Customer Reviews

The Battleship Dreadnought (Anatomy of the Ship)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This volume measures up to the superb standards of the Anatomy of a Ship series, and it is high time we had such a comprehensive and attractive guide to HMS Dreadnought, the prototype for all 20th century battleships. The book includes a narrative history of the ship and description of its features, full technical data, and superb drawings of virtually every detail of the ship's construction and equipment. The one request I would ask only for more interior photos. Highly recommended to historians, naval buffs and serious modellers.

In a nutshell this book is detailed blueprints for the HMS Dreadnought. There is a small amount of text at the beginning, as well as unusually in depth statistical details such as how much the ship cost to be built as well.

The majority of the book after that first chapter are all schematics. You will see deck by deck plans for every toom in the ship, with many rooms even more detailed in their own chapters. Who would have guessed the ship's prison was in the same room as the toilets at the rear of the ship? Did you know that the ammunition bunkers have air conditioning to keep the gunpowder/cordite a consistant temperature for consistant gunnery? Did you know that the boiler rooms have air forced into them in the steam age equivalent of turbo charging?

Where the book does fall flat however is explaining all these details. You had better already have a good idea of what the components of a battleship are, because the schematics do not explain what it is you are looking at.

I still give it a 5 out of 5 because you will not find this level of detail in any other book.

The book can be broken into three parts, the first is relatively brief and gives the background to how the ship came about, its costs, major issues etc.
There then follows an extensive collection of photograhs showing the ship during it's construction.
The remainder of the book (probably about 60% of it) consists of plans and construction drawings of the ship. These provide a wealth of detail on all aspects of the ship ranging from construction of the ships boilers to the attachment arrangement of steel girders.
If you want to see how an early dreadnought is put together you'll love this book. However it doesn't give the designers reasoning for the decisions made (or the issues they had to resolve). Therefore if you want to know what was built it's a good chioce; if you want to know why they built it the way they did you'll need to look elsewhere (Battleship Design & Development 1905-1945 by Friedman gives a much more detailed assessment of the conflicting engineering issues facing any battleship designer).

I purchased this book for two reasons. First, I make models of ships. This book is an invaluable reference manual. The detail will actually go into the internal layout of the ship. Crew cabins and sleeping area will show up on the details. The very excellent plans of the ship are worth $30 to $40 dollars at any shop that sells ship plans. That is worth the price of the book.

Conversely, I was a little surprised at the write up of the operation of the ship. Dreadnought had no economical cruise speed. So, unlike other ships of her time period, like the USS Michigan, she was never economical to operate. Dreadnough had no design flaws. Thus, she was the working prototype for all British Great War ships. In design she was perfect.

I was very happy with the pictures of the ship. I had never seen most of the pictures before. The level of detail in these pictures gives a good picture of the set up of the ship.

This book is not a operational history. That is somewhat a regret. However, people wanting an operational history of the ship should read Robert Massey's excellent "Castles of Steel".

This book is total truth in advertising, it is a study of the ship. It is a total look at the Dreadnought. The book is vital for model builders and is a great reference for any student of history.

5 Stars.

This book is nearly complete enough to build the real ship. It's quite amazing that this ship, that changed naval warfare, never fired a shot in her entire career!

Naval history enthusiasts will be familiar with this series, each book being organized into a written section covering history and design data, then a pictorial, followed by immensely detailed drawings.

The Anatomy series is written to a 5-star standard. However, allow me to suggest this book to be a notch above the Hood, Yamato, and Warspite volumes, into 5 1/2 star territory.