This third and final volume in the best-selling series on British warship development recounts the Royal Navy's response to the restrictions placed on it by the Washington Naval Treaties in the inter-war years and the construction of the fleet used to fight World War II. Noted naval architect David Brown brings this crucial era into focus as he analyzes the principle pre-war developments, including the first purpose-built aircraft carriers and the growing perception of the threat of air attack to warships. In addition, all the wartime construction programs-such as the massive amphibious warfare fleet used on D-Day are covered, as well as the lessons learned from wartime damage and the top-secret pre- and postwar damage trials. This heavily illustrated sequel to Warrior to Dreadnought and The Grand Fleet completes Chatham's highly praised British Warship Design and Development trilogy. It is an essential reference and provides a wealth of information on British maritime history.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Little Nelson, not much Vanguard,
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This review is from: Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Design and Development 1923-1945 (Chatham's Distinguished Design) (Hardcover)
When I was small I inherited my Father's WONDER BOOK OF THE NAVY. Written probably in the mid 1930's THE WONDER BOOK gave me a comprehensive overlook at a vanished fleet: lots of pictures, clear, comprehensive text covering every class of Royal Navy warship & all aspects of service life. I get the feeling that Brown may have tried to do a WONDER BOOK for grown-ups, and if so he has failed. What we have here is a nice "coffee-table book" with lots of black and white photos of a broad range of ships, but there is little in-depth coverage of anything (the two title warships are particularly slighted -NELSON gets one shot-from-a distance and two partial photos, VANGUARD maybe three or four) Battleships as a whole get only 15 pages of text and photos, destroyers by contrast get 20. While it can certainly be argued that neither NELSON nor VANGUARD had particularly stellar service records, they did represent important (and at least in the case of NELSON, peculiar) examples of warship design, and it would have been nice to hera a good deal more about them. Also missing from the text is any real discussion of the effectiveness and/or limitations of deign in action -we would have benefitted from hearing more about the fates of given warships. While there is a chapter on "battle damage" it tends to focus exclusively on physical damage to structures with little attention to crew or performance. Nowhere do I find much discussion of the human element, and, especially given the RN's remarkable ability to stay at sea for long periods under often hideous conditions it would have been very interesting to hear more about how the nature of the ships made this possible if not exactly "fun". The chapter on inter-war modification of existing ships is a real teaser -there are various coy references to what might or might not have been learned from WWI or post-war tests, but I felt that I would have to go elsewhere for any real understanding. Again, more detailed discussion of the fates of specific ships would have been most instructive. In summary: Interesting? yes. Comprehensive? by no means.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Patented DK Brown,
By Richard Worth (MO, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Design and Development 1923-1945 (Chatham's Distinguished Design) (Hardcover)
It's always a pleasure to see Brown's insider perspective on British design. In this book, he takes the opportunity to heap praise on some of his predecessors and nose about in their memoirs for hints of their thoughts on nascent designs. There is little effort here to provide a systematic survey of post-WWI designs--which I would like to have seen--but there is a sufficiency of substance and a liberal sprinkling of anecdotes. This is not a great book, but it is informative and enjoyable. My main complaint is that it tends toward the pricey.
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