German Warships, 1815-1945 [Hardcover]

Erich Groener (Author), Erich Groner (Author), Martin Maass (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1990

hardcover with dust jacket

Product Details

• Hardcover: 2 pages
• Publisher: Naval Institute Press; Revised edition (May 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0870217909
• ISBN-13: 978-0870217906
• Product Dimensions: 11.9 x 10.1 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,256,583 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mile wide, inch deep, September 23, 2005

By 

Jeremy (Madison, AL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: German Warships, 1815-1945 (Hardcover)

This is a collection of the standard facts and figures, illustrated with modest line drawings. The large number of vessels covered suggests this was a labor of love for the author, but not very interesting if you were hoping for more depth on the truly major surface vessels as the subtitle states. I was not expecting to see, for instance, the Danzig of 1824, a 70 ton gunboat "designed for rowing".

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Revision from previous review..., September 22, 2003

By 

Thomas Sibley (Bloomington, Ilinois (USA)) - See all my reviews

This review is from: German Warships, 1815-1945 (Hardcover)

There are some additional ships that are listed here and not anywhere else. In particular:
The German Fleet Cruisers that were never built in WWI
Information on Germany's aircraft carrier conversions that were
never completed.
The original twin turret design for the 'Emden' built in the '20s
The 6-in. triple turret design for the 'Seydlitz' and 'Lutzow'
And the biggie for me: The commissioning dates for the ships.
Most reference books have the launching dates. It is more
important for metp have the date when the ship was completed.
I would have an additional book or two, but there is information in here that is unique.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars German Warships 1815 - 1945, March 20, 2001

By 

Stephen Dyer "Nikademus" (seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: German Warships, 1815-1945 (Hardcover)

This book is essentially a large Order-of-Battle which faithfully lists the major German warships between the time periods indicated. But that is strictly as far as it goes. There are no photographs, no detailed deck plans and no essays into German thoughts on the designs, why certain aspects were prefered over others, nor of any revelations revealed by wartime combat. Primary data is sparce and in the case of armor protection is disapointingly abreviated. This work is IMO vastly inferior to Conway's All the World's Fighting ships, which not only contained far more comprehensive and better organized data but also in the essay portion gave the reader a firm general idea of the layout of the armor, especially in the case of battleships. In Groner's work the reader is simply presented with numbers in XX-XX-XX format where the dashes indicate a change in thickness to the next number etc, with no further info on exactly where the thicknesses change or anything else. The reader has to go back to the very beginning of the book to find out that this system for all ships gives armor thickness (in metrics) from stern to bow.

Machinery and armament specs are covered slightly better but are still quite abreviated and no diserations into their workings and/or preformance are included. Ship histories are extremely abreviated and give the reader little clue as to how these ships preformed.

All in all a very disapointing piece and one which immediately went back to Amazon as i am fortunate to possess Conway's ATWFS series. In conclusion i would only recomend this book to those for whom a Conway's source covering 1861 - 1906 is unavailable