime limitations imposed during active service. Interspersed with descriptions of most important naval engagements and with summaries of most significant doctrines for naval warfare, this work gives only a superficial insight of opposing requirements that had been involved in planning, designing and building a battleship; in facts a short study for each class is presented without giving details of research and innovations in naval architecture that earmarked the field. A missing part is a wide overview of naval artillery. Since guns were among the leading specifications in launching a new class, it is odd that a better explanation of armament development is not covered.
Good points in this book are the nice colour profiles, sometimes completed with plan and bow views. Unfortunately no scales are indicated, so being of limited use for modelers.
Rated by buyers -
Read the subsequent 2 reviews; they're right on point on "missing" ships and classes of ships. The Author is also disppointed with the book; he complained that the book is a "committee" effort driven by graphic artists and a publisher who are targeting a mass audience (at an affordable price). The book has glossy pages, is well illustrated with photographs, Tony Gibbons' famous colour drawings (I prefer line drawings; Gibbon's drawings are like paintings), and has only basic data (doesn't include gun length calibers, discusion of armour scheme, etc.). Bernard Ireland, the author, writes unique prose, but he seemed handcuffed by the publishing handlers. Ideal for "young readers" but all collectors will be disappointed.
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