Author Description

Part of a three-volume set on the world's battleships, this book provides a comprehensive history of all U.S. Navy battleships and battlecruisers built, designed, or projected built since the early 1930s. It covers their design and construction, operational careers, and eventual disposition. Complete plans are presented for many classes as well as extensive technical data covering their characteristics and performance, information that is sometimes hard to find and often contradictory. The operational careers of the ships are chronicled in detail. Incidents that challenged a ship's design adequacy, particularly from the standpoint of damage resistance, are discussed.. Originally published in 1976 with the subtitle U.S. Battleships in World War II, the book has undergone significant revision. Not only has it been brought up to date with the addition of a new chapter covering the Iowa-class reactivation through 1992, but the book now includes revelations uncovered in newly accessible material. The authors offer a complete description and analysis of the tragic turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa in April 1989, with conclusions that differ from those widely reported by the media and from those officially presented by the Navy. In an appendix, they bring to light for the first time the full extent of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's involvement in the shaping of the U.S. fleet and credit him with influencing the design, construction, and deployment of battleships and battlecruisers built during his administration. For example, they cite Roosevelt as the individual responsible for the speed and endurance of the Alaska-class battleships and the design and construction of the Alaska-class battlecruisers and for controlling the number, general characteristics, gunnery, and anti-aircraft armament of other classes as well.. In addition, this massive work now offers information about the secret development of accurate long-range major-caliber gunfire control in the period before World War II, the proposed conversion of the Iowa and Alaska ships to aircraft carriers, and the twin-skeg problems encountered by battleships. Ship histories have been updated to include details about the service of the four reactivated Iowa battleships and their recent retirements.