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SUBSIM: The Web's #1 resource for all submarine & naval simulations since 1997 |
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#1 |
The Old Man
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 1,658
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Utterly shameless necrothread bumpage, but I fully intend on reviewing the rest of this series when I get over my writer's block. Here's how collection stands right now:
![]() Here's how I'd rate each: Agassiz: Excellent Alliance: Excellent Bartolmeo Colleoni: Decent HMS Beagle: Good HMS Belfast: Good/Very Good Bellona: Decent Bertha L Downs: Very Good Blandford: Very Good Bounty: Very Good Campbeltown: Fair USS Constitution: Fair Dreadnought: Excellent Diana: Very Good Endeavour: Good/Very Good Essex: Very Good Fairmile 'D': Good/Very Good Fuso: Very Good Granado: Very Good Hood: Very Good/Excellent Intrepid: Good/Very Good Pandora: Very Good Queen Mary: Very Good Takao: Very Good/Excellent Type VII: Fair/Good Type XXI: Fair/Good Victorious: Very Good Victory: Fair/Good (Print quality of 2010 edition is atrocious!) Warspite: Good Yamato: Very Good I recently obtained a copy of the the Type XXI volume, and it's a bit of a disappointment. It was originally printed in Germany as an unrelated title, and got "Frankensteined" into an Anatomy of the Ship book when republished in English. Lots of interesting pictures, but most of the drawings are redrawn versions of original shipyard plans, many of which are basic General Arrangement plans which have been reproduced elsewhere. I'm still waiting for a definitive warts-and-all technical study of the XXI. These boats have always fascinated me, even if they've been hopelessly mythologized over the years. If you have to choose between the three submarine "Anatomies," go with the one on Alliance. If you're interested in the XXI, Eberhard Rossler's The U-Boat has a lot of excellent material on the Elekroboot designs. |
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#2 |
Eternal Patrol
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The only one I own is Dreadnought, and I agree it is excellent. Amazing, in fact. I bought it because of my interest in naval development in all periods, but especially the beginnings of modern warship design.
I keep meaning to get more, but my true collecting love is for Conway's Warship series. I have about one-third of them and am currently in a position to get more, so I am. They have wonderful articles on specific ship development, as well as weapons and other things. I'm glad to see you bring this back. I especially enjoyed re-reading your Bellona review. 'Pissing contest' indeed! ![]()
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“Never do anything you can't take back.” —Rocky Russo |
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#3 |
Fleet Admiral
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#4 |
The Old Man
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Connecticut
Posts: 1,658
Downloads: 14
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Anatomy of the Ship: The Cruiser HMS Belfast
Ross Watton 1985 1985 was certainly a busy year for the "Anatomy of the Ship" series, and in that year, we were introduced to Ross Watton, a freelance illustrator and former Royal Navy sailor who would go to create four books in this series. For his first book, he chose to detail the HMS Belfast, the ninth Town-class light cruiser. Belfast was laid down in 1936, and went on to serve an illustrious 24-year career with the Royal Navy. She is presently a floating museum on the Thames River in London, the only British warship larger than a destroyer that served in World War Two and is still preserved today. As an aside, the large exploded-view cutaway painting aboard the ship was painted by Ross Watton himself. If you've read my reviews of the previous Anatomies, there are no "Gotchas!" to be found in The Cruiser HMS Belfast's presentation. Same text introduction, same section of 20-odd black and white photographs, and the drawings are still presented in the same "A- General Arrangements, B- Hull Structure" manner. Consistency isn't necessarily a bad thing in a book series, and for that reason, I'm not going to go exhaustively in-depth with this one. General Arrangements are what you'd expect. Plans of each deck, a center-line cross-section, 13 transverse sections, and profiles of the ship as it appeared in 1942 and 1959. The section on hull structure is a bit different from previous books, with an emphasis on detailed perspective views. Section C covers the ship's machinery, with detailed plans of the machinery spaces, and drawings of components such as boilers, turbines, the steering gear, and propeller shaft arrangements. Crew accommodation is briefly depicted in Section D, while Section E covers the superstructure, focusing on the changes after the 1959 refit. Section F details Belfast's rig, depicting the evolution of the fore and main masts from 1939 to 1959, along with details such as the RDF lantern, boat booms, accommodation ladder and crows nest. The armament is depicted in the next section, which includes some very nice drawings of the ship's 6-inch triple turrets, the 4-inch Mk XIX twin guns, the anti-aircraft guns, and the torpedo tubes and depth charge racks. Section I includes a couple views of some of the fire control devices fitted during the ship's service, while the final 20 pages focus on a hodgepodge of different subjects, including fittings, ground tackle, boats, and aircraft arrangements. When I first bought this book (it was one of my first Anatomies), I was rather disappointed and initially passed Ross Watton off as a poor man's John Roberts. Almost three years later, I've finally warmed up to his style. There's quite a bit of praiseworthy material contained within, especially the perspective views of the ship's structure, which are beautifully executed and show everything down to individual rivets and angle bars. Perspective views are where Mr. Watton really shines, though the traditional drawings are well done, too. Unfortunately, despite his artistic talents, Watton didn't possess that same fanatical attention to detail that John Lambert, John McKay, and John Roberts (what's with all the Johns, anyway?) show in their own titles. Don't expect to find exploded views of door hinges, plans of boiler room steam pipes, or cross-sections through a quadruple-riveted butt lap. He would come close to this attention to detail from time to time, but I get the impression he was pressed for time and space - 120 pages isn't much to work with after all! The Cruiser HMS Belfast is pretty nice for a first effort, but better things were to come from Ross Watton. Final rating: 7.5/10 (although it's worth it just for the perspective views alone) Here's the midships structure cutaway, just to give a taste: ![]() |
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