Understanding Victory: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands: Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands

by Geoffrey Till

Providing a unique assessment of naval strategy and historic outcomes across centuries of warfare, Understanding Naval Operations from Trafalgar to the Falklands presents four case studies that examine each ship-based battle narrative to expose and analyze the factors that contributed to each side's success or defeat. The work opens with an overview of the general causes of success and failure in naval operations. Each case study starts with a detailed narrative of the battle and then reviews the conflict from the key perspectives identified in the introduction. These classic examples of naval warfare underscore how the outcome of naval operations is often predetermined by the clarity and quality of the mission aim, and point out striking constants in naval warfare despite the obvious differences in military technologies over a long span of time.

248 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 31, 2011

About the author

Geoffrey Till is a British naval historian and Professor of Maritime Studies in the Defence Studies Department of King’s College London.

Reviews

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid book, outlining, through a close study of four separate historical engagements, 11 major “perspectives” which, the author argues, define modern naval combat. The author lays out a convincing argument on the significance, interaction, and shifting importance of these perspectives, which range from training and tactics to leadership and logistics. Each engagement offers different viewpoints and shows how a dominant perspective in one battle can shift in the next. Though nominally written about four specific ships in these engagements, in reality the narrative is much more free flowing, with a strategic to tactical, conflict-wide spectrum of discussions. This larger viewpoint doesn’t take away from the fundamental arguments, but does call into question a constant reference to specific ships which (in some cases) slows down the flow of the work. Nonetheless, a great book for thinking about Naval Warfare, approached from the slightly more qualitative, vice quantitative, view of some of its contemporaries.