"good pre dreadnought books?" Topic

What books can you recommend for someone who wants to know more about pre dreadnought ships?

THX in advance!

I can recommend three off the top of my head:

From Warrior to Dreadnought by D. Brown. It gives a rather good class by class description of the ships as they progressed, along with nice commentary about the art of naval design at that time.

War at Sea in the Ironclad Era by R. Hill. A basic introduction that covers not only guns and hulls, but even boilers.

And finally Ironclads in Action by H.W. Wilson. A contemporary book from 1895. It sounds kind of like porn, but it is a very entertaining chronicle in two volumes of the rather few times these great ships went to war. The best thing is that you can get a digital version for free at archive.org.

Hope some of this might be of use to you!

Depends what you want and how much you're willing to pay.

Lots of good modern books around – War at Sea in the Ironclad Age by Richard Hill is a reasonable overview:

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However, there are a lot of other good modern books around of varying degrees of complexity and coverage: Ships of the Victorian Navy, by Conrad Dixon has lots of descriptions and pictures of British ships, link

Another good general overview is Handbook of 19th Century Naval Warfare by Spencer Tucker link

Having said that, a lot of the original 19th books are around – if the finances will reach, reprinted or original copy of The War Ships and Navies of the World by J.W.King (1880) is the best of all.

The Osprey Duel #15 Russian Battleship vs Japanese Battleship, which I own and have read, gives not only a good description of the naval actions between the two fleets during the Russo-Japanese War, but also a good introduction of the advances in naval design, armor, and armaments of the period.

Osprey also has US Cruisers: 1883-1904, but I've not read that one.

Jim

Many only deal with the Royal Navy in depth but the Conway 'History of the Ship' series 'Steam, Steel and Shellfire' is a good read for details of design across the board – though even that tends to focus more on the RN than any other navy.

Warrior to Dreadnought is an excellent book but more for the geeks (like me) than the coffee table. Wasn't impressed by War at Sea in the Ironclad age – too light and with areas that are (IMHO) poorly resarched.

So Ironclads in Action is free for Kindle on archive.org…

And $20 USD+ for kindle on Amazon….

Easy choice….

For the ships, "Conway's Warships of the World 1860-1906".

Wilson later brought out an updated version called "Battleships in Action" which might be easier to find, since it was reprinted in the 1990's.

Conway´s is certainly a great reference to have, but damn you have to pay out the ying yang for it! I have three of them, and it was almost as much to send my kid to medical school! Okay, I am exaggerating, but not by much

Don't forget Battleships in Action by H W Wilson cover the Pre-dreadnough ear in Vol. 1

Also his "Downfall of Spain"

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The book that got me interested in naval history was

Richard Hough "The Fleet that Had to Die"

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I second The Fleet that Had to Die, great read!

Haven't got my copy handy, so can't remember author properly, but – The Black Battlefleet – covers Royal Navy early ironclads, by someone who had dealings with them.

I've read both "The Fleet That Had To Die" and "The Tsar's Last Armada"; same subject, rather different in their approach.

Try this site…
link
it' called Big, Bad, Battleships