Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921

From Foreword: "This volume completes the 'Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships' series, and with it the monumental task of describing all the major warships from the advent of the ironclad down to the present day. As with the rest of the series, the aim is three-fold: to provide a single manageable source of information on the warships of the period; to make that information as detailed, reliable and up-to-date as possible by the critical use of both new research and published material; to fill out the bare technical data, wherever possible, with notes on the rationale of the design, and to give an overview of the political and economic factors affecting the navies themselves. The period runs from the introduction of the 'Dreadnought' to the Washington Naval Treaty, which effectively called a halt to the post-war naval construction race, although the coverage is designed to dovetail exactly into the 1860-1905 and 1922-1946 volumes, so the commencement and finishing dates may vary slightly from section to seciton. Classes of ship of cruiser-size and upward are usually represented by both a photograph and a line drawing. Wherever possible these are complementary, depicting either different sister-ships, or the same ship at different times, and the captions are dated as accurately as possible. " ***** CONTENTS: THE GREAT POWERS * Great Britain (including Empire Forces) * USA * Germany * France * Japan * Italy * Russia * Austria-Hungary COAST DEFENSE NAVIES Northern Europe: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands Southern Europe: Portugal, Spain, Greece Asia: Turkey, China South America: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Peru Minor Navies: Belgium * Bulgaria * Cambodia * Columbia * Costa Rica * Cuba * Dominican Republic * Ecuador * Egypt * Estonia * Finland * Haiti * Honduras * Latvia * Liberia * Mexico * Morocco * Nicaragua * Paraguay * Persia * Poland * Rumania * San Salvador * Sarawak * Siam * Uruguay * Venezuela * Yugoslavia * Zanzibar

Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 is the second in a series of 4 volumes which, as the title suggests, lists all the worlds fighting ships built between 1860 and 1995. During the period covered by this book the world's first great arms race was still running a full speed whereby, as one country built a big battleship - so another would simply design one that was even bigger. Conway Maritime Press are well known for their factual books on ships - especially warships, in which they provide the finest technical documentation. This item is a hard-back book with 440 pages of detailed and factual information. After a brief foreword and an explanation of abbreviations used, we find three main headings; The world's great powers, coast defence navies and minor navies. Under each of these headings all the relevant ships are then listed by country. Displayed by "class" of ship, each section then commences with the largest vessels operated by that country and progresses all the way down to the smallest craft with the oldest ships appearing first. For each class there is one or more line drawings which have become Conway's trademark. These are followed by all the usual technical details; Displacement, dimensions, machinery, armour, armament and complement followed by the names of each ship within that class - it's builder, date laid down, date completed and fate. Each of these is accompanied by a very "readable" text from which we learn of the political intrigue of the day, variations between vessels, refits, new equipment, whatever defects or other problems that beset either the class or a specific ship and a short résumé of the fate of each vessel. The book is well illustrated with an excellent selection of historic black and white original photographs throughout with at least one picture on almost every page. In summary, this is an excellent technical work of reference and one which will continue to stand the test of time. Put another way, this is one of those books you will wish you had bought - after it becomes out of print. NM

The best book of it's type. While Jane's for the same general period is a collection of period work, complete with incorrect data used at the time, Conway's is an accurate library of the warships of the day.

This book, together with the other of the serie that cover the period from 1860 to the present, is an outstanding one, the ideal reference book for the person looking for informations about the evolution of the modern warships through the description of the ship themselves. The book is divided into sections, each dealing with one nation's navy; the ships of every nation are grouped by type and each class is described by a brief textual introduction, a tabular description with the main ships' detail (size, machinery, artillery, armour and so on) and, for each ship, the building dates and the fate. The textual description is, at least for the greater ship category (battleship, carriers and cruisers) quite detailed and reports a lot of interesting data about the building, the machinery, the operational career and some other interesting stuffs. There is a good number of very good drawings and photographs (not as detailed as a ship modeler would hope, but this book is not for the modeler) and you can find in the books every nation that ever possessed a warship. A "must have" for every naval enthusiast!

Conways has always been the most reliable of all the warship histories books. Including specifications, histories, and pictures/drawings of all the ships. A history of each countries navy (during the 1906-1921 era) at the beginning of each nationality listing gives you good reference to understand the type of ships each nation needed and used. This book is very interesting for the World War One expert and/or naval historian or simply a warship lover. I use this book to look at various ships for radio control warship combat. I love this book and look at it many times a week and will buy all the rest of the series of books (Conway All the Worlds Fighting Ships). If you are at all interested in naval warships, definitely buy this book.