The Destroyer USS Kidd
336 pages
RAdm R G Melly
Printed by Osprey Publishing, The Destroyer USS Kidd is the latest book in the Anatomy of the Ship series, in which the design and construction of individual ships is comprehensively described. The author, Stefan Dramiński, is a renowned naval researcher and illustrator, and his meticulous research is evident in this book. His use of 3D software, to create highly detailed and historically accurate digital models of his subjects is remarkable, and it is well worth looking at his fly-by videos of famous warships posted on YouTube.
In selecting USS Kidd for his analytical treatment, the author has chosen one example of the largest class of destroyer ever built – the Fletcher-class – with 175 vessels coming off the slips between 1942 and 1945. This particular vessel was singled out, as she is one of four surviving hulls maintained as museum ships (three in the USA and one in Greece), and considerable efforts have been made by her curators to bring her back to her September 1945 configuration.
The Fletcher-class proved to be a successful design, and the early ships saw extensive action, primarily in the Pacific arena. With a principal armament of five 5-inch guns, five 21-inch torpedo tubes and depth charges on a full load displacement of 2,940 tons, the USS Kidd had a range of up to 6,400 miles and a maximum speed of 35 knots. The most prominent design flaw was a poor turning circle, but this was corrected in the follow on Sumner-class design, when twin rudders were installed to overcome this problem.
The book addresses its topic in three sections. The first section provides a technical description of the ship and its equipment, along with a history of the destroyer, in diary form, which includes her operational deployments during WWII and the Korean War, and a description of the damage caused by a Kamikaze strike in April 1945; this section is complemented with B&W photographs and tables with technical data. The second and third sections, comprising the major part of the book, contain a remarkable selection of some 600 drawings and 400 colour 3D views; these are presented as ‘primary views’ in Section 2, with the more-detailed drawings of layout, equipment and fittings set out in Section 3.
The back of the cover asserts that the book is “suitable for modelmakers, ship enthusiasts and naval historians”, and I suspect that they have identified the key audience accurately. At £45 (there are better deals available on the internet), this is an expensive diversion, but it is difficult not to admire the expertise of the author, his remarkable attention to detail and his skill in producing this impressive collection of illustrations and drawings.
