Customer Reviews

Warships of the USSR and Russia, 1945-1995

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

 

 

Somewhat disappointing for a book by native source author. Text on ship classes is sparse, akin to the Jane's series. Expected to be more like Conway's series with substantive, informative, explanative text not available elsewhere; book didn't deliver in this respect. Line drawings look more than hand drawings; especially disappointing given Norman Friedman's involvement with this book. Good beginning when viewed as a first of more to come. The USSR and Russian navies have the mystery of the Imperial Japanese Navy (1860-1945); a distinct lack of definitive works. Hope revised and updated works are coming. Would be interesting for enthusiasts to compare this book's information with Jordan's 1983 book of USSR Navy (1960-1983) to determine how much new information since USSR breakup.

The technical information given in this book surpasses any other examples own. As an fan of the Russian navy I would recommend this to any naval enthuisiast. unfortunately the print is not in colour but it is of high quality.

I was lured to this book by the Japanese Wikipedia, which had some nice insights on Soviet warships and cited this book as a source. Figured that with such insights, this will be a very good book. Guess I set my sights too high.

I honestly thought I can find out the exact Soviet designation (BPK, SKR... etc) for each ship. This is a subject that I have a strange, morbid fascination in. Too bad it only contained them on some of them.

The level of detail varies widely. As a rule older ships have more detailed descriptions. If you want to read any new insights about Slava or Kirov (like me) you should just use the web.

Also, the book is many years old. It was apparently written in the Soviet era and slightly updated to 1995. So many of the technical solutions have drifted out of alignment with the influx of new data.

In conclusion, this book is a nice supplement. It isn't even a comprehensive "advanced-level" text. Feel free to leave buying it till last.

Warships of the USSR and Russia by A.S Pavlov offers a comprehensive, (sometimes overly) detailed look at every major vessel designed and laid down between the years 1945-1995. Each vessel is given its Soviet/Russian design number, NATO name, brief description, hand drawing, and for most, black and white photographs.

This book is a labor of love by the author, and in that vien is not as slick or fancy as some publications are. For the information contained within, few sources compare. Many of the entries are for vessels that never made it out of the shipyard or were never completed, such as the Project 23 Sovietskiy Soyuz Class Heavy Cruiser laid down in 1938 but never completed due to WWII. Pavlov has exhaustively studied Soviet archives for designs that were never made public, and has taken the time to reproduce them for this edition. The technical details can be overwhelming, but this book is excellent for the professional or the gifted amateur who revels in line drawings and details of weapons systems.

The book does not contain designs that were never laid down, such as the Ulaynovsk Class CVN, but those omissions do not detract from the book as a whole. Hopefully Pavlov will publish another volume on designs that never made it past the architect's sketch pad. That I would buy in a heartbeat as well.

This book is perhaps the first of its subject to use first hand sources. The various developments of Soviet naval vessels post-war is outlined plus a history of each vessel is mentioned. The book is at its best in giving the bureau number and designation as given by the Soviets, unlike most Western books which use NATO nomenclature. For the first time, many significant ships, especially the submarine classes, are outlined.

My only complaints are with the illustrationsand paper quality. The drawings are not to a consistent scale and many of them are rendered in a heavy black ink which makes details hard to distinguish. Photo quality could be better, but of course Cold War era photos of any quality are hard to come by. Photo and drawing reproduction quality could be improved if the book wwas printed on glossy paper (a suggestion for the next edition).