The Battleship Builders: Constructing and Arming British Capital Ships

by Ian Johnston

Overview

The launch in 1906 of HMS Dreadnought, the world’s first all-big-gun battleship, rendered all existing battle fleets obsolete while at the same time wiping out the Royal Navy’s numerical advantage. Britain urgently needed to build an entirely new battle fleet of these larger, more complex and more costly vessels. In this she succeeded spectacularly: in little over a decade fifty such ships were completed, almost exactly double what Germany achieved. This heroic achievement was made possible by the country’s vast industrial nexus of shipbuilders, engine manufacturers, armament firms and specialist armor producers, whose contribution to the creation of the Grand Fleet is too often ignored.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781612519463
Publisher:	Naval Institute Press
Publication date:	04/15/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	92 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Ian Johnston, a graphic designer with a lifetime’s interest in ships and shipbuilding, is the author of Clydebank Battlecruisers, and The Battleship Builders, co-authored with Ian Buxton. Ian Buxton, a retired naval architect, is an acknowledged expert on shipbuilding, and is perhaps best known for his book Big Gun Monitors. Both authors live in the United Kingdom.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 6

Abbreviations 6

Preface 7

Chapters

1 Introduction 8

2 An Upward Trajectory, 1860-1919 11

3 Retrenchment and Revival, 1920-1945 29

4 The Builders 54

5 Building 108

6 Facilities 136

7 Powering 154

8 Armament 168

9 Armour and Steel 211

10 Exporting Battleships 227

11 Money 235

12 Manpower 253

13 Conclusions 264

Appendices

1 Tenders 1905 to 1945, John Brown & Co Ltd 267

2 Armour, the Admiralty and Parliament 298

3 The British Battleship Breaking Industry 305

Notes 309

Sources and Bibliography 315

Index 317