Atlantic Escorts: Ships, Weapons and Tactics in World War II

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By: David K. Brown
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EDITORIAL REVIEW

A warship designer and well-known author of a quartet of books on British warships, David K. Brown takes a detailed look at the Allied ships, weapons, and tactics that won the submarine war in the Atlantic in this handsomely illustrated book. Beginning with the lessons learned from World War I, the author outlines inter-war developments in technology and training and describes preparations for World War II. He then examines the balance of advantage as it see-sawed between U-boats and escorts when new weapons and sensors were introduced at a rapid rate. For defending navies, the prime requirement was numbers, and Brown explains that the most pressing problem was to improve capability without sacrificing simplicity and speed of construction. The author's analyses of the resulting designs of sloops, frigates, corvettes, and destroyer escorts, and his determination of their relative effectiveness, offer insights new even to those well versed on the subject of anti-submarine warfare during the Atlantic War, a campaign that Winston Churchill famously claimed was the only one that really frightened him.

PRODUCT DETAILS

Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Pub. Date: 15th January 2008
Catalog: Book
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Pages: 224
Ean: 9781591140122
Isbn: 1591140129

ABOUT THIS BOOK

USER REVIEWS

It does what it says on the tin
~ Written on Oct 25, 2008. 5 out of 5 users found this review helpful.

This is well up to D K Brown's usual exacting standards, and informed by his immense professional expertise in this field.

If it focuses more on the British experience, then that reflects the fact that the British and Canadians bore the brunt of the Atlantic work. But it is far from dismissive of US designs. As to downplaying the Hunts, the Atlantic was a secondary theatre for them - their particular niche was the Narrow Seas.

This is not a history of the campaign, it is true. But for anyone wanting to understand the evolution of the Allies' response to the German submarine threat, essential reading.

Highly informative, professional book
~ Written on Oct 21, 2008. 1 out of 1 users found this review helpful.

This is a highly detailed, informative book, full of technical details really hard to find elsewhere, like the sonar details (degrees, beams...). It condenses information you have to get through many other sources. The wonderful drawings are from John Lambert, another highly skilled specialist. I can strongly recommend this book if you are tired of "light" accounts of the Battle of the Atlantic and want to find real "meat" about the technical aspects of the battle.

Good But Short Read
~ Written on Jul 17, 2008. out of 3 users found this review helpful.

I could have hoped for about twice as much book with more info on the captains and crews. Still a good read.

for the dedicated only
~ Written on Jul 5, 2008. 6 out of 6 users found this review helpful.

I would reiterate and extend the comments of the other two reviewers. This book gives good coverage of British A/S dedicated ships used in the Battle of the Atlantic. Good points include the attention paid to seakeeping (long a professional concern of D K Brown), the relation made clear between weapons and the oft primitive means of controlling them and the limitations that imposed, the context of the Battle of the Atlantic, and the limitations posed by productive bottlenecks and the details of attempts to design around them. All these things are interesting and helpful to someone who already has some knowledge of the Battle of the Atlantic. As part of a library devoted to the topic, this book certainly has a place and it would be helpful for general histories on this subject to include some of the material developed here. But for or the general military history reader this work seems too specialized. In a way, this book is like a supplement or appendix to D K Browns wonderful series of books on the developement of ships for the Royal Navy.

Not what it could have been.
~ Written on Apr 16, 2008. 1 out of 3 users found this review helpful.

True, this is a book about SOME of the Atlantic Escorts of WWII. The ships that it does cover, it does very well, along with their tactics and equipment. But what happened to the "Hunts?" These were a large class of small "cheap" destroyer types, faster than the DE's but slower that the DD's. And whatever their flaws--and they were ample--they were an important part of the escort force from 1943 onwards. They certainly deserved more thah the meest mention,

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