What do you think?
Rate this book
U.S. Battleships: An Illustrated Design History
This fully illustrated series offers detailed descriptions of the evolution of all classes of the principle U.S. combatant types, as well as plans, profiles, and numerous detailed photographs.
463 pages, Hardcover
First published December 1, 1985
4 people are currently reading
105 people want to read
About the author
Norman Friedman
101 books32 followersNorman 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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
December 17, 2020
US Battleships is a tricky book to review. There is no question, all up, that it’s excellent – if someone is into ship design, and the way ships were designed, then this book is an easy recommendation. The narrative is really well put together, highlighting key developments and yet not getting ‘bogged down’ or repetitive (other than during particularly ‘bogged’ down design processes, where it’s hard to avoid), and with good use of words and sentence structure to efficiently convey information. Reading through this book, I was given a clear outline of the reasons behind the various design decisions of the US’ Battleships. There are numerous photographs and diagrams of internal layout and armour of both completed ships and some alternatives that were seriously considered. As far as I’m aware, there isn’t another book that does a comparable job on US Battleships, and it’s easy to see why this is considered a classic work in the field.
The author writes with a relatively (it is a design history of battleships, so going in without any knowledge of how warships of the time were built or operated would probably be a bit challenging) accessible and easy-to-read style, which makes it a pleasure to read (if you’re interested in ship design – it would probably be a bit dry to people not into the topic). The structure is reasonable, but it’s focussed on the “overall battleship design story”, sometimes making the story of the design history of a particular class somewhat difficult to disentangle.
There are numerous diagrams and pictures. The diagrams are generally (but not always – some have thin lines to the point of disappearing) well-reproduced, but the pictures suffer from the choice of stock. There were a few more armour distribution diagrams I would have liked to have seen (the text and tables weren’t enough to get a clear picture), but only a few, and the questions left by what isn’t included aren’t material to the broader story being told in the book. There is a decent index at the back of the book, and a discussion of sources, including references to the key printed works referenced (although, in this case, most of the work is based on primary research).
However, there are also some things that are a bit more problematic. It’s a bit disappointing to see a work first published in the 1980s still has many of the small editing errors it presumably printed with originally – none of these are substantial (no one will think that the North Carolina carrying 2 x 40ft motor launchers pre-war refers to a secret US naval weapon hitherto undiscovered), but there are instances of the text contradicting the tables, or tables with fields duplicated or numbers that were clearly incorrect (Miantonomoh’s designed speed was unlikely to have been 250 knots!) Overall the editing was only ‘reasonable’ and not good, and there is substantial room for improvement - given the nearly four decades since first published, and the importance of the work, this is a big missed opportunity.
It is also a shame to see the margin for a book that was presumably originally printed as a hardcover not adapted for a softcover printing (in the middle of the book, text printed near the spine isn’t as easy to read as it could be – again, it’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s a lapse of attention-to-detail in terms of production decisions that impacts on the experience of reading the book). Also, on occasion, the author refers to particular classes by different names, so the Tennessee class as the California class and so on. It’s not a big issue, but it’s an unnecessary inconsistency that makes the book (which is, after all, all about the battleships over time) harder to follow. Similarly, deck names are interchangeably referred to by different names (including both USN and RN names), which is remedied somewhat by the availability of diagrams in many (but not all) and potentially quite confusing to readers who may well have only read previously within the context of USN terminology. Readers not already familiar with US deck nomenclature are recommended to swing past the US Navy History and Heritage Command for information that really should be in the book.
The worst part of the package is the production values. The binding is substandard, and had started to come apart after one read-through (and I was by no means particularly rough with the book – by way of comparison, this is the first new naval history book I have had that has ever start to come apart on me, at any stage of the reading it, other than one or two very old and weathered second-hand books). Further, the choice of stock for printing on (despite the substantial price of the book) means the images are often reproduced with poor contrast and detail, making the “illustrated” side of the package less valuable than it could or should be. Not pointless, and still useful, but a missed opportunity, and it can be frustrating reading a caption that highlights a feature that’s indistinguishable because of the muddy reproduction of the images. USNIP should have treated this book better, and one can only hope the latest editions (released in late 2020) show better production values.
The other downside is that it would only have taken a little bit more work and very few extra pages for the book to provide a comprehensive picture of US Battleships, but some tables include ammunition loads, and others don’t, while some tables are very clear about armour layouts, while others just list a range of different values for an armoured deck with no description of which thicknesses relate to which parts of the ship (and the text doesn’t remedy this). A few missing values are understandable, but when the text talks of figures that are left out of the tables, it’s hard to put it down to anything other than a lack of attention to detail, which is something that is a little surprising to find given the nature of the subject under discussion. Further, on a few occasions the information is presented in a way that makes it ambiguous at best, and not helpful at all at worst, raising the question of why it was there at all. This isn’t common – most of the information is clear and straightforward – but it’s a shame that a bit more effort wasn’t put in to make the information provided comprehensive and consistently clear.
Lastly, while it’s a great book, there is substantially more attention placed on the later ships (from North Carolina onwards) than there is on the earlier vessels. There are more pages in the chapter on the North Carolina class than there are in the chapter on all of the US pre-dreadnought battleships, and the level of information provided on each ship, its design process, and alterations, varies considerably, for reasons never made clear in the text. This isn’t ‘bad’ per se, but it can sometimes make parts of the text feel a little random (for example, there’s a discussion on the changes in complement in the South Dakota class over time, but no mention of the complement of the North Carolina class in the text at all). On the plus side, it also covers the monitors completed from the New Navy period on as well, in an appendix.
So, it’s brilliant, immensely enjoyable, but also somewhat frustrating! Overall, it’s a 5 for depth and content, but the way the content is presented matters, and it’s impossible not to drop it down to a 4 for a combination of production values and lack of care and attention-to-detail in the editing. It’s still an excellent book for people interested in US Battleships (and particularly from the dreadnoughts on), but it doesn’t meet the standards set by the likes of Raven/Roberts in their coverage of British Battleships.
The author writes with a relatively (it is a design history of battleships, so going in without any knowledge of how warships of the time were built or operated would probably be a bit challenging) accessible and easy-to-read style, which makes it a pleasure to read (if you’re interested in ship design – it would probably be a bit dry to people not into the topic). The structure is reasonable, but it’s focussed on the “overall battleship design story”, sometimes making the story of the design history of a particular class somewhat difficult to disentangle.
There are numerous diagrams and pictures. The diagrams are generally (but not always – some have thin lines to the point of disappearing) well-reproduced, but the pictures suffer from the choice of stock. There were a few more armour distribution diagrams I would have liked to have seen (the text and tables weren’t enough to get a clear picture), but only a few, and the questions left by what isn’t included aren’t material to the broader story being told in the book. There is a decent index at the back of the book, and a discussion of sources, including references to the key printed works referenced (although, in this case, most of the work is based on primary research).
However, there are also some things that are a bit more problematic. It’s a bit disappointing to see a work first published in the 1980s still has many of the small editing errors it presumably printed with originally – none of these are substantial (no one will think that the North Carolina carrying 2 x 40ft motor launchers pre-war refers to a secret US naval weapon hitherto undiscovered), but there are instances of the text contradicting the tables, or tables with fields duplicated or numbers that were clearly incorrect (Miantonomoh’s designed speed was unlikely to have been 250 knots!) Overall the editing was only ‘reasonable’ and not good, and there is substantial room for improvement - given the nearly four decades since first published, and the importance of the work, this is a big missed opportunity.
It is also a shame to see the margin for a book that was presumably originally printed as a hardcover not adapted for a softcover printing (in the middle of the book, text printed near the spine isn’t as easy to read as it could be – again, it’s not a dealbreaker, but it’s a lapse of attention-to-detail in terms of production decisions that impacts on the experience of reading the book). Also, on occasion, the author refers to particular classes by different names, so the Tennessee class as the California class and so on. It’s not a big issue, but it’s an unnecessary inconsistency that makes the book (which is, after all, all about the battleships over time) harder to follow. Similarly, deck names are interchangeably referred to by different names (including both USN and RN names), which is remedied somewhat by the availability of diagrams in many (but not all) and potentially quite confusing to readers who may well have only read previously within the context of USN terminology. Readers not already familiar with US deck nomenclature are recommended to swing past the US Navy History and Heritage Command for information that really should be in the book.
The worst part of the package is the production values. The binding is substandard, and had started to come apart after one read-through (and I was by no means particularly rough with the book – by way of comparison, this is the first new naval history book I have had that has ever start to come apart on me, at any stage of the reading it, other than one or two very old and weathered second-hand books). Further, the choice of stock for printing on (despite the substantial price of the book) means the images are often reproduced with poor contrast and detail, making the “illustrated” side of the package less valuable than it could or should be. Not pointless, and still useful, but a missed opportunity, and it can be frustrating reading a caption that highlights a feature that’s indistinguishable because of the muddy reproduction of the images. USNIP should have treated this book better, and one can only hope the latest editions (released in late 2020) show better production values.
The other downside is that it would only have taken a little bit more work and very few extra pages for the book to provide a comprehensive picture of US Battleships, but some tables include ammunition loads, and others don’t, while some tables are very clear about armour layouts, while others just list a range of different values for an armoured deck with no description of which thicknesses relate to which parts of the ship (and the text doesn’t remedy this). A few missing values are understandable, but when the text talks of figures that are left out of the tables, it’s hard to put it down to anything other than a lack of attention to detail, which is something that is a little surprising to find given the nature of the subject under discussion. Further, on a few occasions the information is presented in a way that makes it ambiguous at best, and not helpful at all at worst, raising the question of why it was there at all. This isn’t common – most of the information is clear and straightforward – but it’s a shame that a bit more effort wasn’t put in to make the information provided comprehensive and consistently clear.
Lastly, while it’s a great book, there is substantially more attention placed on the later ships (from North Carolina onwards) than there is on the earlier vessels. There are more pages in the chapter on the North Carolina class than there are in the chapter on all of the US pre-dreadnought battleships, and the level of information provided on each ship, its design process, and alterations, varies considerably, for reasons never made clear in the text. This isn’t ‘bad’ per se, but it can sometimes make parts of the text feel a little random (for example, there’s a discussion on the changes in complement in the South Dakota class over time, but no mention of the complement of the North Carolina class in the text at all). On the plus side, it also covers the monitors completed from the New Navy period on as well, in an appendix.
So, it’s brilliant, immensely enjoyable, but also somewhat frustrating! Overall, it’s a 5 for depth and content, but the way the content is presented matters, and it’s impossible not to drop it down to a 4 for a combination of production values and lack of care and attention-to-detail in the editing. It’s still an excellent book for people interested in US Battleships (and particularly from the dreadnoughts on), but it doesn’t meet the standards set by the likes of Raven/Roberts in their coverage of British Battleships.
December 9, 2020
This is an excellent book, as long as you know what you're getting into. It is not a novel, it is not a story, it is not even a history of events you follow really, it truly is the *DESIGN* history of US Battleships. The actual battles, patrols, missions, etc... the ships engaged in are hardly mentioned except as they impacted the design of Battleships.
For instance the chapter "Battleships at War, 1941-1945" is 44 pages long, or about the same length as the section on the North Carolina Class (38 pages). And really the "at War" chapter is mostly about how the ships evolved over the course of the war as lessons were learned from Pearl Harbor, kamikaze attacks, etc...
This is a typical paragraph "BuOrd argued that it would be far better to widen the main belt by 2 feet than to introduce a point of weakness in the juncture between main and lower belt. Armor tapered down by more than 5 inches could not be face-hardened, so the belt itself could not taper to less than 6.5 inches or 7 inches. There could not even be a smooth transition between the two belts. As for the 2-inch STS, in the absence of experimental data the General Board retreated to a more conventional arrangement, a complete 1.5 inch torpedo bulkhead set well inboard."
That is not to say that's bad, you will struggle to find a book that follows exactly how Battleships were designed more intimately anywhere, but I'm sure to 99% of people out there it's dry as hell. Don't read this expecting to read tales of great battles, captains of ships, and close calls. You will learn how much weight dictated EVERYTHING when it came to battleships, especially with the Washington Treaty. How ships had to be designed many years in advance in anticipation of decades of service, how the Navy wanted to have a uniform line of battle but budget cuts kept on forcing them to make a couple ships so it was a mixed bag of various classes they had to work with. I found the last chapter almost the most interesting, how they tried to convert Battleships into missile platforms, or commando ships, or an extremely well armored tanker. We all know what eventually happened, but the book could use a new version to finish the story of the Iowas with the 1980s refit and service in the Operation Desert Storm, plus the book barely touches on service during the Korean War. Effectively it ends in the mid 1950s.
For instance the chapter "Battleships at War, 1941-1945" is 44 pages long, or about the same length as the section on the North Carolina Class (38 pages). And really the "at War" chapter is mostly about how the ships evolved over the course of the war as lessons were learned from Pearl Harbor, kamikaze attacks, etc...
This is a typical paragraph "BuOrd argued that it would be far better to widen the main belt by 2 feet than to introduce a point of weakness in the juncture between main and lower belt. Armor tapered down by more than 5 inches could not be face-hardened, so the belt itself could not taper to less than 6.5 inches or 7 inches. There could not even be a smooth transition between the two belts. As for the 2-inch STS, in the absence of experimental data the General Board retreated to a more conventional arrangement, a complete 1.5 inch torpedo bulkhead set well inboard."
That is not to say that's bad, you will struggle to find a book that follows exactly how Battleships were designed more intimately anywhere, but I'm sure to 99% of people out there it's dry as hell. Don't read this expecting to read tales of great battles, captains of ships, and close calls. You will learn how much weight dictated EVERYTHING when it came to battleships, especially with the Washington Treaty. How ships had to be designed many years in advance in anticipation of decades of service, how the Navy wanted to have a uniform line of battle but budget cuts kept on forcing them to make a couple ships so it was a mixed bag of various classes they had to work with. I found the last chapter almost the most interesting, how they tried to convert Battleships into missile platforms, or commando ships, or an extremely well armored tanker. We all know what eventually happened, but the book could use a new version to finish the story of the Iowas with the 1980s refit and service in the Operation Desert Storm, plus the book barely touches on service during the Korean War. Effectively it ends in the mid 1950s.
December 17, 2017
Maybe I've just been getting used to Friedman's exhaustingly exhaustive style but I feel like I got something out of this.
Some things that caught my eye -
1) The fleet of the 1880s and 1890s was primarily coastal, and part of the point of the Great White Fleet cruise was to try operating far from home, as practice for future power projection. And it went much better than expected; the ships could do a lot of their own maintenance and could recoal without fixed facilities.
2) The orderly development of the standard battleships (Nevada - Colorado class) was more happenstance and less planning. The Navy kept wanting to buy a lot of uniform battleships, Congress kept limiting the numbers, and so they wound up with a pattern of incremental improvement coupled with uniform tactical characteristics.
3) The US understood itself to be in the business of "slow, heavily armored and gunned", with the fast battleships initially intended as a small number of exotica to counter the Kongos or serve as carrier escorts, with the vision of a large order of slower battleships in the 1940s to replace the WW1 era ships. The slower ships never did get ordered. Among other things, it turned out that as the weapons got bigger, it just got too hard to armor against them.
4) The US treaty battleships were very much compromise designs, cramped and with protection the navy found unsatisfactory. Even the Iowas were limited by the 45k tonnage limit of the Treaties + the escalator clause.
Some things that caught my eye -
1) The fleet of the 1880s and 1890s was primarily coastal, and part of the point of the Great White Fleet cruise was to try operating far from home, as practice for future power projection. And it went much better than expected; the ships could do a lot of their own maintenance and could recoal without fixed facilities.
2) The orderly development of the standard battleships (Nevada - Colorado class) was more happenstance and less planning. The Navy kept wanting to buy a lot of uniform battleships, Congress kept limiting the numbers, and so they wound up with a pattern of incremental improvement coupled with uniform tactical characteristics.
3) The US understood itself to be in the business of "slow, heavily armored and gunned", with the fast battleships initially intended as a small number of exotica to counter the Kongos or serve as carrier escorts, with the vision of a large order of slower battleships in the 1940s to replace the WW1 era ships. The slower ships never did get ordered. Among other things, it turned out that as the weapons got bigger, it just got too hard to armor against them.
4) The US treaty battleships were very much compromise designs, cramped and with protection the navy found unsatisfactory. Even the Iowas were limited by the 45k tonnage limit of the Treaties + the escalator clause.
June 6, 2017
Definitive, well illustrated, engrossing.
March 14, 2021
Classic Friedman, showing how the designs finally built were arrived at and giving the evolution through the classes. Beautifully illustrated.
November 29, 2014
Best history of U.S Battleship design with useful appendix on damage suffered at Pearl Harbor and a history of U.S. monitors post-1880
April 19, 2017
Dr. Friedman's books are all analytic in nature and this holds true for this book as well. If you are looking for some light reading this is not the book for you. It is however, the book for in depth class by class design choices made in each battleship line of the U.S. Navy. As such it presents the single best source of information of this subject. So if you have ever wondered why so many U.S. battleships could barely make 21 knots then here you will find the answer. What were the differences between the North Carolina class and the South Dakota class? Again, this book will tell you exactly that answer. This is the reference book on U.S. Battleships and as far as I know, there is no other even close.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews