Customer Reviews

The World's Worst Warships: The Failures and Repercussions of Naval Design and Construction, 1860 to the present day

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As celebrated author Antony Preston notes in his introduction, the question of warship design can easily sound like a boring backwater of naval history. This is especially true once it becomes clear that this book isn't like those "world's strangest airplanes" programs that sometimes show up on TV, with whimsical designs being "flown" off ramps to drop straight into the sea.

But this book is actually quite interesting, and filled with Important Lessons for people interested in learning them. The failures of these "world's worst warships" aren't due solely to the shortsightedness of naval architects or the incompetence of shipbuilders. Far more destructive, in fact, are wrongheaded admirals, penny-pinching politicians, pushy civilians with connections, and the recurrent danger of "fighting the last war." Though many of the ship designs listed here could be considered honest-but-failed experiments in new ideas, quite a few of them qualify as among the "world's worst" because of their designers' or champions' refusal to learn the lessons that should have already been apparent to them.

I can easily imagine this book touching off among naval officers and historians the kinds of impassioned debates that lists of All-Century football teams do among sports fans. Do famous names like "Bismarck," "Yamato," or the American "four-stacker" destroyers of the mid-War era really belong among the world's worst? Preston makes a strong -- well-sourced, well-argued, and even entertaining -- case that they do. What do you think?

Before settling down to read this book, I began by glancing through the pages to see what sort of warship might be regarded as the world's worst. The inclusion of the "K" class submarine did not surprise me but the Yamato, Graf Spee and Hood - I thought these were the outstanding Battleships of their day. Then, having read the narrative for each vessel, it became quite clear why they are included.

"The World's Worst Warships" is a hard-back book measuring 10" x 8" containing almost 200 pages of detailed information on a carefully chosen selection of warship types. Commencing with the Monitors of the American Civil War, the Author brings us through his book - chapter-by-chapter and development-by-development, as this particular type of war machine evolves and improves. Each chapter becomes a fascinating read and the book is well illustrated with a generous selection of line drawings and historic photographs. Incidentally, all illustrations are courtesy of "Chrysalis Images." Chrysalis Books are the parent publishing company and I suspect many readers will find some of the images to be new and previously unpublished.

At the beginning of the book, it is very easy for the reader to mock the early efforts of those building the very first iron-clads - the benefits of hindsight and all that. Later on, however, we can only stand in awe as we learn of the political thinking and sheer dogmatism that surrounded the design of this and the building of that. To think that the one country which truly recognised the value of the Aircraft Carrier right at the outbreak of WW2 would also insist on building 2 Yamato class Battleships - the construction of which almost bankrupted the nation and also even deprived the country's fishermen of their nets. It's all in there.

This is a work of reference to interest ship's historians the world over. I also suspect it will be much sought after by Scuba Divers who look for the reasons why this wreck or that wreck is where it is today.

NM

They are both listed here as one of "The Worlds Worst Warships". Yes, even though many such obvious losers as the "Russian Popoffkas; the French battleship Brennus; the British vessels Captain, Sheffield, and Invincible; the U.S. monitor Katahdin and Dynamite Ship Vesuvius; and the Japanese light cruiser Mogami" are listed, so are such battleships as the Yamato and the Bismarck. Surprised? You think those were among the greatest Warships of all time?

Well, read this interesting and provocative book, then you might agree that they were amoung "The Worst"- or at least have some reasons to doubt the conventional wisdom on those dreadnoughts.

This book mostly covers WWI through WWII, with a couple ships before and after.

The author seems to be begging for someone to disagree with his judgements of some of these so-called naval mistakes. The developmental history of warships is much like the history of nearly everything else, in that it is an evolutionary process. Some concepts may initially appear to be mistakes, but later on prove to be simply far-sighted and ahead-of-their-time. There is no doubt that American "sea-going" monitors from the 1860-1890 period were anything but blue-water capable, but they did prove the worth of turret-mounted heavy guns. However, calling the IJN's Yamato class battleships a poor design is questionable at best. What other battleship could have stacked up against the Yamato in a one-on-one encounter? With the advent of the aircraft carrier, the Yamato's may rightfully have been called a dated design, but even then it is clear that with a few more AA guns that they may well have fared better than they actually did in the historical record. Germany's pocket battleships also are included, but they weren't really "battleships" in the first place and still, they proved themselves as fast, heavily gunned commerce raiders.
It is strange that the overgunned and top-heavy monitors used by the British navy during the interwar period and thru WWII were not selected among the worst warships. The USN's famous, flat-bottomed LST's were barely sea-worthy and were so slow that they should have been retagged as "BFT"s (Big Fat Targets), but they were not selected among the worst either.

It's not clear who the audience for this book is. If you're an aficionado of warships, you won't find much new, and you'll find this short on details. If you're not a warship maven, you probably don't care. Also the title is a little misleading, since many of these ships are not bad at all, especially for their times. For example, US four-stacker destroyers were uncomfortable but they served well in two world wars. Some of his views are provocative; for example he includes both Hood and Bismarck. On the other hand, there are enough minor errors to make me a little uneasy about his research. Still, this is OK for a quick read.