Warships (19th and 20th centuries): books - history

Before the Ironclad : Warship Design and Development 1815 - 1860

In the massive revolution that affected warship design between Waterloo and the Warrior, the Royal Navy was traditionally depicted as fiercely resisting every change until it was almost too late, but these old assumptions were first challenged in this authoritative history of the transition from sail to steam. Originally published in 1990, it began a process of revaluation which has produced a more positive assessment of the British contribution to the naval developments of the period.
This classic work is here reprinted in an entirely new edition, with more extensive illustration.

Beginning with the structural innovations of Robert Seppings, the book traces the gradual introduction of more scientific methods and the advent of steam and the paddle fighting ship, iron hulls and screw propulsion. It analyses the performance of the fleet in the war with Russia (1853-1856), and concludes with the design of the Warrior, the first iron-hulled, seagoing capital ship in the world.

The author presents a picture of an organisation that was well aware of new technology, carefully evaluating its practical advantage, and occasionally (as with its enthusiastic espousal of iron hulls) moving too quickly for the good of the service. Written by an eminent naval architect, "Before the Ironclad" is both a balanced account of general developments, and an in-depth study of the ships themselves.

Hospital Ships and Troop Transport of the First World War

The biggest shipping loss of both world wars was the hospital ship Britannic, at almost 50,000 tons. Supposedly safe to travel the seas, many hospital ships were lost in both wars.
From the smallest of motor launches through steam yachts and converted ocean liners, Campbell McCutcheon tells the story of the First World War hospital ships. Many succumbed to accidents, mines or German submarines but many also faithfully provided a vital service without loss of life or accident.

Troopships were also vital right from the very first days of the war, when ships carried the BEF across the English Channel in August 1914. Meanwhile, convoys that included many great pre-war ocean liners pressed into service were bringing Canadian and Australasian troops to the UK and France, and later American troops as well.
Many would continue in service until long after the war had ended, repatriating soldiers well into 1919, and their story is also told in this beautifully illustrated book.

Torpedo - The Complete History of the World's Most Revolutionary Naval Weapon

The torpedo was the greatest single game-changer in the history of naval warfare. For the first time it allowed any small, cheap torpedo-firing vessel - and by extension a small, minor navy - to threaten the largest and most powerful warships afloat. The traditional concept of seapower, based on huge fleets of expensive capital ships, required radical rethinking.
It had long been understood that the most effective way of sinking a ship is to make a hole below the waterline, but centuries of experiments had failed to produce an effective method of achieving this. After many false starts and developmental cul-de-sacs, the answer proved to be the 'locomotive' or self-propelled torpedo, which became a practical proposition in the late nineteenth century.

This book is a broad-ranging international history of the weapon, tracing not only its origins and technical progress down to the present day, but also its massive impact on all subsequent naval wars.
"Torpedo" is the first dedicated study of this highly significant subject for over thirty years, a period in which much new information has come to light and the capabilities of the weapon itself have improved beyond recognition. Because of the crucial importance of the torpedo in naval history, this is a book no enthusiast or historian can afford to miss.

Naval Anti-Aircraft Guns and Gunnery

This book does for naval anti-aircraft defence what the author's Naval Firepower did for surface gunnery - it makes a highly complex but historically crucial subject accessible to the layman.
It chronicles the growing aerial threat from its inception in the First World War and the response of each of the major navies down to the end of the Second, highlighting in particular the widely underestimated danger from dive-bombing.

Central to this discussion is an analysis of what effective AA fire-control required, and how well each navy's systems actually worked. It also takes in the weapons themselves, how they were placed on ships, and how this reflected the tactical concepts of naval AA defence.
As would be expected from any Friedman book, it offers striking insights - he argues, for example, that the Royal Navy, so often criticised for lack of 'air-mindedness', was actually the most alert to the threat, but that its systems were inadequate not because they were too primitive but because they tried to achieve too much.

The book summarises the experience of WW2, particularly in theatres where the aerial danger was greatest, and a concluding chapter looks at post-1945 developments that drew on wartime lessons.
All important guns, directors and electronics are represented in close-up photos and drawings, and lengthy appendices detail their technical data. It is, simply, another superb contribution to naval technical history by its leading exponent.