The Seaforth imprint of Pen & Sword has a well-deserved reputation for producing fine studies of naval technology and action. This new book is the third volume of the Perkins Identification Albums, Part one of the Cruiser album. The series is a quite unique production in conjunction with the British National Maritime Museum. A must for collectors, professionals and serious enthusiasts, most highly recommended
NAME: British Warship Recognition, The Perkins Identification Albums, Volume III: Cruisers 1865-1939, Part 1 FILE: R2457 AUTHOR: Richard Perkins PUBLISHER: Pen & Sword, Seaforth BINDING: hard back PAGES: 192 PRICE: £60.00 GENRE: Non Fiction SUBJECT: Warships, identification, waterline views, coloured drawings, cruisers, heavy frigates, pocket battleships, commerce cruisers, steam-powered, mixed power ISBN: 978-1-4738-9145-6 IMAGE: B2457.jpg BUYNOW: http://tinyurl.com/hs5pvpc LINKS: DESCRIPTION: The Seaforth imprint of Pen & Sword has a well-deserved reputation for producing fine studies of naval technology and action. This new book is the third volume of the Perkins Identification Albums, Part one of the Cruiser album. The series is a quite unique production in conjunction with the British National Maritime Museum. A must for collectors, professional and serious enthusiasts, most highly recommended Perkins was a photographer and avid collector who produced a unique Identification series. A set of original albums is a valued part of the National Maritime Museum collection and this collaboration between publisher and Museum is resulting in a first class reproduction of the series of Albums. Inevitably, a hard backed, near A3-sized book is not cheap to produce. The publishers are to be commended for resisting the temptation to cut corners to reduce profitable purchase pricing. The result is a fine book that has a truly unique selection of images, reproduced to the highest standard and faithfully duplicating the colourization of the originals. However, the cover price is likely to be beyond the pocket of many readers who would love to own a full set of albums. The neglect of public lending libraries is also likely to deny access by those who cannot stretch to the cost of a full set. This is therefore first and foremost a collectors set and is likely to appreciate strongly in value. Hopefully, those collectors will also be naval enthusiasts and professionals who will make good use of this remarkable visual resource. In this latest publication, Perkins turns his attention to one of the most valuable warship types. There has always been some controversy about the origins of the cruiser and its name. The most likely origin is from the heavy frigates in the days of sail that were built primarily as commerce cruisers and anti-piracy warships, frequently operating alone far from home port. Capable of being able to outrun any larger warship, they brought the weight of fire similar to that of the smaller line-of-battle-ship. This has led to some describing the early cruiser types as pocket battleships and the use of the description to apply to the heavy cruisers built by Germany in the 1930s specifically to serve as commerce cruisers, with a long endurance provided by their use of diesel engines. The Royal Navy naturally commissioned a large number of cruisers to protect the long British trade routes and to serve with the battle fleets as a reconnaissance screen. The smaller cruisers were to be little bigger than destroyers and armed with similar calibre main armament. They were intended to be fast and this is demonstrated by the number of funnels fitted to steam-powered cruisers. The heavy cruisers were armoured vessels, resembling a small battleship and armed with 6in or 8in main guns, later designs including catapults and aircraft for reconnaissance and gunnery direction. This volume of Perkins Identification Albums provides a visual history of the development of the cruiser as an important and versatile warship type.