US Navy Cold War Guided Missile Cruisers (New Vanguard, 278)

The early years of the Cold War brought an increasing threat at sea to U.S. Navy aircraft carriers, in the form of Soviet aircraft. The U.S. Navy sought to rapidly develop air defense missile systems, and to install them on cruisers, traditionally dedicated to the protection of aircraft carriers. This Osprey New Vanguard Series book by veteran naval historian Mark Stille explores the Cold War U.S. Navy guided missile cruisers.The book steps rapidly through a series of classes of guided missile cruisers, beginning with repurposed World War II vessels and ending with the nuclear-powered cruiser classes of the 1960's. Along the way, the author explores the struggle to field capable guided missile systems against evolving threats. The text includes lots of period photographs and modern illustrations and diagrams, along with representative data by class. This is a short book at under 50 pages, but it provides an informative and very educational introduction to the topic for the student of naval warfare and the general reader. Well recommended.

Solid info, great insight on such an important time in the US Navy's modern development. However, if you're looking for a reference for model building, it comes up short in that regard. Virtually no close up photos (although to be fair there may not be that many in existence) showing details in the build of the ships.

The book isn't that big, and at first it disappointed me.Then I opened it up and read it and loved it! It 'fills in' details that bigger more formulaic books pass over. This book and the Russian cruisers book were ordered together and I love them and they hold important places in my Naval library.

I'm a huge fan of the New Vanguard series books. This is again a very well written and illustrated book. Goes through the evolution of guided missile systems in the US Navy.

A quick read and a nice summary of the pre-Aegis cruisers. Ok as a place to start on the subject, but might have been better with a bit more technical details. Hope Mark will write a similar New Vanguard book on the Ticondaroga-class as a follow up. Preferably with more technical details on the various C&C systems. Maybe a book focused solely on the Aegis combat system itself?

Really liked the photos, some I had never seen before, and the wealth of historical data.

Answered a lot of questions.

This has an informative text and is well illustrated with both photos and art.