WesWorld

I just got „British Aircraft Carriers 1939 – 45“ (New Vanguard #168), written by author Angus Konstam and illustrated by Tony Bryan. It is a 48 pages paperback that had cost me about ten Euros.

What can you expect?
It is a small book you can read in about two hours. Once done, you got a decent overview on British carrier development, especially the interwar classes, and on flight deck operations. The book continues with a section about the operational history of each carrier. Finally it is rounded up by a chapter that is typical for reference books, including some basic technical data and specifications. The book further holds some black/white photos, coloured paintings and cut-away drawings.

What you cannot expect?
The book is too small to contain really detailed information on the development of individual classes and line drawings are completely left out. You should also be aware that purely technical information is limited, too. For example, there is no information on the Mark of the gun mounts used or the radar sets carried during individual operations. The reference pages provide little more than dimensions, speed, range, main guns and some rudimentary information on armour (if any). There is no metric data, potentially annoying for those not used to the imperial system.

What is odd about the book is its sequence of chapters. It starts with a general chapter about British carrier history and development, then describing design history by class, followed by a general chapter on flight deck operations. It continues with a chapter about operational history by class and a last section, almost an appendix that holds technical data – again by class. So the succession of chapters requires jumping around in the book to get all information on a specific ship or class, e.g. the HMS Ark Royal. To me this reveals that the author was not sure whether he wants to write a classical reference book like Chesneau’s “Aircraft carriers of the world” or provide background information as in Reynolds’ “Aircraft carrier of the 1st and 2nd World War”.

Worth the money?
For about ten Euros and after a two-hours-read you will have gained a decent general overview on British carrier aviation, which is not too bad. Of course, if your bookshelf already holds numerous books on carrier vessels, you will hardly learn anything new. But the pictures and drawings are nice and at least those few pages explaining in detail flight-deck operations brought new information for me that I had not yet read in my other books.

So I recommend this book either for those with a small purse or those that want to get a general overview. Of course, if you are simply rounding up your library with any bit of additional information on British carriers, it might be worth the money too. At least it does not consume too much space in the bookshelves.

I like Osprey's "New Vanguard" series for the more tightly focused topics - a single tank, gun or vehicle. When they attempt to tackle a wider subject the format does not allow any significant detail. But, as you say, if this was the first book someone had read on the subject, it would be an excellent primer - and Osprey books usually have an excellent bibliography and list of souces. But Ospreys are no substitute for a good technical work on a major subject like aircraft carriers.

And, to be charitable, some of the choppiness of the narrative might be due to bad editing, rather than indecisive writing.

I've been known to sit in Borders or Barnes & Noble and leaf through a couple of those books. They don't have anything new and interesting, usually. They might be useful if you want to give someone a primer on certain ships, if they're new to the hobby.

I see them a lot in Hobby shops, too. They might be intended as cheap reference guides for modelers more than anything else.