Battleship Design and Development 1905-1945

by Norman Friedman

Book by Friedman, Norman

Genres: Naval History

175 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Norman Friedman is a prominent naval analyst and the author of more than thirty books covering a range of naval subjects, from warship histories to contemporary defense issues.

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friedman admittedly only dips his toe in the complex physics of displacement & weight which govern the trinity of Protection, Propulsion & Penetration. He spends a lot of time on the extra constraints imposed by the Treaty of London (1930) upon an already fine balance & more prosaic limitations such as the canals at Kiel or Panama, or conversely the radius demands of the Pacific. Note how the revolutionary Dreadnought (1905/06) & her rapidly evolving WW1 sisters of all navies rapidly show teething problems that only the next world war would iron out...

Sometimes I felt an engineer's degree would be useful to follow the math, other times photo captions or diagrams make a good point with a light touch.

A technical love letter it may be, but a love letter nevertheless.
After you've read up on Jutland, the hunt for the Bismarck, the HMS Hood Disaster & the Freudian summum of Leyte ...step up to this level of battleship reading.

[Bobble Hat · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably my favourite book by Friedman. A general look at the design history of battleships and some fascinating ideas about how to compare ships technically.

[Nikky Southerland · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you want to get really into the weeds on how battleships were designed during the dreadnaught era, come no further than this book.

[Dr. George H. Elder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a little gem! Friendman goes over the various nuances that had to be considered when designing a battleship, with the main focus being on the weights assigned to armor, weapons, propulsion, hull, etc. He relates the 60% rule wherein the sum of armor, armament and propulsion plant, if I recall correctly, seldom exceeds 60%. Stability, armor layout, machinery concerns, they are all laid out in adequate detail for any lay person. This has been my design bible for years. It could be more detailed in some areas, but it is a great buy for the cost, and is what we call an evergreen--a text that will never go out of date.