(Part 3) Best naval history books according to redditors

Only need 4.

Apparently the last designs for the Sparviero(Augustus) conversion were more conventional than pre-war interpretations.

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/the-real-sparviero-aircraft-carrier.32320/

Caracciolo has a conversion option.

There is a book about Impero. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F3WVPKX

Several Bonfiglietti projects.
https://books.google.com/books?id=Zpo_CQAAQBAJ

And more projects to choose from. Obviously an Italian carrier line would be one of the last introduced if not last for the major navies.

Mary Rose served for more than three decades (remarkable for a ship built with wood and iron fasteners as opposed to copper), she wasn't "terribly designed" (you may be thinking of Vasa). The only eyewitness account of her sinking stated that she was heeled over by a gust of wind with her gunports open.

Sailing ships of this era usually appear to be top-heavy, because we don't really perceive the mass of the ship below the waterline and the density of the timbering at the bottom (combined with ballast) compared to the much lighter construction of the upper decks. This is why Vasa foundered, in fact: externally the ship looked like other (successful) ships of the era, but in fact she was built too-heavy on the top side and too lightly on the bottom.

Here is an excellent book about Mary Rose: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014WSVJKK

The U.S. Navy recently established a "Navy Leadership and Ethics Center" at the Naval War College that has some material that might be useful (e.g. a concise 'wheelbook' of desired attributes). The wheelbook is too short to be anything more than a quick distillation though.

To be honest I'm not sure the Navy has anything much more directive in nature about leadership. We have a letter from the last CNO called the "Charge of Command" which all new COs are required to read. But our tradition is that leadership is something too personal to a Sailor (officer or enlisted) to turn into a cookbook recipe or a procedure where we say "follow these steps and we'll assume you must be a good leader".

We also have a little bit of guidance from Navy Regulations (the overarching general regulations for the Navy and Marine Corps). E.g. Chapter 8 talks about what we expect of our commanding officers and their subordinates.

> "0802.4 The commanding officer and his or her subordinates shall exercise leadership through personal example, moral responsibility and judicious attention to the welfare of persons under their control or supervision. Such leadership shall be exercised in order to achieve a positive, dominant influence on the performance of persons in the Department of the Navy."

So leadership is something we care about, something we write and read about and all of that would be useful in discovering what we implicitly want in our leaders. But I think it would be better to read about what we think good leadership is than to look for an official Navy list.

I have to recommend Warspite, a book by Iain Ballantyne about this ship. It's unusual for a war book in that it traces the life of a single ship rather than a particular battle or war. Spoiler alert: she dies in the end, very sad.

I wish more of these ships could have been preserved as memorials. I live across the river from the New Jersey and I'm happy to have her there.

i'd guesstimate the hull length to be around 30ft. I'd say it's closest to some sort of racing (as opposed to cruising) trimaran, so if one were to copy that thing exactly, there would probably be minimal hull volume. More like a bunch of gigantic kayaks than anything else.

I'm currently finishing up a small skiff- cheap, and I've learned a lot about the process. If you want to start boatbuilding/sailing, there's a lot of nice options. When I was doing my research, I somehow got a PDF of Gavin Atkin's Ultrasimple Boatbuilding, and would recommend.

With regards to having space, there's a bunch of designs under 8ft that would fit indoors, and I've seen some people simply add shelves in winter.

Also, one of the simplest 8ft boats I've seen is the PDRacer (or OzRacer). Looks like a box, but teaches the skills, and apparently sails astoundingly well for its looks.

I have a couple of books that are good but out of print. These are the two best ones in print that cover all of the war: http://www.amazon.com/Naval-History-World-War-I/dp/1557503524/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420767445&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/Great-War-Sea-Naval-History-ebook/dp/B00KL8CFZE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420767464&sr=1-1

http://www.amazon.com/World-Wonderd-Really-Happened-Samar-ebook/dp/B00KN1I09O

I haven't read it personally yet. Trying to finish Japanese DD Capt. first. But the jist of his arguments have been posted on reddit by others who have read it.

Read it for yourself. As with all "ACTUALLY it happened like this" books, read it with a grain of salt.

Mind you, like Shattered Sword, both authors are not professional historians (IIRC). The uniqueness of their books, was that both decided to use Japanese archives and AARs to cross-reference the US/common knowledge account. With Shattered Sword, it seems to have been well received by naval historians and the US Naval College. Not sure about Lundgren's book.

Good read.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Wake-Last-Crossing-Lusitania/dp/0307408868

There are some terrific books on simple boatbuilding. A great place to start is the book Instant Boats and this one by Gavin Atkin. For a really simple design look into a Puddle Duck - single sheet of plywood, can be built in a weekend.

I hate when people on Reddit crap on somebody who's just trying to learn as much as the next guy, but you need to burn this in a firepit and start over, friend.

You can't just wing this, it's not gonna go well, it's really not. Your single biggest issue here is the weight of all that lumber, if nothing else.

[EDIT]: As I mentioned elsewhere in this thread, Hannu's site has some terrific free plans. Just for the love of all that's holy don't wing it. And use plywood stringers, 2x4's are way too heavy.

If you are into naval history, definitely recommended. If you like both naval history and some tech, start by reading this. That was the path I started many years ago and it still continues.

He's actually got two about the U-505.

The one I just finished: https://www.amazon.com/Twenty-Million-Tons-Under-Sea-ebook/dp/B07B36X65Y/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Daniel+Gallery&qid=1571352056&sr=8-1

The other I read back in the '70s: https://www.amazon.com/U-505-Rear-Admiral-Daniel-Vincent-Gallery-ebook/dp/B01KUGU5S0/ref=sr_1_4?keywords=Daniel+Gallery&qid=1571352056&sr=8-4

This one is about how he (and others) put together the Escort Carrier battlegroups with the intent of hunting subs.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

> CVs are the most influential class in the game right now

Against some targets, CVs are going to wreck face and there's nothing the target can do about it, such as cross drops vs DDs or Zep AP bombs against.....a list of targets. On the other side, two or three AA ship in a division can completely shut out a CV no matter how skilled or what ship he's in. And in the middle, you have USN AP bombs, that have a really strange vulnerable target list, and sometimes overpen everything with a manual drop, and others will give you three cits on a Memes even with his Def fire going.

There's no dignity for anyone when the nature of the fight is always so one sided and/or anti skill.

>However in real life CVs ended the battleship era.

Minor point....not really. CV's were really nasty in 1942 because planes and their ordnance had been rapidly developing for the last 5-10 years. If the Pacific front had happened in say, 1932 instead, planes wouldn't have had the firepower to sink a defended, maneuvering target.

By 1944, the defensive and targeting technologies had caught up. At Santa Cruz in 1942 the above mentioned USS South Dakota was one of the few ships using early radar fuses, and the results were staggering: The USS Enterprise would likely not have survived the battle if this were not the case. Air search radar and the now polished radar guided AA systems were on full display at the battle of Philippine Sea in June 1944, a key component of which were, guess what, battleships. Okinawa further drove home that large, armored, AA capable ships were still very relevant in deterring air attack.

For a modern example, when the US performed their coastal feint in operation desert storm, it was the USS Missouri they put out front to, as gamers would say, 'draw agro' from the coastal defenses. I've been digging in Wayne P. Hughes Jr's book for 15 minutes for the exact number where I found it, but I think an Iowa class is estimated to take something like ten or twelve Exocet hits to achieve a "firepower kill" and be put out of action.

So if they work, why are they considered obsolete?

Atomic weapons don't even require a direct hit to disable most warships, but a direct blast would overcome any conceivable armor for a firepower kill, if not the outright destruction of the target. The US navy couldn't justify the construction of more BBs after the war anyway, and by the time the cold war was brewing they were looking not at the soviet navy, but their air force launching dozens of guided munitions at the carrier group. In fact, if it weren't for their need in a sea-land strike role, the US navy probably wouldn't have continued producing carriers like it has.

It may sound like a small point, but in a world where atomic technologies were unfeasible, navies with blue-water objectives and enough funding would absolutely be producing battleships, even in the face of modern US, UK, Japanese, and now even Chinese carriers. Their form and function would have to adjust just as armor gave way to active AA protection, but their ability to handle and dish out attacks wavers only when downrange of atomic warheads.

TL;DR Nukes ended BBs, not Carriers. And this is way too long. I need food.

I did find this book last time I looked:

An Ocean in Common: American Naval Officers, Scientists, and the Ocean Environment
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ocean-Common-Scientists-Environment-Williams-Ford-ebook/dp/B00D8X4ZSO/ref=la_B001K899ZS_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1549919863&sr=1-5

However it's too expensive for me to order on the off-chance it's the SOSUS book.

I am using this book and find it quite helpful with ideas though I dont agree with some others (he thinks if you do a ship out of the water you shouldnt weather it, but I think you should especially if you building a dry dock version - which I do or at least "pulled ship out of water" look) https://www.amazon.com/Ship-Models-Kits-Advanced-Techniques-ebook/dp/B0141LZHO2/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I think that a ship build with underwater part weathered is way more interesting visually. The whole ship is almost never visible, but stuff we dont see (as per women) is what makes it exciting, excuse the pun.

By coincidence i am reading a book called submarine its an anthology of first hand experience of submarines from all sides in the second world war. Its actually a very very well done book. Highly recommend, learned a lot from it. Some of the stories in it will blow your mind.

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307408868/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_LHK9ub1SRYW8E
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0307408868/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_LHK9ub1SRYW8E