British Battlecruisers 1939-45: No. 88 (New Vanguard)

This is another concise book: it relates the realisation, during WWI, that battle-cruisers were vulnerable to the shells from guns of increasing calibre. The Hood, completed in 1920, was the pride of the Royal Navy; but remedying the known weaknesses of her armour, particularly her vulnerability to shells falling from a higher trajectory, was sacrificed to showing her majesty around the world. The Repulse was sunk, as a result of a strategic blunder that sent into range of Japanese aircraft, without any air protection. The Renown served with distinction throughout WWII, and, as a result of extensive modernisation, was - which the Book makes clear - a thoroughly-modern battleship. The decision to scrap her vindicates the judgement of shortsightedness. The Renown, the fastest capital ship in the Royal Navy, was scrapped because `she would be unable to keep up with more modern ships'. Reading the book serves to expose the folly.

This booklet, from Osprey Publishing’s ‘Vanguard’ series on the ‘hardware’ of warfare, is an interesting account of the careers of the surviving British Battlecruisers after the Great War.The author, though covering that career very well, does still fall into the trap of repeating the British Admiralty‘s cover story regarding the faults of this class of warship, one which the author of the Osprey ‘Vanguard’ volume on “German Battlecruisers 1914-18” dismisses (and was exposed in Andrew Gordon’s “The Rules of the Game: Jutland and British Naval Command” published in 1996).The battlecruisers were originally envisioned by Admiral Jackie Fisher as a new class of warship designed to hunt down enemy cruisers and protect the trade routes of the British Empire, something that they were so successful at that their job was over by the end of 1914.They then found another job as fast support vessels for the British light forces raiding across the North Sea, where they fought engagements at Heligoland and Dogger Bank with their German counterparts.Their most famous action was as the scouting force for the Grand Fleet at Jutland, where three of the ships were lost – not to inferior armour, which was a ‘cover story’ to hush up the fact that it was a disregard for safety issues that led to Cordite fires in the barbettes that then led to disastrous explosions, something that had happened to the German Battlecruisers in those earlier engagements, but whose crews managed to flood their magazines before catastrophe struck, and then take the appropriate precautions to prevent a recurrence. The British, not having learned that lesson yet, discovered the problem at Jutland.The surviving British battlecruisers took many hits at the battle, but their armour held up, proving that it wasn’t the cause of the disasters, and the German Battlecruisers were mostly reduced to floating wrecks by the British.After the Great War, and the various naval treaties of the post-war period, the numbers of Battlecruisers were greatly reduced, some being converted into aircraft carriers even before the war was over, and only a handful survived into the Second World War, where their careers and technical details are described here.Note that the American, German and Japanese navies also struggled with the concept of the ‘battlecruiser’, where they were or became heavy- or armoured-cruisers, all of which had the same problems as the battlecruiser, and suffered accordingly.This booklet is well-written and illustrated, and is quite easy to read and informative, with excellent contemporary monochrome illustrations. The colour plates are a bit disappointing, possibly due to the quality of the current ‘print on demand’ system, and may look better in an original copy.

A good osprey title packed with information and details on the battlecruisers Repulse, Hood, etc. that britain produced between the two wars.I have learned a few things on these boats that I was not familiar with. The battlecruiser concept is well explained the author successfully made me understand their role and failures.It is also well illustrated and the author's writing style is fluid and clear. However, I found the photographs and plates slightly repetitive. A bit more photographs of the inside of the boats, or of crewmen would have been welcome and more lively. Also, the book was a bit light in "construction" of the behemoths.Finally, the maps are a good addition. The plates are beautiful and illustrate the text perfectly.Exactly what I am expecting of an osprey title.

A must for those interested in maritime history and modelling alike.

Always good for pocket sized information.

This is a great book with lots of relevant information and great pictures.

GOOD BOOK

Nice book,very quick despatch.