British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After

This is an enormously comprehensive volume of that most successful of WW2 British warships - the cruiser..The wealth of detail actually illustrates the enormous experience and care lavished on these ships which led to their surprising success during the war against opponents who were clearly superior - on paper.A minor cavil is the sometimes overwhelming detail on the office disputes between DNC, DofE,DofA and etc. Why not just say "After some dispute in the Admiralty....(Hopefully over a pink gin and cigars) ...such and such was decided. Also I'm certain there should be more mention of the nation's budget constraints. In the 20's and 30's, Britain was far from being a rich country.More seriously, there is a great amount of detail on defensive armour but not sufficient information on offensive weapons. Main armament and torpedoes are covered well but secondary and close range AA are not well explained or assessed.The photos are prolific and perhaps very meaningful. The RN cruisers are in no way spectacular in appearance. None have the bristling guns and turrets of Mogami or Brooklyn and they just don't have the racy lines of the Italians. They look like working ships, which lived long enough to change their details and appearance and just keep working; which they did.Don't let these criticisms put you off the book because, in the end, every student of naval history will call this volume 'The Book".

This kind of book is author Norman Friedman's bread and butter, a design history of a particular class of warship of one nation over an extended period. This book covers British cruisers from the pre World War I "Town" class through the Invincible "through deck cruisers" of recent times. An appendix covers the cruiser sized fast minelayers. Cruiser designs offered for export are covered at the ends of chapters by heavily captioned builder's drawings.As is typical of Friedman's book it's a pretty dense read; it is literally packed with information. This is not the sort of book that can be read in small segments over a long period of time. Neither is it one that can be comfortably read at a few sittings. The book has 11 chapters and one chapter like appendix; my recommendation is to allot time for a chapter at a time. The book is of a size makes reading any other way than sitting at a desk or a table something of a chore.The book is structured in such a way that the reader feels he is reading three books at the same time. There is the main text, the very extensive (sometimes page long) captions to the drawings and photos, and the copious notes. In fairness, it's hard to see what else could have been done.The line drawings are of universally high quality. They are always presented left to right across the page. This makes them somewhat small. Cruisers are of a size that drawings from bottom of page to top of page would be more satisfactory like in the author's book on US cruisers. No doubt space was a consideration. Both plan and deck views are included. More inboard profiles would have been welcome. As it is, the builder's drawings of designs for export are the most detailed in this regard.The photos are adequately but not outstandingly reproduced. Some are very small making it hard to pick out details, some are two page spreads. There is not much in the way of on board closeups.It will no doubt be wondered how this book compares with Raven and Roberts' British Cruisers of World War II. The current book is much more comprehensive and the coverage extends both earlier and later than the earlier book. On the other hand the photos and drawings in Raven and Roberts are better reproduced, larger, and include more closeup views. One also appreciates that Raven and Roberts tabularized a lot designs in their main text; Friedman prefers to describe designs one at a time. In short, the general enthusiast will no doubt prefer Friedman but the modeller will probably appreciate Raven and Roberts more.This book is highly recommended. It will no doubt be the definitive book on the subject. Friedman is working on a book covering British cruisers of the earlier period but it will also cover the battlecruisers given their armored cruiser antecedents. I can hardly wait.

Good view of the technical aspects, very little combat narrative.

Like all of Stormin’ Norman’s works this book has almost too much information. Almost.

Friedman covers them all in this one. A must have if your serious about your facts

Many consider Cruisers the most important type of ship the Royal Navy had in World War II. This book gives a very detailed description of every class of cruiser built for the Royal Navy from the first cruisers starting in the late 1800s the the last ones to be built for England. An essential book for anyone DEEPLY interested in this topic. However, for a person interested just in the 1939-1945 war, the "Navies of the Second World" volume entilted British Cruisers contains all the information needed.

Another great book from Friedman

This book follows the development of Royal Navy cruisers from the end of WWI to the 1980s. Like all of Friedman's books on U.S. warships, this one provides detailed historical information on the development of each class of cruisers and on many design studies that led to those ships that were actually built. The scale drawings are fascinating! As I read this book, it was something of a downer. I say this because Friedman shows his readers that the Royal Navy was forced to choose between numbers of cruisers on one hand and firepower and protection on the other, due to Britain emerging from WWI nearly bankrupt--WWII finished the job and the Atlee government buried it. The book becomes a metaphor for Britain's decline from 1919 onward.

This book is a good account of the development of Royal Navy cruisers by one of the world's foremost authorities on naval matters. It goes into a fair amount of technical detail in the design history of these ships and the constraints on them.There is a lot of information and in some places it is a bit indigestible. That being said there is a lot to cover.If you want something lighter then British Cruisers of World War 2 by Alan Raven and John Roberts is the book for you.

A typically detailed work by Friedman, but it reads poorly as a narrative. Many classes are referred back to in subsequent chapters which relate to various treaties and so on, so you can be left with strong feelings of deja vu from one chapter to the next.Nonetheless, impeccably detailed, terrific photos and a valuable work of reference for any RN enthusiast or model maker.

I was after a comprehensive work on British cruisers and l wasnt prepared to pay the prices on ebay and Amazon for Raven and Roberts classic work. Im very pleased with my copy, well written, informative. Excellent photographs and plans. Also refreshing not to have criticisms of the various classes to. Section on possible post war cruisers was very interesting to. For the past thirty years l have bought very few "naval books" as my prime interest is the merchant navy. This book is excellent and will be very useful for would be modellers to

very nice book perfect for info for my model boat

Very interesting