Warship 2026

224 pages

Rear Admiral R. G. Melly

Warship 2026 is the latest in the long-running series of books from the Osprey Publishing stable “devoted to the design, development and service history of the world’s combat ships.” Edited since 2004 by John Jordan, he has again produced a highly readable collection of articles on a wide range of topics, albeit he explains that, on this occasion, there is a strong central thread of destroyer development.

Once again, there is a healthy representation of foreign contributions, with authors from as far as Japan, the USA and Canada – and as near as Germany and Denmark. What the articles have in common, however, is both the impressive bibliographies of the contributors and the depth of the research into their chosen topics. Indeed, the extent of the effort is evident from the extensive endnotes.

All the articles provide an analysis of events and programmes from the past. Amongst consideration of the reconstruction of the Imperial Japanese Navy between the wars, the failed Italian attempts to commission an aircraft carrier and consideration of the Allies’ emergency programmes to build escorts in the summer of 1942, I found the analysis of the battle damage incurred by Royal Navy carriers during the Second World War to be particularly gripping (as the Damage Control Engineer Officer in HMS Hermes in 1982, it was sobering to ponder the scale of the destruction that we might have faced). In addition to the articles touching on destroyer development, others cover the cadet training ships of the Royal Navy during the first half of the 20th century, the post-war Danish inshore minesweeper programme and a fascinating account of the Russian capture of the German Navy’s code books at the start of the first World War (the Magdeburg incident).

In a final section titled ‘Warship Notes’, the Editor provides three shorter articles covering French Navy turret designs in between the wars, the French involvement in Siam in the 1890s and the story of a Russian cruiser which served in the Royal Navy in 1918. The book is rounded off with a section containing no fewer than 32 reviews of books of naval interest.

Any reader with a curiosity in naval affairs will find something of interest amongst the eclectic selection of contributions. The articles are clearly presented and are amply illustrated with evocative black and white images, supplemented by drawings and diagrams, many of them by the Editor. The book provides fascinating insights into the challenges and resulting actions of our predecessors of bygone ages. It is well worth a read.