Customer Reviews

German Battleships 1939-45 (New Vanguard)

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In Osprey's New Vanguard #71, Gordon Williamson outlines the career of the six German battleships in the Second World War, ranging from the two elderly pre-dreadnoughts, to the powerful "Scharnhorst" and "Bismarck" classes. Like the other volumes in Williamson's series on the German WW2 Kriegsmarine warships, the technical data and career summaries are rather brief, but probably useful for someone in need of an overview of the various warship classes.

As in the other volumes in this series, Williamson provides brief background on the construction of each member of these classes and a summary of its operational history. The coverage of the two pre-dreadnoughts is particularly brief, given their minimal role in the Second World War. The color plates include: the Schleswig-Holstein class; Scharnhorst in action; a plan view of the Scharnhorst; a cutaway of the Bismarck; Gneisenau post-refit; Bismarck in action; and Tirpitz. The photographs in the volume are decent but unlike his other volumes, the author has not provided a bibliography.

Williamson's coverage of the careers of the four main German battleships is conventional. The Germans probably got their best results from any warship class from the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which together sank one British aircraft carrier, two destroyers and 19 merchantmen of 115,000 tons; for an investment of over $115 million, Germany eliminated about $32 million worth of Allied shipping. The Bismarck, although she sank the British battlecruiser Hood, had an operational life of only nine exciting days. The Tirpitz made a career out of hiding in various Norwegian holes and accomplished nothing but the illusion of tying down part of the British fleet (illusory because the British fleet was extremely active, defeating the U-Boats, escorting invasion convoys, etc). All told, Germany invested $267 million in its four battleships - a not inconsiderable sum in its day - and sank a total of 178,000 tons of Allied vessels worth perhaps $56 million. Thus, in terms of cost-effectiveness, the four German battleships were a huge waste of Germany's resources that did not justify their creation.

Williamson does mention that the "Scharnhorst" class was "fundamentally flawed" because it was "under-gunned," had an unreliable power plant and had poor sea-keeping qualities. He also claims that the "Bismarck" class was obsolete when it was launched and that battleships themselves were anachronisms, due to their vulnerability to aircraft. These "technical" criticisms are unfair. Both the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau proved their quality as warships in their Atlantic sortie of early 1941. The 11-inch guns of this class were only "under-gunned" if one was thinking of engaging British battleships, for which the Scharnhorst class was not intended. I think the only obvious technical problem with these classes was the clumsy secondary armament arrangement, with the 150mm and 105mm guns on both classes. US battleships used 127mm guns in twin mounts for both the secondary surface and AA roles, and this saved weight and simplified fire control.

The real problem with the German battleships, aside from their innate cost-ineffectiveness, was the inadequate German naval doctrine. The Germans simply thought of these magnificent warships as great beasts of prey that would swoop out into the Atlantic and - hopefully- sink Allied convoys. Years ago, Soviet naval analysis seemed to hit the nail on the head - the Germans lost the Battle of the Atlantic because they failed to use combined arms tactics. Magnificent ships like the Bismarck fought and died virtually alone. It is really amazing how little effort the Germans made to coordinate U-Boats, long-range aircraft (Fw-200s) and surface raiders. Would the Bismarck have seemed like such an anachronism if the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin had been completed? Certainly a German battle squadron with a couple battleships and a carrier would have been a nightmare for the British to hunt down. Although Hitler had some influence upon the timing of major fleet operations and warship construction, it was the Naval High Command and Admiral Raeder who mismanaged the carrier construction effort and the coordination of U-Boats and surface raiders. It was inadequate doctrine and poor operational planning that doomed the German battleships, not technical difficulties.

IN A NUTSHELL:

'German Battleships 1939-45' by Gordon Williamson, has for discussion one of the most eternally fascinating topics in military history: THE GERMAN BATTLESHIPS OF WORLD WAR 2!!!! Somehow, this awesome topic is given a very generic and, in many ways, careless treatment throughout this text.


WANT MORE ---- [the double-sided cutaways are this book's best feature]

The stats within this text are so poorly edited -- I say edited because I don't believe any author could list the Bismarck's draught at 0.2 meters [top of page 29 under 'SPECIFICATIONS'] -- that I can't seriously believe anything I have read within this rather pricey, mini paperback.

DREADNOUGHTS ANYONE?

The chapter about the 'PRE-DREADNOUGHT' Battleships that the Versailles Treaty imposed on the Germans is incredibly titled; "THE DREADNOUGHTS"! The ships here include the Schleswig-Holstein and her sisters. All the German ships (which were DREADNOUGHTS) scuttled following the Armistice were much more capable and modern than these pre-DREADNOUGHTS which remained (and that the author is passing off as DREADNOUGHTS).

The effect of these types of errors that are simple and fundamental will have any serious student of military history questioning every statement within this book; thus, the value of this text is rather diminished. One reason for this is simple -- "Osprey Publishing" says the following on the top of their website's home page:

"Osprey Publishing is the world's leading publisher of illustrated military history and military aviation books."

They certainly churn out the material, but the level of research and editing is very lacking for a 48-page paperback that sells for $14.95!!!

I agree with the previous reviewers that this is not one of the better warship titles in the New Vanguard series. I also agree that the old battleships should have been called what they really were, "pre-dreadnoughts". Regarding those, it bugs me that the side views of the ships pre-refit and post-refit are drawn to different scales!

I also wish that the author had also given some description of the unbuilt H-class battleships; the parallel title on British battleships does describe an unbuilt class.

And a minor point about many of Osprey's titles: I wish that measurements, such as for gun size, were given in English as well as metric units. I know that these books are published in the U.K., but there are many buyers of these books who are more comfortable with inches and feet, and it would be a trivial matter for the author and publisher to include both sets of units.