Customer Reviews

Fleets Of World War II

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I expected this book to be another "mass merchandising" book on WWII warships, but it was surprisingly refreshing in its insightful comments. It is written like a "Consumer Reports" of warships; each entry consists of brief, standard specs (w/ many abbreviations) and concise, lucid and short critical commentary describing the fighting capabilities of the class. For example, it described the Bismarch as overrated (built on WWI battleship design concepts); the Hood as outdated (built on pre-WWI w/ Jutland retrofits) but unmodernized; and the Iowa class as the definitive U.S. battleship (best overall). When appropriate, the book explores, with surprising insightfulness, the armor scheme & torpedo protection, main gun selection, dual purpose vs. tertiary gun scheme, and other characteristics that make a successful design or a subpar design. The general theme is that this is not another "narrative" type book, and it almost goes out of the way to find a major fault with every class (since every class is a compromise of size, cost, technology, etc.). It is brief, with no more than an equivalent half page-column for major ships but as noted by other reviewers, covers a complete range of ships; I think only the major or interesting ships are accompanied by a photo. Here is the downside: (1) the author is described as a freelance writer, so his background and credentials are atypical, i.e., how authoratative is he compared to a John Roberts, Alan Raven, Norman Freiedman, etc.??; (2) there are no line drawings, so this is not a "technical" book; (3) the photos are newspaper-like, dark & lacking detail (they are better than the Jane's reprints of WWI & WWII fleets which were essentially photocopies; and (4) the book paper is similar to softbound book paper; it has a low production value & newspaper feel to it (by a non-military book publisher). At a list price of $[money], it is worthwhile book. If only this material was combined with a Lenton or a Whitley book, it would be standout. The book also has a rebel feel to it; it's almost like the author is saying "You can't get this material from the others - - they're too busy repeating the known stuff. . ."

The Fleets of World War II is a great reference for those people who would like to have some relative idea of the strengths and merits of the opposing sides in this world conflict. The book gives the basic information on each ship; size, speed, number of guns and torpedoes, etc. Most readers could get that type of information in any of a number of sources. Where this book really excels is in the type of details that mere facts and figures do not disclose. How well did the ships company fair as far as habitability? How good a sea boat or how well did the ship maneuver? What was her cruising range? This is the kind of information that can be critical to ships fighting strength but the kind of information that most books leave out. I have read about the great ships for years but I have found information on every page of this book that I didn't know. Here is one example. On paper Japanese cruisers show extremely well. When speaking of the relative strengths of American cruisers to Japanese cruisers Richard Worth makes the following statement. "Cruisers suffered torpedo hits on 31 occasions but only seven of the ships sank, and none sank from a single hit. By comparison, of 24 torpedoed Japanese cruisers, 20 sank, three of them after single hits." This is the kind of comparison that only looking at figures and stats would not reveal.
One area where this book surprised me was is in the minor navies. I fully expected information on the major fleets, American, British, Japanese, German, even French and Italian. Where Mr. Worth excelled is in his treatment of the smaller navies such as China, Denmark, Poland, even Czechoslovakia. For instance most readers probably wouldn't know that Chile not only had an honest to goodness battleship, the Almirante Latorre, but that the United States offered to buy her following the battleship losses at Pearl Harbor.
The Fleets of World War II has been a valued addition to my naval history library. I highly recommend it.

This seems to have a listed every nation that existed during the entire time frame of the conflict (1939-1945). They are listed in alphabetical order of the Nation. From there an overall review of the fleet, the weapons, and then Naval Aviaton. At
that point it lists the combat units of the fleet from BB(or CV if the fleet had them) down to the MTB's that served the fleet. Prior to the listing of the units the author gives an overview of the building projects and how then changed over the course of the war. When the Author talks about the class he lists them by the first name of the class followed by the rest that were built with the class. Also listed is the hull numbers(or Pennant #'s), displacement, Main and secondary battery's, size of torpedos carried, number of aircraft(if carried), speed and when the class was first built. EXAMPLE:LEXINGTON,SARATOGA (CV2,3:36,000tons;eight 8-in,twelve 5inDP guns, AC
90, 33knots 1927).

Followed by that will be a review of the pros and cons of the class when compared compared against some stables of the world. (example the author considered the Yamato Class BB's to be too heavy and drastically inferior to even the S. Carolina Class of BB's or the Nelson class BB's.). Some of these comparisions are based simple things like the age of the units at other times these comparisions are down on the preformance of water tight integtriy and the main batterys performance on things like Velocity of the round and weight of the round fired.

There are some down points to this book. The author decides not to mention what units did what major fleet actions or were in theater during major campaigns. This information would of been nice to compare at a glance the units that were avilable during operations like the defense of Malta Convoys or fight for Gualdalcanal. That the fact that the author for some of the lesser navies or those navies of nations that surrendered to the Axis at the start of the war the listings and review of the class are noticably shorter. The biggest chapters of the books are for the navies of the UK,USSR, Japan, Germany, and the USA. For some of these nations there are reviews in passing of some of thier planned building (like the US and thier Montana Class of BB's) at other times he dives into a serious review of the projects and plans (like the Germany Graf Zepplin CV) but the
author seems selective on which projects he covers and which he just glosses over.

The other point though this book has some pictures it only has pictures of the main or major representive units of a type of ship. They may show the Essex as a representive of American carrier or the Bismarck as an example of the German Battleships. That is it for pictures there is no line drawings or even siloheuttes of the ships.

Like most others have written this is a decent book to start with for research. But not the end all that it might of been. There is serious room for improvement.

The notes on the inner flap of the dust cover promise more than this book delivers. For instance, it says, "The British engaged in a wartime flurry of ship production - but did they build the ships they needed for victory". The question goes unanswered. There is virtually the same comment on every British destroyer: " should have had DP guns". Well duh, sure. It is pointed out that there was a lack of such guns and mounts, but there is no comment about how well they were apportioned, given that lack. There is no discussion about the types of propulsive machinery. The allies had a lack of both engines and reduction gears. This had a strong choice on the ships built, but there is no discussion.

If your library is to have only one book one the subject, this one would not be a bad one to consider. It certainly has breath and touches on many minor types. It has interesting tidbits, but you have to look through out the whole book to find them. This is a pleasant book to browse. I took it on a trip recently and enjoyed opening it up at random and reading a short article on a random ship type.

...of World War 2, then this book is for you. You can find anything on Bismarck and Hood, but have you ever read a review of the Almirante Latorre? Richard Worth has a very extensive and impresive knowledge of all navies during the Second WOrld War and if you are intrested in learning more about the ships of WW2, then this book is for you.

This book covers what I usially look for in the book. The boring statistics can usually be found in the variety of places, but what this book provides is the comparison of the ships and lists teir strengths and weaknesses. It is a guide to the warships of WWII. The interesting thing that it also covers all of the mnir navies that took part in WWII. I loved it.

This is a comprehensive compendium of all ship classes, with an entertaining narrative on each class that includes many interesting anecdotes. Information includes ship names, performance specs, years built, gunnery ranges, armor and the service careers of most of the members of each class. This is a handy reference work as authoritative as Jane's or Conway's.

I am incredibly pleased with this book. I've been collecting WWII naval books for some time and this was the feather in the cap of my personal library. As others have stated, finding a book with extensive stats or storylines on the Bismarck or Iowa is quite easy, but it's very difficult to find good (consistent) material on the minor navies of WWII and thier less-famous warships.

If you're looking for in-depth analysis of a particular ship or overly detailed statistics or schematics, this book is NOT for you. On average each ship has only the base stats covered (tonnage, knots, etc) and about a paragraph of analysis/comments. So if you want detailed information on the major warships in WWII, there are better books that focus on the "big names".

What this book excels at, is filling all the nooks and cranies always missing from the more focused works. Do you want to know about Norwegian, Swedish or Finnish Pansarskepps? It's here... Do you want to know about China's pre-WWI cruisers? It's here... Trying to find out the warships of neutral countries like Portugal, Spain or Turkey? It's all here. Bottom line, this book gives a cursory glance over every major and minor warship from well-known to obscure and belligerant to neutral. While not the most in-depth book on any single ship, I have never seen a single book cover as many ships from as many nations in WWII as this book does, which in my opinion makes it a great start or finish to any WWII naval library you may keep at home.

Ten bucks off the cover price is the one improvement this work needs. A fine book for a landlubber such as myself seeking a non-technical intro to WWII battlefleets. Ships normally given short-shift in other naval tomes (Mine-sweepers, corvettes, patrol craft etc) are painstakingly listed and described.
Other reviewers moaned the lack of line drawings...oh, please. Too many WWII books are long on graphics, short on theory.
I enjoyed the nitty gritty details as in each of the Yamato's main turrets weighed as much as a destroyer, that Italian designs mounted their gun muzzles too close for any degree of accuracy, that many US cruisers were top heavy, to the point of instability, with the latest gear.
I'm glad I made this purchase. Enjoy.

The author has done a great job. This book is full of obscure facts and some suprising opinions that will get the reader thinking. It has filled a void in the field and I recommend it without reservation.