The Illustrated Directory Of Warships From 1860 To The Present Deals on Battleship

The Illustrated Directory of Warships: From 1860 to the Present

Category: (Book)

7 new, starting at $10.14

21 used, starting at $0.23

Editorial Reviews

Covering every major warship type from the ironclads of the civil war through todays super-sophisticated aircraft carriers, this fact-filled directory describes more than 200 fighting vessels, providing technical specs along with development and service histories.

Customer Reviews

Sketchy, and often inaccurate, but cheap!

Reviewed by Eric Husher, 2007-03-20

Unfortunately with books of this type, they tend to try to bite off a lot more than they can convenient chew! While there are certainly a number of ships of different time periods presented, it can hardly be called anything like a full compendium. Whole classes of ships are missing, including a number of significant Russian, American, German, French and British classes of battleships, armored cruisers, cruisers, etc. This book is particularly bad for the time period 1860-1914, with very little information presented (half of Admiral Togo's battlefleet is missing, let alone the Russians of the time, and virtually NONE of the many American pre-WWI armored cruisers are discussed at all). Even WW2 is missing a number of different heavy cruiser classes, both Japanese and American with no explanation. Finally, many comments are made about different ship types with very little basis of support, and would be better not mentioned at all. All that said, for eleven bucks, it is a handy little guide.

Fantastic book for the size and price

Reviewed by Georgios-ilias Alexiou, 2006-01-22

Fantastic directory! I have many naval books (about 200) and this is the first one that covers 141 years and I can take with me where ever I go! Imagine doing this with Conway's All the Worlds Fighting Ships (this is a 4 book series covering the same period, and big books at that).It doesn't cover every ship of the period but for its size and price its superb! As for the missing classes Mr. Corwin notes, I agree but its O.K., except for one, the Talwar class entered service in 2003, the book was published in 2001. In mine oppinion there is only one serious mistake: the Hydra class where battleships not cruisers, I know I am Greek!

Too broad a subject for such a short space, but overall ok guide.

Reviewed by A. G. Corwin, 2005-10-17

Author David Miller offers another Zagat-sized warship compilation guide, Warships of the World: 1860 to the Present Day offers an inexpensive, reference guide to the naval vessels of the last 145 years. Though chock full of various ships, the scope of the subject is too much for such a format, and what you get is limited information and pictures for the various ships. This is not a guide for the expert, but makes for a fun read and handy reference for the layman.

The book is broken down by ship type: Aircraft Carrier, Battleship, Battle Cruiser, Cruiser, Destroyer, and Escorts. Each category is broken down by country. The book is 479 pages in length and covers well over 100 classes of ships. Technical specs are offered for each class, as well as photographs and artist renderings(only on some).

Some problems I have with this book. There is no clear tab or title page for each countries' entries in that category. There are several classes of ships which have been placed in categories either inappropriate or highly debatable, most notably the French Dunkerque as a battle cruiser (in my opinion belonging in the battleship class), the Sovremmenny and Udaloy destroyers listed in the cruiser class, and the Krivak and Oliver Hazard Perry classes listed as escorts rather than frigates(the author uses escorts as a catch all class for FF, FFG, FFL, and Patrol craft). Also there is a horrendous lack of material on Chinese(Jiangwei and Jianhu class)and Indian naval ships, and no entries for the modern Russian designs like Nuestrashimmy or Talwar(Krivak III mod) Class FFGs.

Most naval buffs will find errors and have some disagreement over Miller's classifications, but for the most part, this is not designed to be the work of an expert. Miller has published similar guides on submarines, tanks, guns, and weapons, so I feel that his expertise is in compiling information rather than on a specific category.

Buy this one used and save a few bucks.