Warship 2025

224 pages

John Roberts

Warship goes back over 45 years and always manages to come up with a good, wide and interesting selection of fascinating international articles by a dozen established naval contributors, with several subjects being serialised. Whilst there is no overall theme the subjects concentrate on pre-World War I and II warship design and development. The main section is backed up with the usual intriguing ‘Warship Notes’ (short articles and notes highlighting little known aspects of warship history). It also includes 32 ‘Naval Books of the Year’ reviews and ‘Warship Gallery’ (29 grainy snap shots by H C Sparrow, Royal Marines, during his time on the China Station and in the Eastern Mediterranean 1927-1930). And of course it has plenty of John Jordan’s excellent trademark diagrams. It certainly appears to be as popular as ever and with good reason.

The 10 feature articles of the main section cover foreign navies from the designs and reconstructions of Japanese, Russian and Italian battlecruisers to Danish and Soviet submarines. Surprisingly no articles on the US Navy and only one on the Royal Navy, a technical article on the very successful twin 6in Mk XXI turrets, which armed the Leander and Arethusa classes of light cruisers.

The lead article, on the reconstruction of the Imperial Japanese capital ships between the wars (Part I), concentrates on the modernisation of the Kongo-class battlecruisers. Hans Lengerer makes the point that WWI had transformed naval warfare with major advances creating urgent needs for much greater protection against aircraft and submarines, requiring hull bulges/blisters and anti-air deck protection.  At the same time, they were severely handicapped by the tonnage and numbers constraints of the Washington and London Naval Treaties. Nevertheless, the prime aim of the Japanese was to outgun (outrange) their US counterparts in ‘Kantai Kessen’ – the decisive battle, where they were outnumbered. This entailed, extra high angled guns, up to 33 degrees, to increase the range out to 30,000 meters. As well as faster speeds and greater manoeuvrability.

Dirk Nottelmann’s article on the development of Germany Navy torpedo boats from 1870-1918, with their ambitious role, ultimately unfulfilled, is neatly counterposed by John Jordan’s article on the 300-tonnes French Navy torpedo boat destroyers 1899-1910 developed to counter the real threat of the emerging fast torpedo boats to the vulnerable battlefleets. John Jordan covers their busy deployment and losses in WWI.

Michele Cosentino considers interwar design of capital ships of the Regia Marina, concentrating on proposed battlecruisers in competition with their French counterparts and the emergence of the German Panzerschiff. He explains how the design of the Zara-class heavy cruisers (handsome ships) influenced the subsequent design of follow on heavy cruisers, light cruisers and battlecruisers. He concludes that in the end the Regia Marina decided to concentrate available resources on modernising the older battleships and construct the Littorio-class battleships.

Przemyslaw Budzbon takes the pre-WWII secretly designed German ‘S’ Class submarines as the best of the early Soviet submarines and the beginnings of Soviet naval power. He follows design from the ‘N’ class to the ‘S’ class, and then into the serious production of the 55 boats, which proved so much better and more successful than the subsequent Soviet designed boats. Interestingly, at the beginning of the war Raeder wanted to build U-boats in Soviet yards far from the range of British air power but Hitler refused as he did not want Stalin to know the serious weaknesses of the Kriegsmarine. In June 1941 the Germans captured S-1 intact and considered her weaker than the German Type VIIC and IXC U-boats.

Conrad Waters includes an intriguing insight into ‘Writing on Naval History for Beginners’ at the end of the Warship Notes section. He realistically emphasises the difficulties, including the niche market (does not mention that it is possibly overcrowded), copyright problems, the crucial importance of design and that it will certainly never be financially lucrative. But he also mentions the pleasure of research and claims the actual writing is, for him, one of the easiest parts of the process.

Superbly presented with many data tables, summary boxes, splendid photographs and John Jordan’s excellent drawings throughout. No index or bibliography, but not really necessary. It is most strongly recommended.