Book Recomendations

 


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Ships of the U.S.Navy
  
cover U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman, A. D., III Baker (Illustrator)

This is an excellent book for those who want technical information about the US Navy Aircraft Carriers. The book covers detail information about the design, construction, and modifications of all of the classes of US carriers built since the beginning of carrier aviation. In addition, the book covers other designs the US Navy thought about but never bothered to build. This book is not for the novice but for those who need detail technical information, this is the book to get.

cover U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman, Alan Raven (Illustrator), A. D., III Baker (Illustrator)

This is a great book for those who are interested in the technical information about the US Navy battleships. In great detail the book covers the evolution of the battleships from the early monitors of the post Civil War period to the cancelled Montana Class during WWII. Although a bit outdated since it was printed during the period when the Iowa Class was being reactivated, the seventeen chapters greatly explain each class of battleships as well as differences among the sister ships. Technical information regarding design, design proposals, dimensions, types of guns/calibers, machinery, armor, internal hull arraignment, etc. are included. This book is not for the novice, but for those naval historian/architectures or those who simply enjoy reading/studying the technical aspects of the book is a must have.

No Image U.S. Cruisers: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman, A. D., III Baker (Illustrator)

If you are a cruiser fan throw away all of your other reference books and get this one. The book traces the history of the U.S. cruiser and it's development with great pictures, drawings and charts. Every class of cruiser is treated in detail with particular emphasis on the many WW2 classes and variations. Especially intresting is the detail given to the modificiations of pre Dec. 7 1941 ships after experience in fighting those ships.

cover U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman, Norman Freidman

This book encompasses the design history of US destroyers. It provies unique details of the deisgn and construction, and eventual combat operations of destroyers. It goes from the very first to today's highly advanced destroyers. It is not for the novice, but makes a valuable addition to a maratime history library

cover U.S. Submarines Through 1945: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman

A highly illustrated (b&w) account of the development of US submarines that begins with small submarines such as David Bushnell's Revolutionary War Turtle and the Civil War Hunley, which weak navies hoped could help them face down their far more powerful enemies, and ends with the big fleet submarines that sank the Japanese merchant fleet and contributed mightily to winning the war in the Pacific. Appendices describe the development of two vital technologies that helped determine the course of submarine development: engines and periscopes. (Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.)

cover U.S. Submarines Since 1945: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman, James L. Christley (Illustrator)

Like Friedman's other books on US warship design, his description of the play between evolving doctrine, organizational imperatives and technical issues to arrive at each class of submarine gives the reader insight not just in what a ship became but also _why_ a ship became. It is a serious effort to document the design evolution of (mostly) nuclear submarines.

cover U.S. Amphibious Ships and Craft: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman

by Norman Friedman

In this latest addition to his acclaimed U.S. warship design history series, Norman Friedman describes the ships and the craft of the U.S. amphibious force, from its inception in the 1920s through World War II to the present. He explains how and why the United States successfully created an entirely new kind of fleet to fight and win such World War II battles as D-Day and the island landings in the Pacific. To an extent not previously documented, his book lays out the differing views and contributions of the U.S. Army, Navy, and Marines as well as the British, and how they affected the development of prewar and wartime amphibious forces. Current and future amphibious forces and tactics are explained, together with their implications for ships and craft, from 40,000-ton amphibious carriers down to tracked amphibious vehicles. With nearly two hundred photographs and specially commissioned line drawings and extensive appendixes, the work conveniently brings together details of the ships and their service histories found elsewhere only in scattered official references

No Image U.S. Small Combatants, Including Pt-Boats, Subchasers, and the Brown-Water Navy: An Illustrated Design History
by Norman Friedman

Another excellent book in Norman Friedman's continuing "Illustrated Design" history of U.S. warcraft. This book covers subchasers, PT boats, gunboats, riverine warfare, and SEAL craft.

No Image Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905
by Robert Gardiner

Excelent reference work on all fighting ships in service from 1860 to 1905

No Image Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1921
by Robert Gardiner (Editor), Randal Gray

Excelent reference work on all fighting ships in service from 1906 to 1921

No Image Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946
by Roger Chesneau, Robert Gardiner

Excelent reference work on all fighting ships in service from 1922 to 1946

cover Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1947-1995 (Rev Ed)
by Robert Gardiner (Editor), Stephen Chumbley (Editor), Przemysaw Budzbon

This is the last (in chronological order) of a famous serie of four books dealing with the history of the steam and iron navies from the beginning (1861) to the present days. It's a very exhaustive book, which covers almost every nations that ever manned a naval ship, from the huge US Navy down to the smallest African or Pacific ones. In this way a reader can have a very good idea of the power and evolution of the world's navies through the desing of their ships, built or not (the book contains the description of a lot of projected ship classes that were never built, but that are interesting in order to better understand the evolution of some navies). As usual, for all the ships built before the period covered by the book, the reader is referred to the other similar books of this serie (mainly the third one, covering the 1922-1946 period). Every ship or class is described quite in detail (overall the main types, like battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines), with a description of the project evolution, a brief account on the modifications occurred during the ship's life and the final fate of each one.


Weapon Systems
   

The Naval Institute Guide to World Naval Weapons Systems, 1997-1998 (Serial)
by Norman Friedman

This massive book is filled with more text than three $400 Jane's reference books. Like most references written by Norman Friedman, it contains so much detail it's almost unbelievable such a work is available to the public. It covers those systems that are often neglected in other naval references like Jane's Fighting Ships or Combat Fleets. Every possible combat system is included from onboard computer systems to sensors, sonar bouys, missiles of all kinds, torpedoes and lots more. It covers all systems currently in use by all navies plus an abundance of prototype Russian weapons. I was only disappointed by the lack of detail and a few greatly outdated tidbits of information on the strategic nuclear systems, but there are other books for that. The quality of the information and photos in this book, you will not find anywhere else--it is well worth the price.