This book actually covers more than the two battleship classes described in the title. It also gives nearly two pages to HMS Vanguard, a battleship completed after World War II was over, and the Lion class, which were laid down in 1939 but never completed.
If you know little about these four classes of British battleships, this title is a readable, reasonably well-illustrated, and informative introduction. If you are already knowledgeable, you may be disappointed. I believe author Konstam spread his effort too thinly. By giving background on Vanguard and the Lion class, he lost the opportunity to give the kind of depth I wanted on the King George V class.
The King George V class ships were vital participants in World War II. Three of them were involved in surface actions against enemy battleships. Their protection incorporated the lessons of Jutland, meaning they were well-protected against shellfire. On the other hand, Prince of Wales succumbed to just five torpedoes in the South China Sea, suggesting flotation survival was not ideal. Yet this vital class was given barely over five pages of text; insufficient to address valid questions about protection, seaworthiness, and firepower.
There are two "Range and Penetration" tables, comparing the capabilities of the 16-inch and 14-inch guns of the Nelson and King George V classes: range, gun elevation, angle of descent, and shell velocity. Despite the title, the tables give no information about actual shell penetration.
The author also makes an error on p. 11 when he describes Britain's proposed G3 battlecruisers and N3 battleships as "the first battleships in the world to adopt triple turrets" around the year 1920. They may have been the RN's first triple-turret ships, but by this time the Italian, Russian, and U.S. Navies had all commissioned triple-turret battleships. That said, the related discussion of the Washington Treaty, and its impact on the eccentric design of the battleships Nelson and Rodney, is probably the most insightful section of this book.
This title is simply not up to the standard of Mr. Konstam's earlier title about the Queen Elizabeth and Royal Sovereign classes, which covered a smaller topic with greater depth. Yet it still gives a nice overview of the modern battleships that comprised a vital cornerstone of Britain's survival in World War II's grim early years.
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