This is a highly original work that covers battleships across the World’s navies. The Line of Battle ship emerged as the principle naval weapon that was the key to naval engagements for some three hundred years. The steam powered successors were to last little more than 100 years and were replaced as THE capital ship by the aircraft carrier in WWII. – Strongly Recommended
NAME: The World of the Battleship, The Design Careers of Capital Ships of the World's Navies 1880-1990 FILE: R2771 AUTHOR: Bruce Taylor PUBLISHER: Pen and Sword, Seaforth Publishing BINDING: hard back PAGES: 440 PRICE: £40.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Armoured battleships, team power, coal-fired, oil-fired, pre-Dreadnought, Dreadnought, heavy guns, missiles, spotter aircraft, radar, helicopters
ISBN: 978-1-84832-178-6
IMAGE: B2771.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/y9hprmbz LINKS: DESCRIPTION: This is a highly original work that covers battleships across the World's navies. The Line of Battle ship emerged as the principle naval weapon that was the key to naval engagements for some three hundred years. The steam powered successors were to last little more than 100 years and were replaced as THE capital ship by the aircraft carrier in WWII. - Strongly Recommended Seaforth Publishing is a highly respected naval history publisher, recognized for the original and impeccable histories that it has published. This new book is a worthy addition to the portfolio. This is a weighty volume with a host of excellent images on gloss paper. A vessel from each of twenty-one navies ha been selected for in-depth specialist coverage. This provides unique and thorough presentations of technology, origin, design, structure, organisation, career and cultural impact of each ship. This is an extremely important book on its subject and likely to become a principle information resource on its subjects. When the steel, steam-powered battleship appeared it marked a major change in naval power and history. Previous battleships had been built by craftsmen from wood and the concession to the Industrial Revolution was the production of new guns of a much more uniform quality than had previously been possible. However, from the Great Castle ships of the early 16th Century to the wooden battleships employed in the Crimea campaigns they were remarkably familiar. Designs evolved. Between them and the steel battleship, were a number of hybrid designs where steam power was available as an alternative to the full sailing rig and steel plating was added to the timber hull. The battleship of 1880 was a testament to the Industrial Revolution. It dispensed with a sailing rig to rely entirely on its coal-fired steam engines. It mounted its main guns in barbets or turrets and it was symbolic of both power and wealth. Many battleships were built in British yards for other navies and many heavy guns were produced in Britain. It must have seemed that naval warfare had taken a new form to last another three hundred years or more, but the arrival of the turn of the Century HMS Dreadnought, with its powerful armament and steam turbine power, changed the game again after only two decades. From that point a battleship was either a dreadnought or a pre-dreadnought. In this form the battleship enjoyed a similarly short life with the last full fleet battle being fought between the British Fleet and the German Fleet at Jutland in 1916. The aircraft carrier had arrived and was soon the new capital ship. Battleships continued on in service and were still impressive vessels, but their days were numbered. After WWI, most existing battleships underwent major refits that saw them embark their own aircraft to spot for the guns. WWII demonstrated their vulnerability and anti-aircraft armament was dramatically increased, with the spotter aircraft starting to be replaced by radar. From 1945, the battleship was largely used for shore bombardment and numbers began to rapidly reduce. The last hurray was for a handful of battleships that retained their big guns but now also carried missiles This book tells the story very well and provides unique comparison of vessels across the 21 navies.