<div>The technical details of British warships were recorded in a set of plans produced by the builders on completion of every ship. Known as the as fitted general arrangements, these drawings represented the exact appearance and fitting of the ship as it entered service. Intended to provide a permanent reference for the Admiralty and the dockyards, these highly detailed plans were drawn with exquisite skill in multi-coloured inks and washes that represent the acme of the draughtsmans art.Today they form part of the incomparable collection of the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, which is using the latest scanning technology to make digital copies of the highest quality. This book is one of a series based entirely on these draughts which depict famous warships in an unprecedented degree of detail  complete sets in full colour, with many close-ups and enlargements that make every aspect clear and comprehensible. Extensive captions point the reader to important features to be found in the plans, and an introduction covers the background to the design.HMS Victorious was a ship with two almost separate incarnations  as built in 1941 she was one of a new type of armoured carrier which saw strenuous wartime service; post-war the ship underwent a massive reconstruction lasting nearly eight years that saw her recommission in1958 as one of the best equipped carriers in the world, ready for another decade of duty. Both these phases of the ships life are fully documented, which allows this novel form of anatomy to cover two generations of carrier design.</div>

Aircraft Carrier Victorious

<div><B>&ldquo;</B><B>This superb book . . . will undoubtedly become the definitive volume on British Aircraft carriers and naval aviation . . . magnificent.&rdquo;&mdash;Marine News</B><BR />  <BR /> This book is a meticulously detailed history of British aircraft-carrying ships from the earliest experimental vessels to the <I>Queen Elizabeth</I> class, currently under construction and the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy. Individual chapters cover the design and construction of each class, with full technical details, and there are extensive summaries of every ship&rsquo;s career. Apart from the obvious large-deck carriers, the book also includes seaplane carriers, escort carriers and MAC ships, the maintenance ships built on carrier hulls, unbuilt projects, and the modern LPH. It concludes with a look at the future of naval aviation, while numerous appendices summarize related subjects like naval aircraft, recognition markings and the circumstances surrounding the loss of every British carrier. As befits such an important reference work, it is heavily illustrated with a magnificent gallery of photos and plans, including the first publication of original plans in full color, one on a magnificent gatefold.<BR />  <BR /> Written by the leading historian of British carrier aviation, himself a retired Fleet Air Arm pilot, it displays the authority of a lifetime&rsquo;s research combined with a practical understanding of the issues surrounding the design and operation of aircraft carriers. As such <I>British Aircraft Carriers</I> is certain to become the standard work on the subject.<BR />  <BR /> &ldquo;An outstanding highly informative reference work. It is a masterpiece which should be on every naval person&rsquo;s bookshelf. It is a pleasure to read and a pleasure to own.&rdquo;&mdash;Australian Naval Institute</div>

British Aircraft Carriers

<div>In a few short years after 1914 the Royal Navy practically invented naval air warfare, not only producing the first effective aircraft carriers, but also pioneering most of the techniques and tactics that made naval air power a reality. By 1918 the RN was so far ahead of other navies that a US Navy observer sent to study the British use of aircraft at sea concluded that any discussion of the subject must first consider their methods. Indeed, by the time the war ended the RN was training for a carrier-borne attack by torpedo-bombers on the German fleet in its bases  over two decades before the first successful employment of this tactic, against the Italians at Taranto.Following two previously well-received histories of British naval aviation, David Hobbs here turns his attention to the operational and technical achievements of the Royal Naval Air Service, both at sea and ashore, from 1914 to 1918. Detailed explanations of operations, the technology that underpinned them and the people who carried them out bring into sharp focus a revolutionary period of development that changed naval warfare forever. Controversially, the RNAS was subsumed into the newly created Royal Air Force in 1918, so as the centenary of its extinction approaches, this book is a timely reminder of its true significance.</div>

The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War

<div>The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich houses the largest collection of scale ship models in the world, many of which are official, contemporary artefacts made by the craftsmen of the navy or the shipbuilders themselves, and ranging from the mid seventeenth century to the present day. As such they represent a three-dimensional archive of unique importance and authority. Treated as historical evidence, they offer more detail than even the best plans, and demonstrate exactly what the ships looked like in a way that even the finest marine painter could not achieve. This book is one of a series that takes a selection of the best models to tell the story of specific ship types  in this case, the various classes of warship that fought in the First World War, from dreadnoughts to coastal motor boats. It reproduces a large number of model photos, all in full colour, and including many close-up and detail views. These are captioned in depth, but many are also annotated to focus attention on interesting or unusual features. Although pictorial in emphasis, the book weaves the pictures into an authoritative text, producing an unusual and attractive form of technical history.</div>

Warships of the Great War Era

<div><B>&ldquo;A comprehensive study of the bittersweet post WWII history of British naval aviation . . . will become a standard reference for its subject.&rdquo;&mdash;<I>Firetrench</I></B><BR />  <BR /> In 1945 the most powerful fleet in the Royal Navy&rsquo;s history was centered on nine aircraft carriers. This book charts the post-war fortunes of this potent strike force; its decline in the face of diminishing resources, its final fall at the hands of uncomprehending politicians, and its recent resurrection in the form of the Queen Elizabeth class carriers, the largest ships ever built for the Royal Navy.<BR />  <BR /> After 1945 &ldquo;experts&rdquo; prophesied that nuclear weapons would make conventional forces obsolete, but British carrier-borne aircraft were almost continuously employed in numerous conflicts as far apart as Korea, Egypt, the Persian Gulf, the South Atlantic, East Africa and the Far East, often giving successive British Governments options when no others were available. In the process the Royal Navy invented many of the techniques and devices crucial to modern carrier operations angled decks, steam catapults and deck-landing aids while also pioneering novel forms of warfare like helicopter-borne assault, and tactics for countering such modern plagues as insurgency and terrorism.<BR />  <BR /> This book combines narratives of these poorly understood operations with a clear analysis of the strategic and political background, benefiting from the author&#39;s personal experience of both carrier flying and the workings of Whitehall. It is an important but largely untold story, of renewed significance as Britain once again embraces carrier aviation.<BR />  <BR /> &ldquo;Makes a timely and welcome appearance . . . will make compelling reading for those with serious concern for our naval affairs.&rdquo;&mdash;<I>St. Andrews in Focus</I></div>

The British Carrier Strike Fleet after 1945

<div>It is now almost exactly a hundred years since a heavier-than-air craft first took off and landed on a warship, and from the very beginning flying at sea made unique demands on men and machines. As warplanes grew larger, faster and heavier, air operations from ships were only possible at all through constant development in technology, techniques and tactics. This book charts the progress and growing effectiveness of naval air power, concentrating on the advances and inventions - most of them British - that allowed shipborne aircraft to match their land-based counterparts, and looking at their contribution to 20th century warfare. Written by a retired Fleet Air Arm pilot and and award-winning historian of naval flying, this is a masterly overview of the history of aviation in the world's navies down to the present day. Heavily illustrated from the author's comprehensive collection of photographs, the book will be essential reading to anyone with an interest in navies or air power.</div>

A Century of Carrier Aviation

<div><B>&ldquo;Magnificent and important . . . should be on the shelves of anyone with a genuine interest in the history of the Royal Navy in the Second World War.&rdquo; &mdash;Military History Monthly</B><BR /><BR /> In August 1944 the British Pacific Fleet did not exist. Six months later it was strong enough to launch air attacks on Japanese territory, and by the end of the war it constituted the most powerful force in the history of the Royal Navy, fighting as professional equals alongside the US Navy in the thick of the action. How this was achieved by a nation nearing exhaustion after five years of conflict is a story of epic proportions in which ingenuity, diplomacy and dogged persistence all played a part. As much a political as a technical triumph, the BPF was uniquely complex in its make-up: its C-in-C was responsible to the Admiralty for the general direction of his Fleet; took operational orders from the American Admiral Nimitz; answered to the Government of Australia for the construction and maintenance of a vast base infrastructure, and to other Commonwealth Governments for the ships and men that formed his fully-integrated multi-national fleet.<BR /><BR /> This ground-breaking new work by David Hobbs describes the background, creation and expansion of the BPF from its first tentative strikes, through operations off the coast of Japan to its impact on the immediate post-war period, including the opinions of USN liaison officers attached to the British flagships. The book is the first to demonstrate the real scope and scale of the BPF&rsquo;s impressive achievement.<BR /><BR /><B>&ldquo;Perhaps the greatest Royal Navy story of, at least, the twentieth century.&rdquo; &mdash;Aircrew Book Review</B></div>

The British Pacific Fleet

<div><B>A biography of a British pilot set against the backdrop of the Royal Navy&rsquo;s fight to regain control of its aviation after the First World War.</B><BR />  <BR /> The establishment of the RAF came at a cost&mdash;and it was the Royal Navy that paid the price. In 1918 it had been pre-eminent in the technology and tactics of employing aircraft at sea, but once it lost control of its own air power, it struggled to make the RAF prioritize naval interests, in the process losing ground to the rival naval air forces of Japan and the United States.<BR />  <BR /> This book documents that struggle through the cash-strapped 1920s and &rsquo;30s, culminating in the Navy regaining control of its aviation in 1937, but too late to properly prepare for the impending war. However, despite the lack of resources, British naval flying had made progress, especially in the advancement of carrier strike doctrine. These developments are neatly illustrated by the experiences of Lieutenant William Lucy, who was to become Britain&rsquo;s first accredited air &lsquo;ace&rsquo; of the war and to lead the world&rsquo;s first successful dive-bombing of a major warship. Making extensive use of the family archive, this book also reproduces many previously unseen photographs from Lucy&rsquo;s album, showing many aspects of life in the Fleet Air Arm up to the end of the Norway campaign. The inter-war concentration on carrier strike would be spectacularly vindicated during World War II&mdash;and it was the Royal Navy that had led the way.</div>

David Hobbs

Books By David Hobbs (8 Books)

Aircraft Carrier Victorious

British Aircraft Carriers

The Royal Navy's Air Service in the Great War

Warships of the Great War Era

The British Carrier Strike Fleet after 1945

A Century of Carrier Aviation

The British Pacific Fleet

The Dawn of Carrier Strike

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