The battlecruisers, brainchild of Admiral Sir John Fisher, combined heavy guns and high speed in the largest hulls of their era. Conceived as 'super-cruisers', to hunt down and destroy commerce raiders, their size and gun-power lead to their inclusion in the battlefleet as a fast squadron of capital ships. This book traces the development of Fisher's original idea into the first battlecruiser Invincible of 1908, through to the 'Splendid Cats' of the Lion class, and culminating in HMS Hood in 1918, the largest warship in the world for the next twenty years. The origins of the unusual 'light battlecruisers' Courageous, Glorious and Furious, later to find fame as aircraft carriers, are also covered. The problems the class suffered are also examined, including the catastrophic loss of three battlecruisers at Jutland in 1916. The developmental history of the battlecruisers is complemented by chapters covering machinery, armament and armour and a full listing of important technical information. With its superb plans and drawings and entirely original research, this book is essential reference for all naval historians, enthusiasts and modelmakers with an interest in the most charismatic and controversial warships of the battleship era.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Boring text but great photos. Where are the line drawings?,
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This review is from: Battlecruisers (Chatham Shipshape) (Hardcover)
The prospective buyer of "Battlecruisers" by John Roberts should be warned not to expect too much from this book. First, it's only about the British battlecruisers. All other navies are ignored. Secondly, it's a design history. The text is a synopsis of the Admiralty's meetings dealing with the design of these controversial vessels. Little of that controversy, or of that surrounding its source, Admiral Jackie Fisher, sparks this prose. I found it dry and quite uninteresting. Once the story of the blueprints is told, Roberts' interest wanes. None of the elan of these unique vessels shines through this book. Those who manned their fragile hulls are forgotten; this is not their story. Indeed, in its design tables and rough sketches this book deals more with ships that weren't built, rather than those that were. Most disturbing is the lack of scale line drawings to illustrate the vessels' appearance. Yes, Roberts has drawn a wonderful 1:200 scale plan of Lion-class Queen Mary provided as a separate double-sided sheet, a couple of nice detail drawings, and sketches of armor layout. But there are no other drawings to show the appearance of the other six classes of British battlecruisers. This is an unforgivable omission in a book of this price and this pretentious title. What this book does offer is 80 large, nicely reproduced b/w photographs, 47 of which are credited to the author's collection. These 47 are not the usual collection of Imperial War Museum photos and were new to my eye. Aside from the backroom discussions leading to their design, there is little here for the historian. Aside for the photos and the large-scale drawing of Queen Mary there is nothing here for the modeler.
12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good book for the naval history buff,
By caw@wizard.net (Herndon, Virginia, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Battlecruisers (Chatham Shipshape) (Hardcover)
_Battlecruisers_ is, first and foremost, a design history of the British battlecruisers developed immediately before and after the First World War. As any student of naval history knows, battelcruisers combined large guns with high speed (and, consequently, light armor) in a package which some felt would eventually replace the battleship. This, of course, did not happen, and even 80 years later there is a considerable disagreement over these "greyhounds of the sea."As somone who likes getting into the gritty details of ship designs, I found _Battlecruisers_ to be an interesting book. Unfortunately, though, it's also a short book, a mere 128 pages (plus fold-out blueprints). This is a shame, as while the book of necessity mentrions some of the controversy surrounding these ships, it does not delve nearly deeply enough into the basic rationale for the ships as expressed by their creator, Lord Fisher. On the other hand, one could make the argument that such details are out of place in a design history, and furthermore that Fisher himself was never able to clearly articulate their rationale in anything other than pithy phrases such as "speed is armor." If you are a familiar with the battlecruiser controversy, then I recommend this book. If you are not familair with it, I would suggest reading the section on the Battle of Jutland in John Keegan's _The Price of Admiralty_, and then reading _Battlecruisers_ concurrently with the relevant chapters in Robert Massie's _Dreadnought_.
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