Customer Reviews

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946

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I use my Conway's a lot because it covers a wide scope, but it continues to irk me. As I see it, the book pretends to describe ships by laying out statistics and dates whatever else can be quantified in numbers; but in the end it fails to present a real-world assessment of anything. I understand that no book can be all things to all readers, but Conway's becomes a generator of misunderstanding when it spits out, for example, measurements of armor thickness, tempting the reader to think this is what determines how well a ship is protected. Such superficiality does more harm than good. But once the reader understands that Conway's is merely a starting point for research, it becomes a useful (if expensive) tool.

This is an excellent summary reference on all the navies existing in the period covered by the book. Every nation is dealt with in detail as regard all its ships built in this period, with an historical and technical introduction to the navy itself and a summary description of all the warship classes; this description comprises a summary of the characteristics of every class, a list (only for capital ships and cruisers) of the class' ships with the dates of building and the final fate, and a brief text description of some interesting aspects and of the operation life. Almost every class is provided with a photograph or a drawing. The book is ideal for giving a quite detailed overview of the situation of every navy in the twenty five years period covered by this work. The only weakness I can find is that the ships built preceding the year 1922 are not described in full detail, but the reader is referred to the other books of this serie (the whole serie is composed by four book covering different periods): maybe a way to sell some more copies of the other books.

What I appreciate the most about this book is the extensive and well researched text data on such vessel types as seaplane tenders, and the like, which have been virtualy ignored in the naval history press prior to this book. Vessel linage of more obscure types as are included and explained. If like myself, you have read most of what there is on the major combatants, which are included, and yet you want further information on the lesser known, yet vital 'other types' that were just as important in the scheme of the navies of the second world war. Then this is your book.

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946 is the third in a series of 4 books which, as the title suggests, lists all the worlds fighting ships built during the period in question. Initially, these were post-WW1 years in which some countries favoured disarmament whilst others harboured expansionist plans. This was also a time when the Aircraft Carrier would totally eclipse the mighty Battleship as "King of the Seas." Eventually, the advent of WW2 and the way in which the USA entered that war added a whole new dimension to warship design and production.

Conway Maritime Press are well known for their factual books on ships - especially warships, in which they provide the finest technical documentation. "All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946" is hard-back measuring 12½" x 8¾" with 456 pages of detailed and factual information. After a brief foreword and an explanation of abbreviations used, the navies of the world are listed by country in order of their size and importance at the beginning of the period in question - i.e. Great Britain and Empire Forces, USA, Japan, Germany, etc and continuing right down to the world's smallest navies from the Middle East, Far East and Latin America. Each country's ships are then displayed by "class" commencing with the largest capital ships and progressing all the way down to the smallest torpedo boats (or whatever) with the oldest vessels mentioned first. For each class there is one or more of those profile line drawings which have become Conway's trademark. These are followed by all the usual technical details such as; Displacement, dimensions, machinery, armour, armament and complement followed by the names of each ship within that class - it's builder, date laid down, date completed and fate. These are accompanied by a very "readable" text from which we learn of the political intrigue of the day, variations between vessels, refits, new equipment, whatever defects or other problems beset either the class or a specific ship and a short résumé of the fate of each vessel.

Altogether, the book is well illustrated with an excellent selection of historic black and white original photographs throughout with at least one picture on almost every page.

In summary, this is an excellent technical work of reference and one which will continue to stand the test of time. Put another way, this is one of those books you will wish you had bought - after it becomes out of print.

NM

This weighty tome may appear to be more useful as some sort of murder weapon (blunt force trauma I think the TV shows call it) but.... wow.

A book as dense on statistics as it's size would indicate this thing is replete with ship histories, vital (and non vital) stats and a whole heapin' helpin' of line drawings and photographs that make this an excellent reference work for naval historians, naval wargamers and modellers. The barrage of raw data will have your inner pedantic whinger fully satisfied and given it covers a fairly important era (WW2 - duh) is the sort of thing that the general armchair general may also very well like on their bookshelf along with the other volumes in this series. If your bookshelf and your wallet can take the collective strain that is.

Overall this is the sort of book none of your friends can afford but that they'll all want to flick through when they come over. A fine, fine reference work that belongs on every naval buffs collection.

The best book of it's type. While Jane's for the same general period is a collection of period work, complete with incorrect data used at the time, Conway's is an accurate library of the warships of the day.

Me parece un libro magnífico,importante su grado de detalle no solo en paises importantes como UK,USA o alemania,sino otras flotas. Particularmente aparte de mínimos errores de traducción en los nombres de los buques,hablo del caso de la flota española, es realmente informativo.
Para historiadores,amantes de la época y de la historia naval es una libro referente ineludible.
Hablo tanto de el volumen de 1906-1921,como del 1922-1946, los que obran en mi poder.
Me gustaría saber si después del cuarto volumen la editorial ha editado algún libro que cubra el final de 1980 hasta el momento actual.

this book and the companion volume 1906 -1922 which covers the first world war and has many of the ships that fought in the world war 2,are an absolute value to any one studying the navies of the world during the second world war. the class by class data in the order that the ships were built, as well as the complete lits of names per class.are invalubel to any one attempting to locate a ship name. I recommend these books to both historian as well as modeler or enthuist alike.