British Cruisers: Two World Wars and After

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.

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 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".

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

Too long successive delays for delivery. Otherwise, good as expected.

Hubby loves the book, great price. Shipped with care. Thank you!!

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.

A good text. Excellent photos. Much appreciated. Realize that more scale drawings would have pushed the price of publishing out of my reach. Nevertheless, an excellent reference!

This book is a very densely packed source of information regarding British cruisers and cruiser designs. I have no hesitation in recommending it. I should point out, however, that there is a serious mistake in this volume regarding design differences between the USN's Mark 33 and 37 GFCS and the RN's HACS. Friedman states, quite incorrectly on pages 237 and 342, that the USN Mk 37 GFCS used gyros to measure the range rates of target aircraft. In fact it was the RN that pioneered this technique, in 1940, on the RN's Mk IV Pom-pom director, and on the Mk III and IV HADT, through the Gyro Rate Unit (GRU) add ons. See: "British Battleships of World War Two, by Raven & Roberts", P.378: "The design of this last item, known as the GRU was begun in 1937, and was intended for use in the HACS, although it was also fitted in pom-pom and barrage directors. By means of a gyroscope, it could measure vertical and lateral movements of a target which, when provided with radar ranging, provided a fast and accurate system of fire-control". On HACS, GRU fed a specialized computer, Gyro Rate Unit Box (GRUB) that into turn transmitted data to the HACS computer. The USN did not use gyros to measure aircraft range rates until the Mk 14 gun-sight appeared in 1942, while the 1945 Mk 56 was the first USN GFCS to do so. Regarding Mr Campbell's review, he is incorrect in stating that the USN used gyros to measure range rates; they did not, except in the Mk 14 gyro gunsight and it's derivatives. The gyros he is referring to provided a stable vertical reference while the range rates were measured by a mechanical computer using inputs from the optical sights via electromechanical connections, not by a gyroscope mechanically linked to the observer's monocular sight, as in the GRU/GRUB. HACS III and later were also "regenerative" systems and HACS IVGB and HACS V could control the HADT via RPC (Remote Power Control), using the computer generated range rate and both HACS IVGB and HACS V had dual axis stabilization for the HADT, which when combined with computer generated output, provided the same degree of stabilization as the USN's Mk 37 systems. See Pout's article: "Weapon Control in the Royal Navy 1935-45" in the book: "The Application of Radar and other Electronic Systems in the Royal Navy in WW2", (Kingsley-editor), for more information on the HACS. A brief description of the Mk IV Pom-Pom director and it's use of the GRU can be found in The Gunnery Pocket Book at the Historic Naval Ships Association website.

I did not find this book as readable or as interesting as previous Friedman books (I own eleven). It is a very complete history of all the cruiser designs from 1909 onward, from the point at which radio communication changed the role of trade protection cruisers. He describes every design that was built, all of the alternatives considered in the decision, and all the designs that were studied but never led to any construction. He then describes the numerous changes and additions that were made through both World Wars and on into the missile age. Most of these were to AA armament and radars and so this book is invaluable for painters or modelers who want to get these details right at any point in the ships history. But there is almost no reference to the operational success or failure of the various classes and the choices made. Occasionally there is mention of such and such ship being bombed so more deck armor was needed, or that ship was sunk so more AA protection was wanted. I would have liked more detail about these failures and how the Admiralty analysed them to produce the requirements for the next design or refit but we are just given the requirements without much explanation.

Ein sich würdig in die Reihe der vorzüglichen Friedman-Bücher einreihender Band, der auch dem, der frühere Monografien über die Kreuzer der britischen Flotte im Zweiten Weltkrieg besitzt, viel neues bietet, nicht zuletzt bisher unbekannte Bilder!

Even after reading the description & dimensions I wasn't expecting it to be so large + have such heft to it . A very good read chalk full of wonderful knowledge that has been written exceptionally well & easy to follow .

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