Battleship Builders : Constructing and Arming British Capital

Johnston Ian & Buxton Ian

ISBN 10: 1848320930 / ISBN 13: 9781848320932

Published by SEAFORTH, 2013

About this Item

Excellent and well illustrated account of how the fifty odd British Capital ships of the 20th century were built.320pp. Fine copy in dust wrapper. This is the now rare original hardback edition, not the recent paperback version! Seller Inventory # 022634

Bibliographic Details

Title: Battleship Builders : Constructing and ...

Publisher: SEAFORTH

Publication Date: 2013

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

Edition: 1st

About this title

Synopsis:

The launch in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought, the world's 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 subject 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, by way of contrast, it decribes the effects of the post-war recession, industrial contraction, and the very different responses to rearmament in the run up to the Second World War.

About the Author:

IAN JOHNSTON has had a lifelong interest in shipbuilding, and has written histories of both John Brown's and Beardmore's. 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.