Customer Reviews

German Warships, 1815-1945

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

 

 

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.

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

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".

I gave this book 3 stars because it filled an information nitch for me.
I do agree that a Conway's book would be better. but There are very nice line drawings in this book.
Also for WWII German ships the old Doubleday series is better for ships that were projected but never built (or completed).
Also for more detailed information of any battleship / battle cruiser, I would recommend 'Battleships and Battle Cruisers" by Sigfried Baeyer (name may be spelled wrong, but it's close)

As I already have many reference books on the German Navy, I bought this book for one reason, this book has the color schemes for the German Navy, from before WWI to the end of WWII. No where else have I found this information.

For me the book is worth it.

I use it all the time as basic reference material along with the second volume on Uboats and Minesweepers etc. I never realized how vast the German navy was and just how many vessels were built during the 1930s and WW-II. The information in the book is balanced not focusing too much on any one ship or exclusively on items like armor. Instead it includes valuable information about sea keeping , handling and construction methods involved and notes about reconstruction etc.

I gather that another 4 volumes were completed in German and I wish they where also translated and published in English. I would buy them 'in a heart beat'.