Battleships and Battle Cruisers, 1905-1970: Historical Development of the Capital Ship

Crammed with data, often using symbols and icons to save space. Even the humble boat crane gets a special symbol. Drawings are not quite to the standard of Raven and Burt, but compensate by having such a quantity, all in the same scale, by the same artist. This makes it an excellent wargamers resource. However, you have to wade through a breathlessly enthusiastic analysis of all things German. German ships are "excellent", a "triumph of warship design", reach a "peak of perfection", and so on. Breyer's utter contempt for British ships, designers and strategy is unbecoming. They are "doubtful and poor", "inadequate", "extremely poor". Yet features ridiculed on British ships (e.g. Agincourt, lots of turrets = "bound to affect adversely the strength of the ship") he exalts on German ships (e.g. Nassau class, lots of turrets = firepower on disengaged side!). Thus his bitterness spoils his commentary. Breyer even claims the all-big-gun revolution of the Dreadnought was anticipated by a German ship of 15 years earlier.

Breyer manages to provide the reader with a work packed with all sorts of technical and historical goodies. Loaded with tables, schematics, and other data, this single volume encyclopedia gives the reader with a wide body of data to draw from. Armor, guns, machinery, modifications, line drawings, this has it all. The book is in need of an update, but still extremely useful for the warship enthusiast or historian. Some might complain that Breyer doesn't give the right amount of hardtack in a ship's galley. Nevertheless, this extensive work is worth having on your bookshelf.

It is most unfortunate if you were too late to acquire a copy of this out-of-print classic when it was published. After more than 25 years, it is still my favorite book on the subject, and the only title in my collection for which I own 2 copies. Although it has been surpassed by later works in depth of detail, it is, in my opinion, the finest overall book in its class. The format is unique; no photographs; superb line drawings in constant scale; a uniform format for data and symbolic abbreviations; ship-by-ship histories; and much more. It is a purists delight of detail, and yet contains syntheses and conclusions drawn from the facts presented. Translated from German, the author covers all battleships and battlecruisers built or projected since HMS Dreadnought into all their offshoots -- if they were converted into carriers, the book details the carrier. The only flaw with the book is an arguable bias toward German ship designs although it is hard to dispute that the WW1 Lutzow and WW2 Bismarck classes were indeed "among the best ever built". The same thing could easily be said about the Queen Elizabeth or New Jersey classes but wasn't. However, that's a trifle; if you don't have a copy, put it down as number one on your search list.