Reviewed by Ed Calouro In his introduction (p. 7), Mirosław Skwiot, author of The Battleships of World War Two, Vol. I, notes his book about World War II-era capital ships is a “photo album” with “unique photographic material enriched with the brief combat record of individual battleships.” Skwiot’s objective is to allow readers to visualize
Mark Lardas’s Russian Battleships and Cruisers of the Russo-Japanese War (New Vanguard #275) delves into the little discussed Russo-Japanese War. In particular, the Imperial Russian capital ships that fought in the losing effort against an unexpectedly tough opponent in the first defeat of a European power by an Asian foe, with strong repercussions for all
This 8 by 5-inch paperback book is part of the Casemate Short History series. The book traces the rise and decline of the big gun armored warships from USS Monitor to USS Missouri. The period covered by the author is 1862, the battle between USS Monitor and CSS Virginia, to 1992, with the decommissioning of
For more than two hundred years, from Louis XIV to the twentieth century, France had the second-greatest navy in the world. It was built to challenge England’s control of the seas and enabled the building of the world’s second-largest overseas colonial empire – and American independence into the bargain. France’s navy always built ships of
By Philip Kaplan, Pen & Sword Maritime, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England (2015) Reviewed by Ed Calouro Devotees of big-gun battleships apparently cannot get their fill. In Battleships: WWII Evolution of the Big Guns, prolific author Philip Kaplan has completed his third volume in the “Images of War” series about these warships. In 2004, Kaplan wrote
By Robert C. Stern, Seaforth Publishing, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, Barnsley, South Yorkshire England, (2015) Reviewed by Ed Calouro Robert C. Stern has added yet another authoritative work to his long list of titles about naval warfare written over the past thirty years. Having examined submarines, destroyers, aircraft carriers, kamikazes, and the U.S. Navy
By Roger Parkinson. I. B. Tauris and Co, England (2015) Reviewed by John V. Scholes, MD HMS Dreadnought and the history of the all big gun battleships and battlecruisers that became known collectively as dreadnoughts is a subject that has been addressed from several aspects. In works on the design and characteristics of battleships (and
By William Weatherly [Capt. George Jackson, USN (Ret.)], iUniverse (2014) Reviewed by Jason McHale What if the Washington Naval Conference collapsed and its terms were never ratified? What if the post-World War naval buildup continued unabated until the Second World War? Sheppard of the Argonne is set in an alternate history where those questions become
By Matthew T. Eng Battleship guns helped win the Second World War. What about the race to the moon? Bob Fish, author and USS Hornet Museum trustee, recently visited NASA’s AMES Research Center in Sunnyvale, CA, to investigate the possibility of cooperation and collaboration of STEM-related programming. While there, Bob visited the Hypervelocity Flight Test Facility
By Robert J. Winklareth, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, PA. (2012). Reviewed by Richard P. Hallion, Ph.D The fateful encounter between the Bismarck, Prinz Eugen, Hood, and Prince of Wales at 0600 on the morning of 24 May 1941 midway between Iceland and Greenland has drawn the attention of numerous authors and analysts. It even inspired a now-classic
Edited by Vincent P. O’Hara, W. David Dickson, and Richard Worth, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, (2013). Reviewed by Alan M. Anderson The approaching centenary of the First World War continues to generate many new works of scholarship. Most volumes will be devoted to land campaigns, whose images of trench warfare and the slaughter of
