The World's Great Battleships [Hardcover]

Robert Jackson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2000

With their irresistible mixture of strength, power, and awesome beauty, nothing will ever match the battleship as the symbol of naval might. The World's Great Battleships is an in-depth study of these magnificent fighting vessels throughout history. Beginning with the lumbering hulks of the late Middle Ages, it charts the story of the battleship to their decline after WWII. The authoritative text documents the continued attempts of designers to both maximize firepower and bolster protection. This volume is highly illustrated with over 120 b/w photos and color illustrations, many of which show cut-away views. Also included are specifications such as armament, displacement, dimensions, propulsion, speed, and complement. Sail the seas with the mightiest ships to have ever left port, like the Dreadnought, Bismarck, Tirpitz, Yamato, and Iowa.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Thunder Bay Press (CA) (September 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571452621
• ISBN-13: 978-1897884607
• Product Dimensions: 11.2 x 8.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,043,725 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Fun, but no book to base a report or paper on., January 12, 2005

By 

David R. Le Gallee "Dr Dave" (Bay Area) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The World's Great Battleships (Hardcover)

This book reads easily and has some nice drawings. The earlier sailing ships are pretty well depicted, but as it got closer to WWII, there were many discrepancies, particularly to displacment (weight) of the ships depicted in the drawings. They run the gamut from quoting misleading "official" records at the time by the Germans for the Graf Spee (10,00 tons)for instance, when it was actually nearly 20% heavier. I thought anyone familiar with the subject matter would know that, to mixing standard and full load displacement for ships such as the Bismarck and Tirpitz, in two different drawings. A nod to the Tirpitz being a bit heavier, but 20-25%, they were sister ships ! In fact, standard and full load displacemt seem to be mixed without thought, shifting 10,000 tons one way or the other, making it very difficult to compare the ships of the same era. Very disconcerting to even a casual knowledge of the big gunned ships of the day. The text does read better and like I said is fun for a quick journey through some of the great ships of the past, just don't use it as a source for an important project.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good battleship book for starters, May 23, 2003

By 

Chino Fernandez "techtor" (Quezon CIty, Philippines) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Great Battleships (Hardcover)

This is a book obviously meant for the layman interested in the history of big gun warships, from the time of the Spanish Armada until the Gulf crisis. It's about battleships all right - little about cruisers or destroyers (the story of the Glowworm sinking is told here). I bought this book hoping it would help me as a modeler, but there are few good photos, and the illustrations are often cutaways showing the inside of a ship - not bad for a student though. It gives somewhat detailed history on warships, such as the Bismarck and Scharnhorst chases, but only the most well-known stuff are mentioned here. As a bonus though, the pic which supposedly shows the midget subs firing on the US battleships at Pearl Harbor is in here. All in all, it's quite an enjoyable read. Not a bad buy. But modelers should get something else.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A modest reference book., November 22, 2011

By 

Mark Powell (Massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World's Great Battleships (Hardcover)

Robert Jackson's "The World's Great Battleships" is a quaint little reference book that attempts to cover warships that lead to the development of the battleship from the middle ages to the 1940s. This task is nearly impossible in a book that is only 147 pages long. In short, Jackson should have focused on battleships, and only battleships within this book. With a start at HMS Dreadnaught on towards the USS Montana class (which was never built). While the images and basic details of select classes of warships is a very nice feature of the book, overall I would have preferred the book to focus on the most relevent battleships in the evolution of this type of warship rather than a quick overview of multiple classes.
Still, the book is a good "quick-grab" reference book to find the basic details of the more famous classes of battleship.