What do you think?
Rate this book
U.S. Cruisers: 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.
496 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1984
About the author
Norman Friedman
102 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 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 10, 2021
This is my third Friedman US design history. It used to be rather pricey second hand but has now been reissued in softback. And I’ve always liked cruisers.
Overall, lots of detail, well researched and well written. Plenty of photos, all with interesting details picked out in the captions.
The emphasis is on WW2, with earlier ships covered in less detail. There is also some interesting stuff on post war conversions to missile cruisers and fleet flagships.
There is a long chapter on service in WW2, not in terms of operational history, but modifications, damage and damage control leading to future designs. (Almost all of which remained on paper)
There is a list of pennant numbers and building dates ( somewhat annoyingly it doesn’t make obvious which ship was in which class) and then a series of detailed tables of particulars.
As with all of these books, I have one bugbear. You get 10 pages on the design process of a particular ship. They added 0.75” armour thickness here, they reduced secondary turrets here, they added a knot of speed here, they lost 2000nm of range there. I wish at the end of all that NF would add a couple of paragraphs on the final design, how many they built and what they were called. Sometimes that all gets a bit lost in the detail and even referring to the tables at the back doesn’t always help and takes you out of the story. Probably just me being thick, but there we are.
Overall, lots of detail, well researched and well written. Plenty of photos, all with interesting details picked out in the captions.
The emphasis is on WW2, with earlier ships covered in less detail. There is also some interesting stuff on post war conversions to missile cruisers and fleet flagships.
There is a long chapter on service in WW2, not in terms of operational history, but modifications, damage and damage control leading to future designs. (Almost all of which remained on paper)
There is a list of pennant numbers and building dates ( somewhat annoyingly it doesn’t make obvious which ship was in which class) and then a series of detailed tables of particulars.
As with all of these books, I have one bugbear. You get 10 pages on the design process of a particular ship. They added 0.75” armour thickness here, they reduced secondary turrets here, they added a knot of speed here, they lost 2000nm of range there. I wish at the end of all that NF would add a couple of paragraphs on the final design, how many they built and what they were called. Sometimes that all gets a bit lost in the detail and even referring to the tables at the back doesn’t always help and takes you out of the story. Probably just me being thick, but there we are.
April 4, 2017
I can imagine this book being a useful historian's reference, but it is basically unreadable. It is an unbelievable mass of detail with hardly any overarching themes or insights. It's just story after another of "the General Board wanted characteristics X, the designers thought this was impossible and proposed six alternate compromises. Constituency A wanted option 1, constituency B wanted 2, and they settled on a mix of the two." That same narrative, for every class of warship.
On the other hand, there are a number of interesting things here. You could write a good long essay with some of the insights from this book -- I just wish I had read such an essay instead of this.
- Wargaming and simulation was a major tool in making procurement decisions. The War College played games to figure out what kinds of ships would work well against various adversaries in various circumstances.
- The US Navy spent the 1920s and 30s justifying various decisions as necessary to keep up with Britain and the War College was primarily gaming out wars with Britain. But when it came time for tradeoffs, they were overwhelmingly focused on Japan. The fleet was primarily in the Pacific, and Pacific, not Atlantic, range considerations dominated design.
-Cruisers-as-we-know-them were basically a creature of diplomacy, not technology. The Washington and London Treaties defined armament and displacement limits for "cruisers" and the type, as it developed, was basically a reaction to those treaty limitations. Once the treaty limits went away, the cruisers started getting steadily bigger, ending up as the Alaska class, which evolved as scaled-up cruisers but look a lot like light battleships.
- A major theme for designers was "cruisers, unlike battleships and destroyers, are going to be used solo on detached duty as escorts, commerce raiders, and strategic scouts. As a result, they need to be self-sufficient in ways that other ships, that will fight in combined fleets, won't." This basically never happened.
- Roosevelt thought of himself as a naval person and meddled with the design and procurement, mostly for the worse. (But the Navy already wanted the Alaskas, and Roosevelt's backing for them wasn't decisive.)
- The Omahas and all the interwar cruisers, down to the Cleveland class, were probably overly ambitious designs, with excessive topweight that made the ships hard to refit or modify.
On the other hand, there are a number of interesting things here. You could write a good long essay with some of the insights from this book -- I just wish I had read such an essay instead of this.
- Wargaming and simulation was a major tool in making procurement decisions. The War College played games to figure out what kinds of ships would work well against various adversaries in various circumstances.
- The US Navy spent the 1920s and 30s justifying various decisions as necessary to keep up with Britain and the War College was primarily gaming out wars with Britain. But when it came time for tradeoffs, they were overwhelmingly focused on Japan. The fleet was primarily in the Pacific, and Pacific, not Atlantic, range considerations dominated design.
-Cruisers-as-we-know-them were basically a creature of diplomacy, not technology. The Washington and London Treaties defined armament and displacement limits for "cruisers" and the type, as it developed, was basically a reaction to those treaty limitations. Once the treaty limits went away, the cruisers started getting steadily bigger, ending up as the Alaska class, which evolved as scaled-up cruisers but look a lot like light battleships.
- A major theme for designers was "cruisers, unlike battleships and destroyers, are going to be used solo on detached duty as escorts, commerce raiders, and strategic scouts. As a result, they need to be self-sufficient in ways that other ships, that will fight in combined fleets, won't." This basically never happened.
- Roosevelt thought of himself as a naval person and meddled with the design and procurement, mostly for the worse. (But the Navy already wanted the Alaskas, and Roosevelt's backing for them wasn't decisive.)
- The Omahas and all the interwar cruisers, down to the Cleveland class, were probably overly ambitious designs, with excessive topweight that made the ships hard to refit or modify.
February 18, 2020
Fair warning is given, unless you are really into warships this is one dry read. For the guys like me, this is a treasure. Extreme amounts of engineering detail are to be found here. Also, this is one expense book.
June 3, 2025
Lots of good research went into this book, but this is all details with little or no view of the bigger picture.
June 30, 2012
The author is actually Friedman, but this is Goodbooks and one expects all manner of such things here. This is a gem of a book, and gets right into the reasons whay certain design choices were made. That being said, I still find myself asking questions about the shifts in GM as the cruisers AA suites were increased, structural issues related to welding, and a number of other design concerns. But for the basic why this or that was done, this is a great book to have. I have all Friedman's book, and there is only one I ever found wanting.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews