Kaiserliche Marine (jusqu'à 1918) - Allemagne : livres

German Battlecruisers of World War One - Their Design, Construction and Operations

This is the most comprehensive study yet in the English language of the German Imperial Navy's battlecruisers that served in the First World War. Known as Panzerkreuzer, literally 'armoured cruiser', the eight ships of the class were to be involved in several early North Sea skirmishes before the great pitched battle of Jutland where they inflicted devastating damage on the Royal Navy's battlecruiser fleet.

In this book the author details their design and construction, and traces the full service history of each ship, recounting their actions, largely from first-hand German sources and official documents, many previously unpublished in English. Detailed line drawings and maps augment the text throughout, as do a wealth of contemporary photos that depict the vessels at sea as well as in dock, where details of damage sustained in action and many aspects of their design can be viewed in close up. A superb series of full-colour, specially-commissioned computer graphics show full length profiles and top-down views of each ship in precise and clear detail.
This stunning book is a major new contribution to German naval history and will become a 'must-have' volume on the shelves of historians, enthusiasts and modellers and indeed for anyone interested in the navies of the First World War and steel warships in general.

German Battlecruisers 1914-18 (Osprey)

The task of Germany's new Grosse Kreuzer at the beginning of the 20th century was to form an independent reconnaissance division that was able to perform special tasks. With a speed superiority of at least 3 knots, they should also be capable of fighting in the line, and would thus require heavy armour and good defensive qualities.
The battlecruisers that were built did indeed have a remarkable ability to withstand battle damage, as demonstrated by the Goeben, which suffered five mine hits on one occasion.

This title details all the classes of German battlecruiser, with particular emphasis on each individual ship's battle experience and deployment in conflict.

Contents: Introduction - Design Philosophy - Fiscal restraints - Technical Development - Service History - Battle Damage - Appendix - Bibliography - Index.

German Battlecruisers : Of the First World War (Ship Craft)

This volume in the ShipCraft series is devoted to the famous ships of Admiral Hipper's First Scouting Group. Slower but more robust than their British equivalents, German battlecruisers enjoyed a reputation for absorbing punishment, and although Lützow was sunk at Jutland, Seydlitz and the rest of the Scouting Group survived heavy damage.
This book concentrates on the seven completed ships but coverage extends to the 'proto-battlecruiser' Blücher and the ships building or designed by the end of the war.

The 'ShipCraft' series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sisterships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans.

The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic survey of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references - books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.

British Battlecruiser vs German Battlecruiser - 1914-16 (Osprey)

The rival battlecruisers first clashed in January 1915 at Dogger Bank in the North Sea and although the battle was a British tactical victory with neither side losing any of its battlecruisers, the differences in the designs of the British and German ships were already apparent.
The two sides responded very differently to this first clash; while the Germans improved their ammunition-handling procedures to lessen the risk of disabling explosions, the British drew the opposite lesson and stockpiled ammunition in an effort to improve their rate of fire, rendering their battlecruisers more vulnerable.
These differences were highlighted more starkly during the battle of Jutland in May 1916. Of the nine British battlecruisers committed, three were destroyed, all by their German counterparts. Five German battlecruisers were present, and of these, only one was sunk and the remainder damaged.
Fully illustrated with specially commissioned artwork, this is the gripping story of the clash between the rival battlecruisers of the Royal Navy and the Kaiserliche Marine at the height of World War I.