British Town Class Cruisers

British Town Class Cruisers PDF

Author: Conrad Waters

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2019-11-18

Total Pages: 617

ISBN-13: 1526718871

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This scholarly study of the Royal Navy’s WWII light cruisers presents extensive design, performance, and engagement analysis of each ship. When the Second World War began, the ten British ‘Town’ class cruisers were the most modern vessels of their type in the Royal Navy. Primarily designed for the defense of trade, they played decisive roles in victories such as the Battle of the Barents Sea and the destruction of the German Scharnhorst at the North Cape. They also paid a heavy price: four of the ships were lost and the other six sustained serious damage. In this major study, Conrad Waters provides a technical evaluation of the ‘Town’ class design and its subsequent performance. He outlines the class’s origins in the context of inter-war cruiser policy, explains the design and construction process, and describes the characteristics of the resulting ships and how these were adapted in the light of wartime developments. An overview of service focuses on major engagements and presents detailed assessments of action damage. Concluding chapters explore the the modernization program that kept the remaining ships fit for service during the Cold War era. Heavily illustrated with contemporary photographs and expert drawings, British Town Class Cruisers provides a definitive reference to one of the Royal Navy’s most important warship designs.

German Heavy Cruisers vs Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers

German Heavy Cruisers vs Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers PDF

Author: Mark Lardas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-19

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 147284310X

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This superbly illustrated study explores the epic clashes of British and German heavy cruisers at the beginning of World War II. The opposing heavy cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy engaged in a global game of cat and mouse during the opening years of World War II. This was a period in which the heavy cruiser still reigned supreme in open waters, with the opposing sides reluctant to risk their battleships, and aircraft yet to dominate the seas. These swift vessels fought each other in the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, the frigid waters of the Denmark Strait and the Arctic approaches to Russia, capturing the public imagination in the process. This fascinating and beautifully illustrated book examines the design, development and technical performance of these opposing warships, and explores the clashes between them at the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, the Christmas Day Battle 1940 and the Battle of the Denmark Strait in May 1941. The ships examined include the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe and Admiral Hipper-class cruisers, and the Royal Navy County- and York-class heavy cruisers.

County Class Cruisers

County Class Cruisers PDF

Author: Les Brown

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2011-12-05

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 1848321279

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The ‘ShipCraft’ series provides in-depth information about building and modifying model kits of famous warship types. Lavishly illustrated, each book takes the modeller through a brief history of the subject class, highlighting differences between sister-ships and changes in their appearance over their careers. This includes paint schemes and camouflage, featuring colour profiles and highly-detailed line drawings and scale plans. The modelling section reviews the strengths and weaknesses of available kits, lists commercial accessory sets for super-detailing of the ships, and provides hints on modifying and improving the basic kit. This is followed by an extensive photographic gallery of selected high-quality models in a variety of scales, and the book concludes with a section on research references – books, monographs, large-scale plans and relevant websites.??This volume covers the British 10,000-ton ‘Treaty Cruisers’, thirteen of which were built to three slightly varying designs between the wars. With three funnels and a high freeboard, they were impressive ships, and all enjoyed very active wartime careers - three were involved in the Bismarck action and another with the sinking of the Scharnhorst.

German Heavy Cruisers vs Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers

German Heavy Cruisers vs Royal Navy Heavy Cruisers PDF

Author: Mark Lardas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2021-08-19

Total Pages: 81

ISBN-13: 147284307X

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This superbly illustrated study explores the epic clashes of British and German heavy cruisers at the beginning of World War II. The opposing heavy cruisers of the German Kriegsmarine and the Royal Navy engaged in a global game of cat and mouse during the opening years of World War II. This was a period in which the heavy cruiser still reigned supreme in open waters, with the opposing sides reluctant to risk their battleships, and aircraft yet to dominate the seas. These swift vessels fought each other in the South Atlantic, North Atlantic, the frigid waters of the Denmark Strait and the Arctic approaches to Russia, capturing the public imagination in the process. This fascinating and beautifully illustrated book examines the design, development and technical performance of these opposing warships, and explores the clashes between them at the Battle of the River Plate in December 1939, the Christmas Day Battle 1940 and the Battle of the Denmark Strait in May 1941. The ships examined include the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe and Admiral Hipper-class cruisers, and the Royal Navy County- and York-class heavy cruisers.

British Heavy Cruisers 1939–45

British Heavy Cruisers 1939–45 PDF

Author: Angus Konstam

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-20

Total Pages: 79

ISBN-13: 1780964307

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The idea of a heavy cruiser emerged in the aftermath of World War I, and was closely linked to the limits set by the inter-war Washington Naval Treaty. The pre-World War I concept of armoured cruisers had been abandoned, but in their stead the Admiralty saw a place for powerful cruisers, able to patrol the sea lanes of the British Empire, and which were well-armed enough that they could destroy enemy commerce cruisers. The result was a group of British warships, known as the 'Washington Treaty Cruisers', that did everything the Admiralty wanted, but which conformed to the limits imposed by the treaty. These impressive cruisers were high-sided, spacious and stately – perfect peacetime ambassadors for British power. In war they also packed a considerable punch. During World War II the Royal Navy's thirteen heavy cruisers saw service in every theatre of the war, whether facing the Bismarck in the North Atlantic or enduring kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.

British Cruisers

British Cruisers PDF

Author: Norman Friedman

Publisher: Seaforth Publishing

Published: 2011-01-24

Total Pages: 680

ISBN-13: 1783469188

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“An extraordinarily detailed account of the development of Royal Navy cruisers . . . a towering work” from the author of Fighting the Great War at Sea (Warship 2012). For most of the twentieth century, Britain possessed both the world’s largest merchant fleet and its most extensive overseas territories. It is not surprising, therefore, that the Royal Navy always showed a particular interest in the cruiser—a multipurpose warship needed in large numbers to defend trade routes and police the empire. Above all other types, the cruiser’s competing demands of quality and quantity placed a heavy burden on designers, and for most of the interwar period, Britain sought to square this circle through international treaties restricting both size and numbers. In the process, she virtually invented the heavy cruiser and inspired the large 6in-armed cruiser, neither of which, ironically, served her best interests. This book seeks to comprehend, for the first time, the full policy background—from which a different and entirely original picture of British cruiser development emerges. After the war, the cruiser’s role was reconsidered, and the final chapters of the book cover modernizations, the plans for missile-armed ships, and the convoluted process that turned the “through-deck cruiser” into the Invincible class light carriers. With detailed appendices of ship data, and illustrated in depth with photos and A.D. Baker’s specially commissioned plans, British Cruisers truly matches the lofty standards set by Friedman’s previous books on British destroyers. “Wow! . . . Lavishly illustrated with a photograph or line plan on almost every page. The text is packed with technical information, detail, and description of design, construction and application of these important ships.” —Clash of Steel

British Heavy Cruisers 1939–45

British Heavy Cruisers 1939–45 PDF

Author: Angus Konstam

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-05-20

Total Pages: 50

ISBN-13: 1849086850

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The idea of a heavy cruiser emerged in the aftermath of World War I, and was closely linked to the limits set by the inter-war Washington Naval Treaty. The pre-World War I concept of armoured cruisers had been abandoned, but in their stead the Admiralty saw a place for powerful cruisers, able to patrol the sea lanes of the British Empire, and which were well-armed enough that they could destroy enemy commerce cruisers. The result was a group of British warships, known as the 'Washington Treaty Cruisers', that did everything the Admiralty wanted, but which conformed to the limits imposed by the treaty. These impressive cruisers were high-sided, spacious and stately – perfect peacetime ambassadors for British power. In war they also packed a considerable punch. During World War II the Royal Navy's thirteen heavy cruisers saw service in every theatre of the war, whether facing the Bismarck in the North Atlantic or enduring kamikaze attacks in the Pacific.

The Modern Cruiser

The Modern Cruiser PDF

Author: Robert C. Stern

Publisher:

Published: 2020-05

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 9781526737915

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This book sets out to provide a coherent history of the fortunes of this ship-type in the twentieth century. It begins with a brief summary of development before the World War I and an account of a few notable cruiser actions during that conflict that helped define what cruisers would look like in the post-war world. The core of the book is devoted to the impact of the naval disarmament treaty process, which concentrated to a great extent on attempting to define limits to the numbers and size of cruisers that could be built, in the process creating the 'treaty cruiser' as a type that had never existed before and that existed solely because of the treaty process. How the cruisers of the treaty era performed in World War II forms the final focus of the book, which concludes with a look at the fate of the cruiser-type since 1945.

Russian Battleships and Cruisers of the Russo-Japanese War

Russian Battleships and Cruisers of the Russo-Japanese War PDF

Author: Mark Lardas

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-10-31

Total Pages: 49

ISBN-13: 1472835077

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This book examines the major warships of the Imperial Russian Navy which participated in the Russo-Japanese War. The focus is on the battleships, coastal defence warships, and cruisers of the Pacific Squadron and Baltic Squadron that fought during the war. It discusses in detail their design and development between the years of 1885 and 1905, concentrating particularly on battleships and cruisers. The book explores, in depth, the mutually influential relationship between Russian and foreign warship design, as Russia progressed from a reliance on foreign designs and shipyards towards an ability to produce its own influential ships, such as the Novik. The title also outlines the gripping operational history of the Russian warships which participated in the Russo-Japanese war, tracing their activity before and during the combat, as well as the post-war fate of those ships which were bombarded, scuttled, captured, or salvaged. Packed with contemporary photography and full-colour illustrations, this title offers a detailed and definitive guide to the design, development, and destiny of the Russian warships which battled the Japanese in the Eastern seas.