The Battleship Builders: Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships

Ian Buxton,Ian Johnston

ISBN 10: 1399092049 / ISBN 13: 9781399092043

Published by Seaforth Publishing, 2022

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Battleship Builders: Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships
• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Publication Date: 2022
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1399092049
• ISBN 13: 9781399092043
• Binding: paperback
• Condition: Very Good

About this title

Synopsis

The launch in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought, the worlds first all-big-gun battleship, rendered all existing battle fleets obsolete, but at the same time it wiped out the Royal Navy's numerical advantage, so expensively maintained for decades. Already locked in an arms race with Germany, 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 exactly double what Germany achieved. It was only made possible by the country's vast industrial nexus of shipbuilders, engine manufacturers, armament firms and specialist armour producers, whose contribution to the creation of the Grand Fleet is too often ignored. This heroic achievement, and how it was done, is the central theme of this book. It charts the rise of the large industrial conglomerates that were key to this success, looks at their reaction to fast-moving technical changes, and analyses 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.

About the Author

IAN JOHNSTON has had a lifelong interest in shipbuilding, and has written histories of both John Browns and Beardmores. His most recent book, Clydebank Battlecruisers, was published in 2011. IAN BUXTON, a retired naval architect, is an acknowledged expert on shipbuilding, and is perhaps best known for his book Big Gun Monitors.