Customer Reviews

War at Sea in the Ironclad Age (Cassell History of Warfare)

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I devour just about any book I can get my hands on about pre-Dreadnought warships from the period 1860 to 1904. This book is nicely illustrated and the battle diagrams commissioned for the book make it worth the purchase price. However, it is not a very detailed history of this period of naval innovation.

The narrative comes off as a gloss of other recent works such as "Warrior to Dreadnought" by David Brown, "Ironclads at War" by Alessandro Massignani, "The Long Arm of Empire" by Richard Brooks, and "Field Gun Jack Versus the Boers" by Tony Brigland.

The book is written by a retired Rear Admiral of the Royal Navy and if you read quietly, you can faintly hear "Britannia Rules the Waves" playing while you turn the pages. While the RN dominated this period, the book suffers from being a bit too chauvinistic regarding British innovations and abilities versus the rest of the world.

There are a few incorrect dates and a couple of pictures which are not representative of the period under consideration - probably due to the book being part of a general series on the history of warfare rather than a specialist naval book.

Contemporary photos, prints, and artwork are found throughout the book and it is a visual pleasure. The campaign maps and 3-D battle diagrams including Kinburn, Sweaborg, Lissa, Angamos Point, the Yalu, and the Yellow Sea are outstanding.

With a focus on the Royal Navy, the book does give many pages over to the American Civil War and does a nice job of including the South American wars involving pre-Dreadnoughts as well as actions in the Far East.

I would buy this book over again, I just wish it were more substantial.

Cassell has done a great service to readers with its new series on military history. Wonderfully illustrated, these books have a text written by leading historians. The problem with the series is that they are generally just over 200 pages and are so heavily illustrated that the text is rarely more than half that number. Since the books cover large chunks of military history (World War II in the East or War in the Air 1914-1945, for instance), they only appeal to the generalist, not someone widely read in the field (such as the two previous reviewers of this work who obviously are experts). There simply isn't the space to give more than a bare summary of events, no matter how well analyzed.

It is for this reason that Admiral Hill has such a winner here for everyone except the extremely well-read navalist. The ironclad era was the most traumatic time in naval history as navies tried to cope with revolutionary technology. Because naval battles were so rare in this era, the period tends to be overlooked. Although I am fairly well read in military history, this book was, for me, chock full of new and important information. It is well organized and makes very clear why forgotten battles like Lissa, forgotten ships like Huascar and forgotten men like Jules Ferry were important.

It has a few mistakes - Teddy Roosevelt was a Republican and the new navy was far advanced when he came on the scene - and sometimes spends too much time on peripheral issues - the naval brigades of the Boer War fought on land as army troops, so they should not have had several pages devoted to them. But the excellent text and the wonderful drawings, photos, maps and charts make this an important work. There are few surveys on this most important era of naval warfare. Anyone with the slightest interest in naval or technological history would be well advised to buy this book.

This book is part of the History of Warfare series. The main problem with this otherwise well illustrated high production value book is that the significance of the era (the Ironclad Age) isn't actually the warfare, but the technological and social changes in the naval services and political views of naval power during this time. The work references many secondary sources which actually discuss these concerns more fully. It is a time period of interest not only because of the innovations introduced but because of the phenomenon of transition: sail to steam, solid shot to shell, ramming versus gunfire, advent of torpedoes and large mine fields, signal flags to telegraph and radio, development of the concept of naval power projection, rise of a standing professional navy and naval officer training, increasing mechanization of the navy. There are some parallels to today's navy - except for the aircraft carrier we may be in an era where the traditional "capital" ships are fading out as a way of expressing naval power. There are serious debates about naval tactics given the new ship killing power of missiles, better guidance systems, and quicker communications. The latest catch phrases in the US Navy are "littoral" operations, computer networking, and the arsenal ship versus traditional cruiser or frigate. The tags and labels may be different but the basic discourse is the same.

There were only three major naval struggles during this period of time which involved more than one battle or a handful of ships: American Civil War, Spanish American War, Russo-Japanese War. The ACW while acknowledged for its many firsts is diminished in importance by the author because of it involved mostly coastal and riverine warfare. Surpisingly the author Hill, a former RN admiral, failed to mention the similarities with the Union blockade efforts with those of the Royal Navy during the long Napoleonic struggle. In the previous book of the same series on the Fighting Sail, the many difficulties of maintaining a tight blockade of France was noted. Further while he does mention the effects of the Confederate commerce raider, he fails to mention the concern it raised among British naval authorities who realized that a small number of raiders could wreak havoc on world wide commerce; this help enforce the need for a large number of long ranging cruisers. To his credit he does note that there was a strange refusal of the RN and British naval theorists to recognize the importance of convoying despite the efficacy of the technique during the Napoleonic wars; and as was later proven again during the WWI and WWII submarine campaigns.

The social changes which in many critics view helped to stodgify many navies while mentionned are not explored fully. Finally while the different naval theorists are mentionned, they are discussed in very sketchy terms and without any attempt to flesh out.

In summary: a rich period of naval history, but only covered in a superficial way. Worth looking into as a survey with further reading to be done. Not recommended for the serious or specialist reader.

I have seen a number of unfavorable reviews of this book, but after reading it, I think I can say that it really is pretty good, and when you consider how little there is available on the subject, and when you look at the price (I got mine for seven bucks used!), I see little cause for complaint! Well illustrated, with good reviews of the battles and main issues of the day, I think it is very good value for money! From a purely historical and literary aspect, I would have liked to have seen a lot more on the designs and designers of countries other than Britain (especially the French!), but as this era apparently has little interest for the French of today, and so few English-speaking authors and historians can be bothered to learn French, or any other 'foreign' language to do their own research, it is probable that this information will remain a mystery for many years to come. In any case, if you are interested in this era, and are not sure if you want to put down the big bucks for other books dealing with this subject (and at a hundred bucks a pop for some of these books, you had better be VERY interested!), then I can recommend this book wholeheartedly as an excellent primer!

This is a very good entry level book into this somewhat obscure topic. Mr. Hill gives an excellent breakdown of the development of the ironclad battleship from the early broadside ships and monitors of the 1860's to the pre-dreadnaughts of the early 20th century. Included are sections dedicated to the very active birthplace of the ironclad battleship, the American Civil War, and a later section with highlighted battles of later years where the new weapons played a role. Although obviously written from a British perspective, the details help bring the reader into the painful early days of evolution, and explain the changes that helped bring about a classic weapon of war. While not having a great deal of data on individual ships, it is a very good broad inspection of the topic itself.

First book about ironclads. If you have some knowledge about the subject - you'll lose money as I've done.