Customer Reviews

Battleships: United States Battleships, 1935-1992

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

 

 

Bill Garzke and Bob Dulin have outdone themselves again. When I was the structural project leader to direct the hull and armor redesigns for the reactivation of the Battleship NEW JERSEY at Long Beach Naval Shipyard (the planning yard for the Battleships), we used their earlier edition of this book as our general guide. Two members of my design team brought in their personal copies and kept them handy so I could include excerpts from them for official Navy memos and instructions. The Naval archives were sorely lacking detailed chemical and heat treating records of the Class A and Class B armor of the Battleships. A quick phone call to Bill Garzke gave me an armor expert on the west coast that had all the data our designers and welding engineers needed. Thanks, Bill. I owe you one. The only thing I have found missing from this edition is the fantastic Gibbs & Cox scheme D Battleship that was half Battleship and half Aircraft Carrier and was actually bought by the Soviet Union in WW II, but never built. In this edition, perhaps the most important section is the one devoted to the disasterous incident of turret II on the IOWA where 47 men were killed. The authors go into meticulous detail as to actual facts and almost every conceivable theory as to what caused the deflageration (not an explosion). However, they are properly cautious as not to force their personal opinions on the reader. Yet they give enough detail, including histories of past turret incidents on other Battleships, so the reader can draw his own conclusions. There are a few typos and descrepancies between the text and the illustrations. For example, the text correctly identifies the powder in the propellent bags as D846 where the illustrations identify it as B846. Also, the elevation sketch indicates that the heavily armored turret bustle hatch was blown off when in fact it was the turret bustle hatch ACCESS PLATFORM below the bustle (overhang) that was blown over the side. But these are miniscule descrepancies only an "insider" like me would know (I was tasked to write a repair procedure). All in all, it is unthinkable that any true Battleship historian or lover would be without this book. Actually, both the 1976 and this 1995 edition should be in every Naval Architect's library. Richard A. Landgraff DREADNAUGHT CONSULTING Long Beach, California

Every major class of battleship is described in meticulous detail. From design to outcome this book has it all.

Be warned, this book also contains extensive technical information, so if you are interested in narrative storytelling look elsewhere. This book is for the true devotee of battleships.

The book is excellent and I echo other reviewers' sentiments on that score. I bought this to 'upgrade' on the original, so I think it may be of interest to prospective buyers to know that this isn't simply the 1976 edition on better paper and with extra chapters. Owners of the 1976 printing may wish to hang on to that as well as buying this 1995 edition.

Some half-dozen photos, maybe slightly more, have been substituted for this 1995 edition and, whilst the new pics ARE generally better, it is a change to an old friend. I was certainly disappointed to find the superb graphic profiles of 1976 reduced from a double-page, fold-out spread to a single page: the reprinted line-drawings are, naturally, half the size & it is more difficult to discern details. For this I deduct a half-star.

A minor niggle overall, I accept, and the extra text with accompanying photos has certainly made the purchase worthwhile at this price (especially re the turret deflagration). Alas, I shall not now be selling on my original, as I had planned. My poor bookshelf...

Dulin and Garzke provide a very useful overview of the design history of the later US battleships, both the later treaty designs as well as the post-treaty designs. The amount of detail is excellent. The design histories and service histories are. Useful for the battleship enthusiast.

However, when it comes down to the final analysis, this book is for the enthusiast. The information is good, but very incompletely referenced. Much information is from archives, but it is not clear which information or what archives. Furthermore, discussion of quality of armor is lacking, as comparison of designs is not possible without accounting for armor quality (I speak of comparison across the 3 volumes written by Dulin and Garzke, as the USN designs may certainly be compared to each other.

That said, I am certainly an enthusiast, and I do recommend this book to any battleship enthusiast.

Everything you ever would want to know about US Battleship history, development and use is captured here. Excellent B&W photos, line drawings, cut-aways, charts, tables, data - its all here from 1935-1992. Brief operational histories are provided to outline each ship's use or wartime experience.

The best attraction to this work is not just a simple listing of facts, but the author tells why certain decisions were made and gives his opinion on what ship was the best and why. Every ship has to compromise speed, protection and firepower. The US General Board (those in charge of deciding what would be built) knew this, got feedback from our Admirals, studied other naval designs, wargames and created a line of ships that were the best in the world. The impact of the naval treaties signed with Japan are discussed, as well as the changes made due to war experience.

I especially enjoyed the chapters dealing with the re-commissioning of the Iowa Class Ships. Again, line drawings and charts outline what was done, how the ships were used.

The tragic Iowa turret explosion in April 1989 is discussed in detail, shedding facts on the incident.

I am extremely pleased with this book. I have referenced it many times and learn something new every time I read it. It is an excellent resource for any serious naval buffs, for those who love the technical data, for anyone who wants to learn all about US Cruisers. A must have on your shelf.

This publication deals with the final series of American battleship classes: N. Carolina, S. Dakota, Iowa, still born Montana plus the Alaska heavy cruiser. I found the book useful because it featured hull frame lines, other references do not deliver this data. Additionally it features deck by deck layouts, that's just plain interesting stuff. Pictures were informative. The chapter about gun turret accidents was neat, horrible end for those crewmembers but very insightful. My only beef was that the S. Dakota class drawings only dealt with S. Dakota, which had a different configuration from her three sisters. The S. Dakota's exhibited the greatest variety in weapons outfitting, it would have been nice to have plans depicting all four. That being said I still believe this book makes a valuable addition to any battleships fan's library. If you own Friedman's ""US Battleships" & Breyer's "Battleships & Battle Cruisers 1905-1970" the data in this book helps to sort out some of the more obscure points.

FIRST THOUGHTS: IF THIS GETS 5 STARS GIVE THE OTHERS IN THE SERIES 7 STARS

Excellent volume in an excellent series. Nevertheless I found this volume to be somewhat lacking in detail of both text and drawings compared to the other two volumes in this series. The excellent, large-scale, fold-out drawings which were in the other books of this series have been replaced by small xeroxed insets with much less detail. Having said this, this book was still excellent and does compare well against Norman Freidman's definitive work on the subject [U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History].
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IN A NUTSHELL: CASE STUDIES OF 8 DISTINCTLY DIFFERENT CLASSES OF DREADNOUGHTS FROM 4 COUNTRIES

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER TWO: THE NORTH CAROLINA CLASS
CHAPTER THREE: THE SOUTH DAKOTA CLASS
CHAPTER FOUR: THE IOWA CLASS
CHAPTER FIVE: THE MONTANA CLASS
CHAPTER SIX: THE ALASKA CLASS
CHAPTER SEVEN: THE RETURN OF THE DREADNOUGHT
CHAPTER EIGHT: CONCLUSION

APPENDIXES

A. PRESIDENT rOOSEVELT AND HIS NAVY
B. REPRESENTATIVE BATTLESHIP ARRANGEMENT
C. BATTLESHIP AND BATTLECRUISER GUNS
D. PRELIMINARY DESIGNS OF NORTH CAROLINA AND SOUTH DAKATO



WHAT IT IS: THE ABSOLUTE ZENITH OF A NATION'S JINGOISTIC TECHNOLOGY & POWER

In essence, the Dreadnought represents everything a powerful or wanna-be powerful nation can impart into a ship to project power on the behalf of that nation. I just made that up, but it is so obviously true. When one goes through these volumes, one can see a combination of the national pride, desperation and deviousness that lay behind the erection of fleets of these incredible vessels. Here are some motives that are touched on in these volumes:

The British wishing to limit the size, power and number of Battleships by treaty as their global fortunes were on the wane proposed and built ships that were less than ideal in all respects prior to World War 2;

The Japanese wishing to keep the world in the dark as to the size and power of their new ships [Yamato Class], hide the construction of the ships and put out false documents regarding the ships' displacement and the gun caliber of its main batteries [460mm];

The Americans utilizing the escalator clause to include 16" guns in the North Carolina class as a response to the secret Japanese building program;

The Germans building larger ships than they were limited by treaty to do as the need for armored protection increased as war approached;

The French built the Dunkerque and Richelieu class as a response to the Germans building the 'Pocket Battleships", followed by their 'Battlecruisers';


BOTTOM LINE: THE REVISED FIRST VOLUME OF AN AWESOME HISTORIC TRILOGY

Though these three volumes may seem very much the same, they described ships that were very different and very alike at the same time. Only after a complete reading of the entire trilogy, do I now feel, better able to understand the construction and design considerations that lead to a completed Dreadnought. Reading this series has made me feel grateful to the authors and excited over the material. Ultimately, this series including this volume, has fed my interest in naval history and has encouraged me to look deeper into the topic of Dreadnought engineering, construction and politics. Now, after reading this series, and then re-reading it, I feel better able to grasp the technical materials that I will have to deal with as I continue to delve into the fascinating topic of 'Dreadnoughts' and their effect on history.

LAST THOUGHTS:

This series has truly fired my interest in Battleships which began when I was a small child [50 years ago] and saw one of these classic Dreadnoughts just barely clearing the span of the Brooklyn Bridge, by inches. My mother said it was the New Jersey, as I followed the ship with my eyes, as we passed over it. To me, nothing on the sea, regardless of size or speed seems to compare with these true giant marvels of the twentieth century.

Quite a bit of detail about each individual ship organized in sections on a ship-by-ship basis. Lots of good photos and drawings.