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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 12, 2018 14:55:18 GMT -6
I think D.K. Brown and Friedman cover the design and construction of warships very well. There are some others that you might consider. 1. Dreadnought and Castles of Steel - by Robert K. Massie 2. The Battleship Builders - by Ian Johnson and Ian Buxton - This book describes the " Constructing and Arming of British Capital Ship". It gives you an insight into the workings of the shipyards 3. In Defense of Naval Supremacy - By Jon Tetsuro Sumida. This book provides a good discussion and history of the finance, technology and British Naval Policy from 1889 to 1914 4. The Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery by Paul Kennedy - This book provides an excellent history of the British Navy. 5. Kaigun - By David C. Evans and Mark R. Peattie. This book gives a complete history of Strategy, Tactics and Tecnology in the Imperial Japanese Navy. 6. The Great Naval Race by Peter Padfield. This book provides a history of the Anglo-German Naval rivalry from 1900-1914 7. Tirpitz and the Imperial German Navy - By Patrick Kelly 8. Fleet Tactics and Coastal Combat - By Captain Wayne P. Hughes Jr. - This is a must read to understand Fleet tactics and its effects. 9. Agents of Innovation: The General Board and the Design of the Fleet that Defeated the Japanese Navy by John T. Kuehn 10. Treaty Cruisers: The First International Warship Building Competition by Leo Marriot 11. Aircraft Carrier History, World War 1 and II: Bureau of Aeronatuics, Royal Navy, American Navy, Jet Engines, Flexdeck, Catapults, Carrier Aviation Technology. I don't know your overall direction but if you truly want to understand naval warfare, keep in mind that most naval battles in history occurred in littoral zones or enclosed seas. Two books that will provide historical analysis of this type of geographic location are: 1. Naval Strategy and Operations in Narrow Seas - Milan N. Vego 2. Operational Warfare at Sea by Milan N. Vego Anyway, I hope this helps you. If you want some books on aviation, let me know, I can provide that also. Good luck and enjoy. Thanks for the additional suggestions. I have been working off some reading lists I have found elsewhere, plus accumulated reading over the past few decades. I have read both Massie books more than once and also loaned them out. Have read _Kaigun_ more than once as well. Have a number of H P Willmot volumes as well on the beginning on the Pacific War and also his "The Last Century of Sea Power" series. If I recall correctly the latter had an appendix that was a day-by-day diary of naval action in World War I which showed that there was a lot of light force clashes going on between the few larger fights involving the battleships and dreadnoughts. Have read some on carrier aviation, mainly US, since my father was involved in that during the 1950s. It appears you have read some good material, I am always open to historical discussions on this thread. My father was in the Navy before Pearl Harbor and on board the USS Saratoga and on Guadalcanal. He continued in the government as I did working on Naval aircraft. Nice to hear of another person with that interest. Keep in touch. Just a suggestion; don't limit yourself to just books. I've provides many good sources of documents, many original primary sources, that can be downloaded and used. I have well over 200 GB of these kinds of documents stored on my local based cloud system. Expand your horizons.
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Post by oaktree on Apr 13, 2018 7:12:56 GMT -6
I have poked around on various sites to look at stuff; Navweapons for instance. I have not dug too far into primary sources due to time constraints and varied interests. I should have a bit more time on my hands in a month or so and can then decide if I want to focus more on these things.
My familiarity with the early war naval aviation is mainly via the Lundgrum "First Team" books and Frank's books on the Guadalcanal campaign. Sort of led into it from playing the Victory Game's "Carrier" board game back in the 1990s. (And raising my curiousity if the flyers would have done better with a Wildcat with 4 .50 MG rather than the 6-gun wing that the F4F-4 had.)
My father's service was non-war time. 1955-58 as an electronics officer in a fighter squadron that flew Banshees (F2H-3) on the Yorktown (CVA-10) and the Bon Homme Richard (CVA-34). I think they were transitioning to the F3H-2 when he left the service. I do recall that he had some unflattering things to say about some of the aircraft and piloting that he saw. Though this period of aviation development was something like RTW - lots of new tech coming into service and having teething and development issues.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 13, 2018 7:56:16 GMT -6
I have poked around on various sites to look at stuff; Navweapons for instance. I have not dug too far into primary sources due to time constraints and varied interests. I should have a bit more time on my hands in a month or so and can then decide if I want to focus more on these things. My familiarity with the early war naval aviation is mainly via the Lundgrum "First Team" books and Frank's books on the Guadalcanal campaign. Sort of led into it from playing the Victory Game's "Carrier" board game back in the 1990s. (And raising my curiousity if the flyers would have done better with a Wildcat with 4 .50 MG rather than the 6-gun wing that the F4F-4 had.) My father's service was non-war time. 1955-58 as an electronics officer in a fighter squadron that flew Banshees (F2H-3) on the Yorktown (CVA-10) and the Bon Homme Richard (CVA-34). I think they were transitioning to the F3H-2 when he left the service. I do recall that he had some unflattering things to say about some of the aircraft and piloting that he saw. Though this period of aviation development was something like RTW - lots of new tech coming into service and having teething and development issues. Both Lundstrom and Frank do a great job on the subject. My dad was in CASU 11 on Guadalcanal and while on the Sara participated in at least two of the carrier battles around the Solomon's. He was an Aviation Ordnance man and flew in PBY's, TBF's and SBD's his primary aircraft. As to the F4F-4, frequently two of the .50 Cal. Machine guns were removed to make room for more ammunition. Japanese aircraft, due to their construction and lack of self-sealing tanks etc., were very vulnerable even to four .50 Cal ammunition. They were vulnerable even to the rear gunners on SBD's as my Dad always said. The Naval jets of your Dad's time period were underpowered. When my Dad left the service in 1946, he went to work at the Depot in San Diego and worked on many of those aircraft. The development of the new technologies, weapons, tactics and doctrine for the Navy began just after WWII and went well into the 1950's. The new generation of jet powered began to enter service around 1947 so that the carrier air wings had a mixed bag of prop and jet. Jet engine technology proceeded slowly after the war so that the jets of that period were heavy and underpowered plus the carriers did not have the later approach control facilities for these heavy jet's. Most historians state that the 1950's was the worst time for Naval aviation and I agree. The advent of the F-8 Crusader in the late 1950's began to change all of this along with the A-4 Skyhawk. Carrier design had to change and the Forrestal's arrived with nuclear powered carriers on the horizon. These are periods in aviation history like this.
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Post by dorn on Jun 18, 2018 15:22:12 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 18, 2018 15:55:25 GMT -6
Thanks because this really helps the forum with vital information for not only game but for just historical information.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jun 24, 2018 10:48:05 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Jan 6, 2019 17:30:17 GMT -6
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Post by oaktree on Feb 4, 2019 12:20:08 GMT -6
Something else I have come across towards information on ship histories and naval topics is a series of videos by someone with the handle of "Drachinifel". Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKdXLpSdAMHe does short 5-10 minute videos on a particular ship or class, specials on certain subjects or battles, and also a weekly "Drydock" video where he fields questions entered in the video comments or the associated Discord site. The early videos use a computer generated voice, but these are being updated/replaced by human voice versions. The videos might not be everyone's cup of tea in terms of detail and additional sources, but the Discord is a place where some detailed discussion takes place at times. There is also bit of side discussion regarding "what if" designs using Springsharp, RTW discussion, and some WoWS stuff as well.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 4, 2019 12:49:49 GMT -6
Something else I have come across towards information on ship histories and naval topics is a series of videos by someone with the handle of "Drachinifel". Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtKdXLpSdAMHe does short 5-10 minute videos on a particular ship or class, specials on certain subjects or battles, and also a weekly "Drydock" video where he fields questions entered in the video comments or the associated Discord site. The early videos use a computer generated voice, but these are being updated/replaced by human voice versions. The videos might not be everyone's cup of tea in terms of detail and additional sources, but the Discord is a place where some detailed discussion takes place at times. There is also bit of side discussion regarding "what if" designs using Springsharp, RTW discussion, and some WoWS stuff as well. Thank you for contributing this because I think it will be useful. Keep it up.
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 8, 2019 17:10:29 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 21, 2019 0:53:25 GMT -6
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Post by oldpop2000 on Feb 25, 2019 11:09:03 GMT -6
Here is a link to the Naval War College Review which are digitized. On the right you can examine each issue starting from 1949 and download individual PDF's. These articles are written by naval officers, civilian historians and by foreign officers that have been asked to write articles. You can also search below for a particular subject or issue digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/I urge you to examine, starting with Volume 1, Number 1 dated October 1948 and examine each one over time. There are some excellent articles with great information.
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Post by noshurviverse on Apr 10, 2019 17:27:17 GMT -6
The site might be a bit of a hassle to effectively navigate, but it's full of diary entries, AARs and other documents regarding B-29 operations in the Pacific. Lots of very interesting stories. 39th.org/39th/61st_pages.htm
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Post by oldpop2000 on Apr 10, 2019 19:20:11 GMT -6
The site might be a bit of a hassle to effectively navigate, but it's full of diary entries, AARs and other documents regarding B-29 operations in the Pacific. Lots of very interesting stories. 39th.org/39th/61st_pages.htmExcellent resource for the members. Thanks and keep it up.
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Post by axe99 on Jul 2, 2019 5:03:37 GMT -6
Another source of books and such. I've just placed the military section but there is far more. LINK REMOVED DUE TO COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS Thanks for the link That said, are all of those books copyright-free? It's still possible to buy some of the Osprey titles from the Osprey site - is there a chance some of those books on that site are infringing on copyright?
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