This volume covers the work horses of the Royal Navy, from coastal vessels to blue water warships. – This is a reproduction of the set of eight volumes held by the British National Maritime Museum where it has provided an unparalleled source of information for the Museum’s staff – Most Highly Recommended.
NAME: British Warship Recognition, The Perkins Identification Albums, Volume V: Destroyers, Torpedo Boats and Coastal Forces, 1876-1939 FILE: R2707 AUTHOR: Richard Perkins PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword, Seaforth BINDING: hard back PAGES: 312 PRICE: £70.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Royal Navy, destroyers, torpedo boats, Coastal Forces, Motor Boats, MTB, MGB, petrol engined, steam, armoured
ISBN: 978-1-5267-1112-0
IMAGE: B2707.jpg BUYNOW: htpp://tinyurl.com/yac6tmdf LINKS: DESCRIPTION: This volume covers the work horses of the Royal Navy, from coastal vessels to blue water warships. - This is a reproduction of the set of eight volumes held by the British National Maritime Museum where it has provided an unparalleled source of information for the Museum's staff – Most Highly Recommended. The author was a photographer of note who collected a unique photographic resource, in its field one of the most extensive in the world. He became the acknowledged expert in the identifying and dating of warship photographs and his project to provide a truly comprehensive recognition record of Royal Navy warships from the 1860s to the Second World War is a visual record that cannot be excelled. Until Pen and Sword began a facsimile project with the National Maritime Museum, Perkins' work was not easily accessible to anyone beyond Museum staff and was a remarkable national treasure in its own right. By producing a full set of these recognition volumes in quality facsimile form as a large format book, the publishers have provided a commendable service to all enthusiasts, ship modellers, professionals, historians, and museums. Inevitably, a volume of this size and quality cannot be offered at a budget price, even though the publishers have set a very aggressive RRP. The reduction in lending library services in many countries will make that form of access difficult for many readers. Readers who might not normally stretch their budgets to this cover price may well make a special effort and find the money to acquire the full eight volume set as the only way to access the astonishing expertise displayed by Perkins in his fantastic work. The Royal Navy before 1939 was seen as a Fleet of Battleships and Cruisers, the steel successors to the Line of Battle Ships and Frigates of the wooden sailing Navy. From 1876, the new breeds of Torpedo Boats and Torpedo Boat Destroyers emerged, powered by steam or by petrol. From them developed the Destroyers and Coastal Forces vessels that were so important and numerous during WWI and then during WWII. The largest Fleet Destroyers were near to the size and power of Light Cruisers, with the smaller vessels succeeding the smaller frigates, brigs and schooners, the packets and gunboats of the sailing Navy. These vessels operated in groups and individually, as the workhorses of the Royal Navy, most likely to engage the enemy with frequency and closely. As with all the sister volumes in this redoubtable recognition series, there are hundreds of the most beautifully delineated warship profile drawings , arranged by class and type, and reproduced in the original colours of Perkin's masters. This volume is again a treasure trove of information with not only a profile of each vessel included, but also providing analysis of the most minute differences between sister ships. In addition, the many detailed changes for individual vessels, during their periods of service, are included and the author has added a series of hand-written notes that are a welcome and important addition to the drawings. This is a book that is very difficult to do full justice to in a book review, even by including many of the images in the review. Every reader of naval history and technology should make special effort to acquire or view each volume in the collection.