Customer Reviews

Cassell Military Classics: Salvo!: Epic Naval Gun Actions

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The Cassel Series has been a very good source of Military Classics. The quality is generally very good, but this slim volume stands out. It offers some very unique actions between large-gun ships from 1894 (Sino-Japan War), to the latter stages of WWII in the Pacific (Leyte Gulf and the Surigao Battle).

The pace is gripping and the action ablely described by a person who obviously served in the RN in WWII. Even if you are an officiando in naval history you will like these stories and even learn a little. The fate of the Emden is well known, but the similar fate of the HMAS Sydney in nearby waters a quarter century later is less well known.

My personal favourite is the story including the brave little chase of the HMS Glowworn against the Admiral Hipper, reversing course and charging out of her own smokescreen at 38 knots in an attempt to ram the Hipper ranks as one the true heroic acts of a small ship against tremendous odds.

A very good read.

If you are a naval history buff, action junkie or just want a bracing and breezy read it's pretty hard to go past this book which gives brief descriptions of gun action encounters ranging from the 1890's through to World War II. The book works so well because it assumes a laymans knowledge of naval warfare matters but doesn't pander to any sort of preconceived idea of stupidity on the part of the reader. Rather, the book takes the simple premise of regaling the reader with tales of gritty naval combat unsullied by the complexities of aerial warfare being thrown into the mix - hence the title.

And the book doesn't just concentrate on the big boys - the heavyweight battleships of the respective periods. Nope, the tin cans are also given a fair degree of mano vs mano time in these pages and that helps to make the book feel even brisker. You just eat it up and the fact that a number of wars are covered probably means that the general reader may have his appetite whetted to further explore the world of military history, and naval history in general, and perhaps give the more specialised reader of a certain war a glimpse into another conflict to pique their curiosity.

A friend of mine lamented to me the lack of detail. But he is the kind of person who reads books on Jutland with tables of how many rounds of each calibre all the different ships present fired. So if that sounds like you - you may rate this book lower than I. If my friend sounds like the sort of chap you'd rather cut your own ears off rather than spend an afternoon talking to then this book is probably for you!