Customer Reviews

The Battleship Bismarck (Anatomy of the Ship)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Among the superlatives you can quote about the Bismark is that she (and her sister ship 'Tirpitz') was the largest and heaviest warships ever completed in Europe. And arguably, she had the shortest working life. Her one battle cruise is obviously the stuff of legends. The sinking of the 'Hood' in just a couple of salvos. In turn her getting hit by a torpedo in exactly the place where it would cripple her.

This book is one of the 'Anatomy' series by the Naval Institute Press. It has a fairly complete description of the ship. For instance, the three types of armour were classified as KC, Wh, and Ww. KC armour was made by Krupp, was face hardened armour steel containing 0.34% carbon, 3.78% nickel, 0.32% manganese, 0.2% molybdenum and 2.06% chrome.

Most of the book, however, is composed of drawings, hundreds of drawings showing every aspect of the ship. Even the inside of the books dust jacket is used for a large outline drawing. It's a beautiful book.

An excellent publication, as are all the books in the "Anatomy of the Ship " series, with excellent and clear drawings. These show not only the overall layout of each deck but details of the guns, general equipment and boats etc. An ideal reference for the model maker, illustrator or any marine historian. Text and photographs further enhance the presentation.
Present US publisher has maintained the fine standards of original UK publishers.

Well, firstly i wanna to say the books of this series Anatomy of Ship as always well made books.
About the book o f Bismarck is interesting to say wich the many drawings help to know about
internal arrangements of the ship. Many things i don't know what is are explained with the legends etc..
the drawings are good but in some cases i think the drawings have some failures(a personal view of a man wich work with drawings) but nothing to depreciate the book.
The texts are clear and the history of the ship overall all parts are excellent. Many, many drawings and a small scale plan can help to do a model of this Ship.
I have a lot of these books and i always purchased one new cause i know i don't loss money with these excellents books. i am ship modeller and always looking for good drawings to do a model or know about a ship. Five stars for me is a good note for this book.
Regards
Norberto

I bought this book from a model builder's perspective, and having heard the rave reviews had high expectation. The quality of the line drawings and wealth of information is well worth the expense. There are a few drawbacks for the history buff, not much to read and what is there is limited to a few pages of basic facts. If you need help with rigging look for another book, not much help in that area either. Based on that I gave it four stars. The book has some great information but not full or comprehensive.

The first book in the Anatomy Of The Ship series described HMS HOOD (published 1982), the British battlecruiser sunk in a brief, violent and spectacular battle with the German battleship BISMARCK. That first book set the standard for the series, and is one which the series rarely matched. Here, of course, we are comparing the excellent with the merely very good. HMS HOOD established the format for the series with a brief but detailed history, a few pages of the best available photographs printed in large size, and a magnificent set of almost one hundred pages of detailed drawings depicting every possible element of the ship. Along with the scale plans and profiles were numerous three-dimensional perspective drawings which aided the reader in relating the geometrical drawings and giving some idea of the machinery, weapons, equipment and living spaces. BISMARCK follows the same format,does it well, but falls short of the highest standard. The technical description is thorough and the photographs large and clear, although all frequently published in other books. The drawings are crisp, uncluttered and clear. Captions are good with occasional errors (a head/toilet named as a mess space, some cryptic names which give no sense of the location's use). There are no 3D drawings at all, which makes interpretation of the plans an analytical process without the helpful perspective drawings of HOOD and other books in the series. Crucially, the main cutaway side profile showing the ship's interior does not name the numerous decks whose plan drawings take up many of the following pages, making it again an analytical exercise to determine the locations of various internal spaces.
This book is a fine adjunct to a collection of titles on the great battleships and BISMARCK in particular. Read in conjuction with other books named in the bibliography it provides useful insight into the ship's structure and layout. It fails, however, to give the reader any real "feel" for the ship, how it was put together, how spaces and equipment were related in this complex three-dimension naval mechanism. Highly recommended, particularly for the modeller, however the definitive book on the BISMARCK has yet to be written.