British Battleships 1919-1945: New Revised Edition

With Norman Friedman's work on British battleships of the post-"Dreadnought" era due for publication in a October, I thought it would be a good time to compare two of the classic reference works on British capitol ships of the period between World War I and the end of World War II. On one side, we have Alan Raven's and John Roberts' expensive and sought-after classic "British Battleships of World War Two" of 1976. On the other side, we have R.A. Burt's "British Battleships 1919-1945," which received an update and revision in 2012. It would be easy to dismiss Burt's book as a poor man's version of Raven's and Roberts' (who, interestingly enough, will be contributing plans to the new Friedman book) book. However, that would be unfair and untrue. In some respects, Raven and Roberts' (referred to as "R&R" from now on) book still reigns supreme among British BB references. In a few key areas, however, Burt's is actually superior.The quality of the photographs in Burt's book is definitely superior to R&R. As you'd expect from a recent Seaforth/Naval Institute title, most of the photographs are extremely crisp and detailed, presumably the result of them being scanned directly from the original negatives. R&R suffers from being published in the mid-70s on poorer quality paper, and many of the photographs are rather muddy or feature excessively high contrast. Although Burt's line drawings aren't quite as sharp looking as John Roberts', many of them actually more detailed, especially in the cross-sections of the King George V- and Nelson-class battleships, the transverse sections, and the depictions of battle damage.Burt's book is also superior to R&R's when it comes to the histories of individual ships. Each ship here receives a fairly detailed timeline of its career post-1919, as well as detailed reports of each instance these ships received damage, accompanied by lengthy official reports and detailed diagrams. R&R features a well-written distillation of British capitol ship operations during World War II, but not as much history as Burt. There are some intimate photographs of life onboard, and of calm moments between the World Wars, giving this book a more humanistic feel. There's even a few ships covered here but not in R&R, including the ex-battlecruisers Furious, Glorious, and Courageous", which receive two chapters, and the old battleship Iron Duke, in commission until the end of the war.In some respects, however, R&R is vastly superior. The devil is in the details, and Burt never approaches the same level achieved by R&R. R&R included numerous chapters on the lessons learned in both world wars, comparisons with foreign battleships, British capitol ship design between the wars, including chapters on the Lion-class and the genesis of the King George V-class, and the impact of the Washington and London naval treaties. Burt largely focuses on the finished ships and their histories, pushing the more detailed nitty-gritty stuff aside. I prefer the layout of R&R to Burt; R&R is helped immensely by having a detailed table of contents and a fairly comprehensive index, something which Burt lacks.I think it's safe to describe "British Battleships of World War Two" as a rather dense technical study, while "British Battleships 1919-1945" is a beautifully illustrated tribute to these ships. Burt's only really galling omission is the HMS Vanguard, the last battleship ever launched. After spending $160 on R.A. Burt's revised and updated "British Battleship" trilogy, I now own a beautifully illustrated, detailed study of every British armored fighting ship since the HMS Devastation of 1869 - except one. R&R featured an entire chapter on Vanguard, complete with a fold-out plan. Speaking of plans, many of those in R&R are presented as foldouts, and all of the plans in this book have large gaps in the middle so detail doesn't get lost in the gutter. Catch-22, I suppose.In the end, you might want to vote with your wallet on this one. I've seen copies of R&R going for reasonable prices on Ebay, but anyone not willing to wait months for that perfect bargain to pop up might want to buy Burt's instead. Both books have their positives and negatives. R&R is a masterpiece starting to show it's age, and Burt's is beautifully illustrated and informative, but nowhere near as ambitious. Both belong in the collection of any serious warship enthusiast.

The 1993 first edition of this book by R. A. Burt has long eluded me, the result of the hundreds of dollars that a second hand copy demands. As a long time battleship (BB) and battlecruiser (BC) enthusiast, I always felt that my collection was incomplete without this particular book. When this new revised edition was available for pre-order, I had no hesitation ordering months before its publication. At the price it is a no brainer. In fact, I ordered copies from both the Amazon site and the Amazon UK site to make sure that I would get it at the earliest possible time (and I have no intention to return any of the copies). Now that the book has arrived, I am very pleased with my decision, as this book is an authoritative reference on British BBs and BCs for the period after World War One.In my opinion, this is one of the two masterpieces on this subject, the other being Alan Raven and John Roberts' (R&R)  British Battleships of World War Two: The Development and Technical History of the Royal Navy's Battleships and Battlecruisers from 1911 to 1946 . Other works pale in comparison. The two books have many things in common, in particular their focus on the design of the ships and their changes over time. Thus, it does not surprise that the contents of the two books overlap quite a bit, and both contain a lot of excellent information, photos and line drawings. Nevertheless, I still believe any BB/BC enthusiast like me could not be wrong getting both Burt's book and R&R's book.Both books cover Renown, Repulse and Hood in addition to the Queen Elizabeths, Royal Sovereigns, Rodney, Nelson, and King George Vs. Highlight of the key differences between Burt's and R&R's:(1) The BB/BC classes pre-dating the Queen Elizabeth class BB are covered by Burt but not by R&R, i.e. the 13.5" gunned BB/BCs such as the Iron Dukes and Tiger. R&R starts with the QE class BBs.(2) The light battlecruisers (Glorious, Courageous, and Furious) and their new lives as aircraft carriers are covered by Burt but not by R&R.(3) R&R has a lot of details on the designs that were never built/completed, e.g. G3, N3, and the Lion Class BB. Only the G3 is briefly mentioned in Burt's book.(4) Vanguard is covered by R&R but not by Burt, who ended his book with the King George V class BBs.(5) Burt covered the ships class by class. R&R first by the time period and then class by class. Both ways have their goods and bads.(6) Burt gave a rather short conclusion and spent paragraphs defending the British designs, with virtually no comparison with foreign counterparts. R&R provided a much more in-depth comparison of post-treaty British BB with foreign counterparts together with his conclusions, though some new information became available after the book had been written.(7) While there are many excellent drawings in Burt's book, they span at most just the two adjacent pages with a gap in between. On the other hand, R&R has many even larger profile and deck plan drawings in fold-outs, of a similar high quality.It also puzzles me a bit why sometimes there are minor discrepancies between the two books, even though this revised edition by Burt is more than 30 years later than that by R&R. Neverthless, most of the times they agree with each other. They both have details/opinions that are not found in the other and complement each other quite well.All in all, this book contains lots of information. Get this book and you would not regret, as long as you are interested in BB/BC of this period. If you do not already have R&R's book, this book is an absolute must. It worths every dollar spent.

Still reading book at the moment so my thoughts must be provisional. Will appeal to the ship modeller who wants very precise detail of when and what modifications were made to particular battleships. Book dates from 1993 so recent underwater investigation of the wreck of HMS Hood isn't part of the author's analysis of the reasons for the Hood sinking so dramatically

A very detailed history of all the RN's capital ships, including statistics when built, modifications and rebuild plus damage, repairs and sinkings, as well as comparisons with other countries classes. Contains loads of statistics and technical info. Interesting but for general reading you might want to skip some of the very detailed stuff.

This book is not designed for casual reading. The level of detail is remarkable and I flicked through sections of it. Nevertheless it gave me a new insight into the complexity and sophistication of these behemoths

A good concise survey of those British battleships and battlefields which fought in WW2. Useful details for ship modellers are included in the profiles and detail views included

Great, easy to read history of the last British battleships and battlecruisers. I found the in depth analyses of the various damages to the ships especially interesting.It is amazing how much information was crammed into a book covering such a vast subject. Having said that, obviously single class, or single ship books would expand on the information here greatly. But for a very good overview, I highly recommend this book. Thumbs up.