From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States Review

From Mahan to Pearl Harbor: The Imperial Japanese Navy and the United States
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I've read virtually every English-language book on the subject of the history of Japanese militarism and history from Perry through World War II. Had I another life or more time, I would do a PhD on the topic, as it fascinates me deeply. Thus, I greatly anticipated this book, and, despite my low rating (3/5) treasure it as an important part of my collection. Prof. Asada has truly done the world a great service by writing this book, as, if nothing else, it can be used as a stepping stone for futher clarification and thought on the basic question of "why did Japan initiate World War II in the Pacific?" I thank Prof Asada deeply from his work, and apologize to him that my review in the following will be a bit harsh.
Basically, while book itself is full of "facts", it is a monumentally dull read, even for a person fascinated by the subject as I am. I literally have used this book as a sleeping aid. The details of the various naval limitation treaty conferences are hashed and rehashed ad nauseum, and the littlest tweaks in IJN strategic doctrine are hashed and rehashed ad nausuem. This, in and of itself, however, is not damning.
The problem is that I feel like I am too often presented with a mountainfull of historical facts but a teacup of insight. For example, one of the major themes of the book is the question of treaty limits - would the Japanese get 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, or 70% of the US tonnage limit? Apparently the debates on the exact number were enough to have made Japanese officers cry, protest, resign, un-resign, declare that they had been mortally wronged, etc. We are presented of the details of who wanted what number and when, and why they changed their opinions and views, but none of this really ever gets to the heart of the matter.
There is no attempt at (for lack of a better term) psychoanalysis of either indivuals or groups to really make us understand, at a really deep level, WHY.
For a while, I thought that this was because the author was content to play the dispassionate historian. But, with time, the actual reason for this blase treatment became obvious. It's basically the same reason that the book stops at Pearl Harbor: the author, if not an Emperor and Japan apologist, takes great pains to NOT provide any analysis since such analysis would be offensive to Japanese readers.
Remember, this guy is a senior professor Emeritus at a Japanese university. Perhaps the analysis itself is too hard for the author to do for personal reasons? Perhaps, if he is intellectually honest, given where he is in life, he is waiting for an eager student to build upon his base and do what he could not, for reasons of political correctness?
(This is why it gets 3 stars, not 4), the author quite unfairly cherry-picks sources and believes third-hand quotes that make the Showa Emperor (Hirohito) come off smelling like a rose. There is no attempt to refute other historians who have presented far more compelling cases for the Emperor's complicity. Prof. Asasa does not attempt serious source analysis - the rest of us have very good reason to understand why somebody, writing, for example, in the 1940s or 1950s would feel compelled to write in their memoirs things that protected the Emperor. Often, such writings are recollected quotations that contrast sharply with the historical record elsewhere. No attempt is made to analyze such emperor-defending sources. Rather, they are taken as gospel and then lofty and overbroad conclusions of the Emperor's innocence are made.
I do not speak Japanese so well, though perhaps with a little bit of study it would get much better. Therefore, as a specialist 'amateur' I dig deeply into whatever translated sources on the matter I can find. Often, this means the occasional rare translated book that can be found, for example, at the bookshop of the little museum near Yasukuni. Such books enjoy english readership probably in the hundreds, but they allow people like me a rare glimpse into what the Japanese are saying about their own history. Yes, Yasukuni Jinja is in some ways a right-wing haven, but what to be said when a book about an ostensibly neutral topic such as, say, Saburo Sakai (a famous IJN ace), has paranthetical comments hinting at the nobility of the Japanese cause?
Certainly Prof. Asada's book is far too intelligent and mature to go off into tangents about the reality of the Greater East Asia Co-prosperity sphere (even if that concept were in the ken of the book, which it is not). However, "From Mahan to Pearl Harbor" in some sense represents the high end of the Japanese millieu of writing on the war (and of course I am exclusing the writings of firebrands like Ienaga Saburo) - that is to say, it's still full of rationalizations, apologetics, and, obfuscatory-through-overdetail.
Prof Asada, you painted a wonderful picture of trees. It's the forest that you missed.
For the reader: worth reading if you are interested in the topic. However, don't let the scholarly approach lull you or overwhelm you into forgetting that this book is guilty of large errors of omission.


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A long-anticipated major work by one of Japan's leading naval historians, this book traces Alfred Thayer Mahan's influence on Japan's rise as a sea power after the publication of his classic study, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. Hailed by the British Admiralty, Theodore Roosevelt, and Kaiser Wilhelm II, the international bestseller also was endorsed by the Japanese Naval Ministry, who took it as a clarion call to enhance their own sea power. That power, of course, was eventually used against the United States. Sadao Asada opens his book with a discussion of Mahan's sea power doctrine and demonstrates how Mahan's ideas led the Imperial Japanese Navy to view itself as a hypothetical enemy of the Americans. Drawing on previously unused Japanese records from the three naval conferences of the 1920s—the Washington Conference of 1921-22, the Geneva Conference of 1927, and the London Conference of 1930—the author examines the strategic dilemma facing the Japanese navy during the 1920s and 1930s against the background of advancing weapon technology and increasing doubt about the relevance of battleships. He also analyzes the decisions that led to war with the United States—namely, the 1936 withdrawal from naval treaties, the conclusion of the Tripartite Pact in September 1940, and the armed advance into south Indochina in July 1941—in the context of bureaucratic struggles between the army and navy to gain supremacy. He concludes that the "ghost" of Mahan hung over the Japanese naval leaders as they prepared for war against the United State and made decisions based on miscalculations about American and Japanese strengths and American intentions.

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The Bluejacket's Manual, 24th Edition Review

The Bluejacket's Manual, 24th Edition
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Although everyone is issued this manual in boot-camp (RTC) it is still essential reading for several people.
If you are in the Delayed entry program (DEP) or thinking about joining the Navy, this book will give you valuable insight and get you well prepared for your career. Start reading the material right away so you can be prepared for boot camp (making it easier...yes it can be done!) You will get one of these in boot camp, so give this to your family or spouse so they can look up questions they may have. It helps when your family knows what the heck you are talking about when you say such Naval jargon as 'head', 'starboard', 'plankowner', 'scuttlebutt', etc.
Secondly, anyone who has an interest in the Navy and how the enlisted do it will sureley find this valuable. It covers everything from the enlisted ratings (the specific jobs), officer ranks, re-enlistment procedures, commissioning procedures, firefighting, damage control, nautical flags, ship information, etc, etc, etc. It's one of the books that has everything packed into it!
I still have my original book from RTC after nearly 8 years and still look at it now and again.
Fair winds and following seas...

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From the days of oars and coal-fired engines to the computerized era of the twenty-first century, The Bluejacket's Manual has been an essential part of the American Sailor's sea bag for more than one hundred years, serving as an introduction to the Navy for new recruits and as a reference book for Sailors of all ranks. Written by a Sailor whose decades of naval service included sea duty in patrol craft, destroyers, and aircraft carriers, as both an officer and a white hat, this newest edition has been overhauled to reflect the current state of the ever-evolving U.S. Navy, adding such things as camouflage uniforms, new ratings, and the Navy Professional Reading Program. Primarily intended to serve Bluejackets, the 24th Edition of this standard guide to the u.S. Navy will also be welcomed by potential recruits, Navy buffs, and a growing number of Bluejacket's Manual collectors.

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Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL Review

Warrior Soul: The Memoir of a Navy SEAL
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Chuck can take simple words and twist them into a visual image that needs no further input. Going from the mundane hurry up and wait mentality of typical military ops, he takes you from humorous bar scenes to the horrors of terrorism and the mayhem resulting from underestimating the enemy and complacency. Political correctness takes its toll in attitudes, men, and the morale of entire countries. This can be read between the lines. Chuck pulls no punches and lays it out for anybody to see. The men who do the fighting and the ones who create the need for these men to fight are not generally on the same sheet of music. Politics and appeasement are the enemies. WARRIOR SOUL is not just another 'SEAL' book in typical fashion. I DO NOT compare it to the other books by former SEALs. This one is in a class by itself. Thanks for a great book and thanks for your service to our nation. Grab a copy of WARRIOR SOUL and devour it.

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Point Man: Inside the Toughest and Most Deadly Unit in Vietnam by a Founding Member of the Elite Navy Seals Review

Point Man: Inside the Toughest and Most Deadly Unit in Vietnam by a Founding Member of the Elite Navy Seals
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You could almost imagine what it was like being in 'Nam - hear the ruffle of the leaves, smell the sweat, feel the dampness of the ground and hear the crickets. Read it alone at night and you could easily imagine Charlies waiting to spring a surprise on you. No regrets getting this book!

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Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy Review

Bluejackets and Contrabands: African Americans and the Union Navy
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I found this to be a fascinating review of a topic rarely discussed in the past - the involvement of African Americans with the US Navy during the US Civil War. The book describes how escaped slaves and others wishing to get out of the area of the war in the US south coast contacted the Navy for help, which the Navy provided. This help was either transportation or work as the individuals required. Many of the escapees then signed on with the Navy aboard ship or in some way contributed to the Navy's efforts to blockade the ports of the Confederacy. A great deal of research must have been done to collect the rare information seen here. I found the work interesting, consistent, and a great help to any Civil War historian or enthusiast, or for those interested in how African Americans managed to endure or escape the war.

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One of the lesser known stories of the Civil War is the role played by escaped slaves in the Union blockade along the Atlantic coast. From the beginning of the war, many African American refugees sought avenues of escape to the North. Due to their sheer numbers, those who reached Union forces presented a problem for the military. The problem was partially resolved by the First Confiscation Act of 1861, which permitted the seizure of property used in support of the South's war effort, including slaves. Eventually regarded as contraband of war, the runaways became known as contrabands. In Bluejackets and Contrabands, Barbara Brooks Tomblin examines the relationship between the Union Navy and the contrabands. The navy established colonies for the former slaves and, in return, some contrabands served as crewmen on navy ships and gunboats and as river pilots, spies, and guides. Tomblin presents a rare picture of the contrabands and casts light on the vital contributions of African Americans to the Union Navy and the Union cause.

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Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps & the U.S. Navy, 1841-1864 Review

Ironclad Captain: Seth Ledyard Phelps and the U.S. Navy, 1841-1864
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Jay Slagle has produced a book that offers so much. It gives the reader a real feel of what life was like for a young officer in the pre-Civil War Navy and how the development of the sectional conflict was perceived. This book is also one of the best accounts of the Western Flotilla/Mississippi Squadron that I have read. I couldn't put it down for two weeks. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in the naval events of the Civil War or life in 19th-century America..

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Seth Ledyard Phelps was of the Old Navy and the New.As a midshipman and junior officer he served under sail off West Africa, in the War with Mexico, and in the Mediterranean and Caribbean.As a senior office in the river squadrons of the Civil War he saw combat at its closest.Phelps, a native of Chardon, Ohio, was a prolific and observant correspondent.His private letters, to his wife, his father, and to political patrons and other naval officers, are among the most compelling and descriptive extant.The heart of Ironclad Captain are these letters, which Jay Slagle has set in context through the judicious use of published documents, memoirs, and scholarly histories of the navy.The result is a small history of the navy and its officer corps for the middle third of the nineteenth century.Phelp's self-confidence fueled a driving ambition.He was one of the severest critics of the navy's seniority system, which seemed to thwart those ambitions.After long and often heroic service on the Western Rivers, he left the navy in 1864 to pursue a less exciting career in commerce and diplomacy.Unfortunately for historians, his correspondence ends at that time as well.Notwithstanding his bitter leave-taking Seth Phelps loved his country and his service.His letters are a permanent and invaluable legacy to both.

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Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy, 1900-1945 Review

Sober Men and True: Sailor Lives in the Royal Navy, 1900-1945
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My reason for purchasing the book was to learn the duties and daily routines of lower deck sailors, especially able seamen. In this task, the book failed to meet my expectations, there being no mention of the work of able seamen. However, it was very informative regarding relationships between officers and sailors, and covered many other topics very well. I would have liked to have seen a chapter on punishments, as these were often particularly harsh in the Royal Navy, and, while mentioned, there was little detail.
All said, the book was a good read, expertly researched, although not your normal bedside reading material.
Also, I purchased a used copy which had a delivery time of five to six weeks (from Texas to Ireland), and it arrived within one week. The copy was in excellent condition. Well done Amazon!

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Passport Not Required: U.S. Volunteers in the Royal Navy, 1939-1941 Review

Passport Not Required: U.S. Volunteers in the Royal Navy, 1939-1941
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Patriotism is a key ingredient of many books on the subject of World War II. A devotion to one's country, and the courage and willingness to risk one's life in an effort to protect it, have been the core of many a great read. But what about humanity? What about risking one's life to protect a country to which one does not belong, simply because the injustices against them are too great to be ignored? In Passport Not Required the reader is introduced to 22 U.S. citizens who went to England and volunteered with the Royal Navy, some more than two years before the U.S. entered the war. Risking loss of their United States citizenship, each of these men committed themselves to fighting beside their British compatriots during some of the darkest hours of World War II. The book introduces us to each of them, gives us insight into why they felt so strongly about the cause, tells us what they did to impact the war effort (quite a bit), and ultimately what became of them. It's a moving, oftentimes overwhelming account of what it means to risk everything just to fight for what you believe in. In 2001, Winston Churchill's grandson said of these volunteers, "Their numbers may not have been great, but the fact that they came, at a moment when Britain stood alone, meant so much. They proved to be the harbingers of the millions that were to come later." Bravo, to an account of true humanity, and in the end, I guess, quite an example of patriotism.


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Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars Review

Network-Centric Warfare: How Navies Learned to Fight Smarter Through Three World Wars
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This book is a chronology of how naval command and control (C2) systems evolved over the last 100 years in response to changing technologies and threat environments. It focuses especially on the U.S. Navy, but includes discussions of foreign naval developments as well. It is an indispensable book to understand how the U.S. Navy's conception of `command and decision' (CD), the navy's version of C2, led incrementally to the current CD system sometimes called Network Centric Warfare (NSW), but which Friedman prefers to call `picture centric warfare'. As Friedman makes clear NSW is only the latest iteration of a continually evolving concept. Friedman has identified three phases that mark the evolution CD systems: the radio phase; the radar phase; and the computer phase.
The first phase is what he calls the [wireless] radio phase. This began in the first ten years of the 20th Century, when First Sea Lord, Sir John Fisher (of Dreadnaught fame) determined that the most economical way to deal with the problems facing the Royal Navy was to introduce what today would be called a centralized C2 system based on ocean surveillance, wireless communications, signals intelligence and what today are called flag plots (i.e. ship locations). Fisher then proposed to use the information produced by this system to vector ships against enemy naval threats. WWI (1914-1918) saw Fisher's concept tested and proven. Fisher essentially created the first command, control, communications , intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (C3ISR) system concept on which all future developments were based.
The U.S. Navy took the lead in Friedman's radar phase which really began in WWII and lasted through the Cold War. The takeaway in this phase is that the exponential growth of information from an increasing number of multiple sources, made information management more and more difficult. This period saw the development of the ship borne Combat Information Center (CIC) as a means of coping with information overloads.
In his third phase Friedman notes that computer based innovations, (e.g. Naval Tactical Data System (NTDS)) have provided at least a temporary solution to information management. And that there is a good reason why NCW, the latest CD iteration, is called an information driven concept.
This is an excellent book that fortunately includes a list acronyms that is indispensable for following Friedman's sometimes dense prose.


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Over the past decade, the United States has moved toward a new style of warfare, called network centric, that uses an almost real-time, shared picture of a military situation as the basis for operations. To explain what network-centric warfare is and how it works, defense analyst Norman Friedman uses specific historical examples of actual combat rather than the abstractions common to other books on the subject. He argues that navies invented this style of warfare and that twentieth-century wars, culminating in the Cold War, show how networked warfare worked and did not work and illustrate what net-on-net warfare means. The book builds on Friedman s personal experience in an early application of network-centric warfare that developed the method of targeting the Tomahawk anti-ship missile.To give readers a realistic feeling for what the new style of warfare offers and what is needed to make it work, the book concentrates on the tactical picture, not the communications network itself. Friedman s focus on what the warriors really want and need makes it possible to evaluate the various contributions to a network-centric system. Without such a focus, Friedman notes, the needs of networked warfare reduce simply to the desire for more and more information, delivered at greater and greater speeds. The information he provides is valuable to all the services, and students of history will appreciate the light it sheds on new ways of understanding old conflicts.

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Conrad Elroy, Powder Monkey: The Role of the Navy in the Civil War (Reading Essentials in Social Studies) Review

Conrad Elroy, Powder Monkey: The Role of the Navy in the Civil War (Reading Essentials in Social Studies)
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"Conrad Elroy, Powder Monkey: The Role of the Navy in the Civil War" begins with an introduction to the Civil War- its causes, the two sides, and the conflict that led to the bloodiest war in America's history. In the historical fiction chapters, Conrad Elroy, a 13-year-old powder monkey for the Union navy, is aboard the U.S.S. Hartford in the Battle of Mobile Bay. It is Conrad's job to supply his gun crew with gunpowder. Because of his bravery in combat, he is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The medal, however, is no comfort to Conrad, who lost a friend in the battle.
The book's nonfiction chapters detail the role of the navy in the Civil War. This book contains archival photographs, maps, and paintings. It also includes bolded vocabulary words with a glossary and an index. Children will be able to identify with the young, main character and learn about an important event in American history at the same time.
This educational children's book is both exciting and informative!

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The book begins with an introduction to the Civil War- its causes, the two sides, and the conflict that led to the bloodiest war in America's history. The historical fiction chapters tell the story of Conrad Elroy, a 13-year-old powder monkey for the Union navy. Conrad is aboard the U.S.S. Hartford as it prepares for the Battle of Mobile Bay. It is Conrad's job to supply his gun crew with gunpowder. During the battle, another powder monkey drops his powder cartridge. In order to save the ship from a powerful explosion, Conrad picks up the flaming cartridge and hurls it into the sea. For this act of bravery, Conrad is awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. The medal, however, is no comfort to Conrad, who lost a friend in the battle. The book's nonfiction chapters detail the role of the navy in the Civil War- the Northern blockade, the Southern blockade-runners, the Confederate commerce raiders, the ironclads, and the Confederate submarines and torpedoes. It also describes the life of a powder monkey and the role these young soldiers played in the war.

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Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War Review

Engage the Enemy More Closely: The Royal Navy in the Second World War
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Mr. Barnett undertakes to describe the Royal Navy's operational history in World War II. To do this, he has to take up where World War I ended and the interwar years. He describes the budget cuts, wholesale decommissioning of ships, the subordination of the Fleet Air Arm and the neglect lavished on the RAF's Coastal Command. This book becomes, in certain areas, a work on Joint Warfare - the current rage in the United States, but not a new concept if one goes back and looks at Saunders and Wolfe in the French and Indian Wars and Grant and Foote in the Civil War.
This work is painstaking in it's detail. One may not agree with the conclusions of the author, but you will know how he arrived there. I found his arguements thought provoking and informative.
What one has in this work is a review, warts and all of the state of the Royal Navy from 1918 to 1945. The Royal Navy started to rearm in the 1930s but it was not always a well designed ship that went into service. The Tribal class with single purpose low angle main battery - fine for ship to ship combat but useless for engaging aircraft as would be shown in the Mediterranean and Norway. New aricraft carriers were commissioned but aircraft were obsolescent or hasty sea conversions of RAF aircraft such as Spitfires and Hurricanes. A poor choice of fire-control systems put ships are a disadvantage when engaging aircraft. In all, a very mixed picture. Barnett gives the failures and successes of the Royal Navy high visibility. He is balanced in his approach, not failing to describe positive aspects of failures and negative points in successes.
I found this an excellent all around history of the Royal Navy. It is very useful as an adjunct to the biographies of Royal Navy leaders and events. I recommend it for anyone with an interst in the Royal Navy.

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The Restoration Warship: The Design, Construction and Career of a Third Rate of Charles II's Navy Review

The Restoration Warship: The Design, Construction and Career of a Third Rate of Charles II's Navy
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Richard Endsor's The Restoration Warship is the result of a decade's research and writing. Endsor is a trained aerospace engineer with long experience in analyzing technical issues. He also has been studying the records and the archeology of Britain's early imperial fleets for decades. The Restoration Warship is the result. The book give a reader a lot more than the simple story of a ship. It really is a window into the British monarch Charles II's Thirty Ship Programme which was one of the first modern naval building efforts where standards of key parts were regulated and organized. In addition inventories of large -arts and key portions of the logistical structure which was to support a century of War with France were put in place. The political background is sketched and the trail through the UK's national archives are both painted in carefully. The author also uses his remarkable artistic talent to illustrate the life and times of HMS Lennox which was a 70 gun third rate line of battle ship. The constellation of national talent around this fleet, which included Samuel Pepyss, among others as well was extraordinary. The book is richly illustrated and beautifully produced. Its drawbacks are the relatively small print--the readers here are one suspects a bit more myopic than they used to be as baby boomers--and the presentation and arrangement of the superb drawings from which a model builder of serious student of the ship might attempt a model. These are both sepia colored which makes details a bit harder to extract and placed inside the book's text as foldouts--an end-pocket might have been a better solution. That said this is a wonderful book which could well be at the carpenter's elbow should the English ever decide to match the Dutch and build a replica of these ancestor's of the Victory. It is laden with dozens of data wells for everything from Boats to Ordnance, and is already a well traveled source for details large and small on the Royal Navy of the era from 1660 to 1690. My copy was found on Amazon at a price which matched the publisher's institutional discount. It was certainly worth the price Tobias R. Philbin.

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Superbly researched and expertly illustrated, this study offers one of the most detailed building and career histories of a ship ever written, the third rate of Charles II's Restoration Navy. The author focuses on HMS Lenox, a 44-gun two-decker third rate built in 1677 during the Anglo-Dutch Wars and also in response to Louis XIV's massive naval expansion program. After twelve years of research and writing, the author provides a comprehensive history of seventeenth-century ship design and construction techniques and the armament and fitting of the vessel. He offers a broad picture of the day-to-day workings of the Deptford dockyard where the Lenox was built and details of the techniques, trade, and tools of the shipwrights along with a keen insight into the workings of a naval administration under Samuel Pepys. 200 color & b/w illustrations.

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U.S. Small Combatants, Including Pt-Boats, Subchasers, and the Brown-Water Navy: An Illustrated Design History Review

U.S. Small Combatants, Including Pt-Boats, Subchasers, and the Brown-Water Navy: An Illustrated Design History
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This book has the most detail on the subject of any that I have found. Many line drawings. I only wish that it also had drawings of some of the ship's hull lines suitable for scratchbuilding models. I'm researching my next boat (vietnam 100' PGM) and this book confirmed that it is just an extended USCG 95' patrol boat with additional armament. It is truly the best $42 resource I have ever purchased. Get it, you won't be disappointed.

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United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911 (Putnam's US aircraft) Review

United States Navy Aircraft Since 1911 (Putnam's US aircraft)
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Tour guides at the National Museum of Naval Aviation in Pensacola refer to this book as "The Bible." Covers every aircraft in the naval inventory from 1911 - 1990 with minor exceptions. A photograph, diagrams and concise details highlight each type. Explains the confusing designation changes of 1922 and 1962. Overall, if you have one book on Navy aircraft in your library this should be the one.

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Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War Review

Leverage of Sea Power: The Strategic Advantage of Navies in War
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1. Colin Gary's book titled 'Leverage of Sea Power' is first book of the author on maritime affairs. This book is a classical work propounding the effect the Sea Power has had on the events in history, ancient and modern. The painstaking research and logical flow of this work stands out.
2. The author has been successful in establishing the fact that there has been no land power, what so ever, which could achieve lasting success in strategic statecraft without having its own Sea Power or Sea Power of its allies. Thus bringing out very clearly, the leverage, presence and availability of Sea Power can provide in warfare, right from the age of galley warfare to World Wars.
3. The book examines the issue in more than adequate depth and succeeds in making the point very clear. However, this being research based book, the chapters do get little drawn out and tend to make the reader loose interest. A little more stress on the explanation of concepts with reduction in repeated examples (though I must admit, if one has to prove that the concepts of leverage of sea power applied in all times and types of conflicts, such examples are necessary) would have helped capture a non-academic but interested reader's interest through out the book.
4. A book backed with painstaking research. Worth reading, but a reader has to put in efforts to retain focus on the thoughts presented in the book.

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Battleships of the U.S. Navy in World War II Review

Battleships of the U.S. Navy in World War II
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Battleships of th U.S. Navy in World War II includes many photographs, side drawings and deck plans to illustrate each battleship class and more often each battleship. The different radar arrays are also illustrated.The book touches very lightly on the japanese battleships of WWII. Battleships covered are the Wyoming class of 1912 through the Iowa's including thier history up to about 1970. Also included are the Montana Class while there is not a lot of information It is the most I have seen in one source. What makes this book a favorite of my collection is the line drawings, photographs, and the information about the Montana Class.

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The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the 21st Century Review

The Great Wall at Sea: China's Navy Enters the 21st Century
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The Great Wall at Sea is on balance a decent introduction to the modern Chinese Navy that is geared more towards breadth than depth. It tries to put the current state of the Navy in a historical context, and explains briefly training, recruiting, personnel administration, fleet organization, systems, the maritime interests of the Chinese (as best it can), and fleet exercises. This provides a lot of fundamental, basic information which is a solid foundation for understanding the Chinese Navy, but in and of itself does not go far enough to deliver any such in depth knowledge of it or any elegant analytical conclusions of intentions.
One draws several major impressions of the Chinese Navy
- It is becoming increasingly technically oriented, and at a fast pace, especially with regards to its manning and training. However it still has a long way to go and its Soviet model fleet structure, with each fleet having it's own training commands and systems, makes progress uneven and relatively uncoordinated.
- The Chinese Navy evolved from the Mao-era coastal defense force into a "green water" Navy, i.e. one capable of projecting power several hundred miles beyond it's own shoreline but not across the world the way practically only the US Navy can anymore.
- It is divided into three fleets which are practically their own Navies. One geared towards the Korea/Japan region (which is getting the most advanced destroyers), one geared towards Taiwan (which is sub-intensive), and one geared towards the South China Sea, which is where the amphibious forces are located. From this force structure the author cautiously deduces that China is strategically more worried about physically seizing the Spratley Islands and other nearby chains to secure a source of reliable oil, as they claim these are their territorial lands (based on a convoluted and not traditionally accepted worldwide definition of the continental shelf belonging to their country and not the 12 mile offshore standard). The fear of a surface action is against the modernizing South Korean and extremely capable Japanese navy, whereas the Taiwan strategy appears to be based on sea denial using submarines rather than amphibious invasion. The author knows he is on tenuous ground making these assertions about strategy from force structure (usually you go the other way around, build a force structure from strategy but you can "invert" the problem to try to figure out your enemy, but it's not a one-to-one correlation, one force structure can be the result of multiple strategies.) For example, it wouldn't be physically difficult for the South Sea fleet's amphibious forces to swing north to invade Taiwan, even though it's in another fleet's AOR.
- The Chinese have strategic maritime interests in securing sources of oil, but little ability to currently protect sea-lanes from the Persian Gulf to their own shores. They are however laying the groundwork for such a capability with ties to countries along the route, such as Myanmar, Pakistan and Iran.
- The Chinese Navy has does not have a robust enough amphibious force yet to invade Taiwan and does not appear to be modernizing their amphibious forces particularly.
- The gem of the Chinese Navy, according to Maoist theory, has always been their SSBN force, consisting of a single not working too well sub right now. However they are currently working on a new design and will continue to build an SSBN based nuclear deterent.
- The Navy is organizationally hampered by too much autonomy and overlapping administrative functions between the three fleets. The three fleets also have a difficult time coordinating action apparently.
- The individual fleets are conducting impressive combined arms exercises however and the competence of individual chinese Navy sailors and officers is generally quite high.
- The Navy used to be a political Navy, with literally two chains of command, one operational and one political based on the old Soviet model. It is not terribly well known how political it remains with the modern changes underway in China, nor which chain of command would have ultimate authority in any conflict situation.
- The Chinese do not have sufficient domestic ship building and design capabilities to arm a modern force and will rely on foreign systems for some time, including Russian and European sources primarily.
There's a lot of information in the book, and some attempts at analysis of Chinese strategy and where they want to take their Naval force in the future. Currently the Chinese Navy is an amalgam of disparate types and technologies (making logistical supply difficult) and equally confusing in terms of its administrative and operational structures.
With the quick pace of Chinese military modernization this book -through no fault of its own- is probably already somewhat dated.
The biggest drawback of the book for me however was that it lacked a chapter that had vital statistics and background on the major ship, sub, helo, aircraft and weapons systems the Chinese navy used. Nor does it have any information regarding the number of hulls in the Navy, their types, their names and designations, and their fleet assignment. Although the above info would be a "snapshot in time" only, it would have been useful nonetheless for better being able to gauge just how capable the Chinese Navy is.
Recommended for Naval Officers, Defense Analysts, Defense Contractors working with Naval Systems, and people interested in gaining in depth information about China and particularly its military.

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