The Battleship Builders: Contructing and Arming British Capital Ships
Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2013.
First American Edition. Hardcover.
First American Edition.
The launch in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought, the world's first all-big-gun battleship, rendered all existing battle fleets obsolete while at the same time wiping out the Royal Navy's numerical advantage. Britain urgently needed to build an entirely new battle fleet of these larger, more complex and more costly vessels. In this she succeeded spectacularly: in little over a decade fifty such ships were completed, almost double what Germany built during the same period. This achievement and how it was done is the central theme of this book.
The book charts the rise of the large industrial conglomerates that were key to this success, looks at their reaction to fast-moving technical changes, and analyzes the politics of funding this vast national effort, both before and during the Great War. It also attempts to assess the true cost – and value – of the Grand Fleet in terms of the resources consumed. And finally, it describes the effects of the post-war recession, industrial contraction, and the very different conditions that influenced the last generation of British battleships built before and during the Second World War.
Item #900934ISBN: 9781591140276
Quarto, 8 x 10-1/5”, light blue paper over boards, Battleship Builders timeline on endpapers, appendices, notes, sources & bibliography, index, fully illustrated.
As new in dust wrapper and protective mylar.
Price: $125.00