Download or read book US Navy Battleships 1895 1908 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-17 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The last predreadnought battleships of the US Navy were critical to the technological development of US battleships, and they were the first tool of international hard power wielded by the United States, a nation which would eventually become the world's dominant political and military power of the 20th century. These battleships were the stars of the 1907–09 Great White Fleet circumnavigation, in which the emerging power and reach of the US Navy was displayed around the world. They also took part in the bombardment and landings at Veracruz, some served as convoy escorts in World War I, and the last two were transferred to the Hellenic Navy and were sunk during World War II. This book examines the design, history, and technical qualities of the final six classes of US predreadnought battleships, all of which were involved in the circumnavigation of the Great White Fleet. These classes progressively closed the quality gap with European navies – the Connecticuts were the finest predreadnought battleships ever built – and this book also compares and contrasts US predreadnought battleships to their foreign contemporaries. Packed with illustrations and specially commissioned artwork, this is an essential guide to the development of US Navy Battleships at the turn of the twentieth century.

Download or read book US Navy Battleships 1886 98 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the American Civil War, the US Navy had been allowed to decay into complete insignificance, yet the commissioning of the modern Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and poor performance against the contemporary Spanish fleet, forced the US out of its isolationist posture towards battleships. The first true US battleships began with the experimental Maine and Texas, followed by the three-ship Indiana class, and the Iowa class, which incorporated lessons from the previous ships. These initial ships set the enduring US battleship standard of being heavily armed and armoured at the expense of speed. This fully illustrated study examines these first six US battleships, a story of political compromises, clean sheet designs, operational experience, and experimental improvements. These ships directly inspired the creation of an embryonic American military-industrial complex, enabled a permanent outward-looking shift in American foreign policy and laid the foundations of the modern US Navy.

Download or read book US Navy Armored Cruisers 1890 1933 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2022-10-27 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new history of the large, fast, and long-ranged armored cruisers of the US Navy, and the roles that these warships played in the fleet as America developed into a great naval power. At the dawn of the “Steel Navy” era, the rapidly expanding US Navy's fleet of capital ships consisted not only of battleships but also armored cruisers, the forerunner of the battlecruiser. Armored cruisers sacrificed the battleship's superlative firepower and protection for superior speed and range but, as this study shows, their role was not always easy to define. Controversial because they were as large and expensive as battleships but not able to withstand a battleship in battle, contemporary strategists pointed out that, “naval wars are not won by running away from stronger ships.” Despite being produced at great expense, tactically they never really had a legitimate mission–traditional deployments were commerce raiding and protection, but despite this, author Brian Lane Herder illustrates how successful the use of armored cruisers was for the US Navy. After 1906, some replaced US battleships in the Pacific, functioning as oversized gunboats, most notably, the modified armored cruiser Pennsylvania which witnessed the first landing of an airplane on a ship. On November 5, 1915, North Carolina became the first cruiser to launch an aircraft from a catapult while underway. After the war, surviving US armored cruisers represented the US Navy on their Asiatic station until the final cruiser was scuttled in 1946. Using detailed, color artwork and photos, this fascinating book describes the development and deployment of these controversial but intriguing ships, providing examples of the key service they played in the US Navy in a variety of defensive and escorting roles.

Download or read book US Navy Gunboats 1885 1945 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the history of the US Navy's gunboats and their role in building a worldwide American naval presence abroad and in combat, from the Yangtze era through to World War II. For more than half a century, American gunboats were the ships often responsible for policing small crises and provided deterrence and fast-response capabilities around the world – showing the flag, landing armed parties, patrolling river and littoral areas, and protecting ex-pats. They were often the United States' most-visible and constant military presence in far-flung foreign lands, and were most closely associated with the Far East, particularly the Philippines and China. Most famous, of course, was the multinational Yangtze Patrol. Many US gunboats were built, purchased or reassembled overseas where they usually served out their entire careers, never coming within 7,000 miles of the national homeland which they served. Numerous gunboats were captured from the Spanish during the 1898 war, many being raised from shallow graves, refurbished, and commissioned into USN service. The classic haunt of US gunboats was the Asiatic Station of China and the Philippines. Gunboat service overseas was typically exotic and the sailors' lives were often exciting and unpredictable. The major operational theatres associated with the US gunboats were the pre-1898 cruises and patrols of the earliest steel gunboats, the Spanish-American War of 1898 (both the Philippines and the Caribbean), the guerilla wars of the early 20th century Philippines and Latin America, the Asiatic Fleet and Yangtze Patrol of the 1890s–1930s, and finally World War II, which largely entailed operations in China, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Alaska, and on convoy routes. It was Japan's sudden 1941–1942 'Centrifugal Offensive' that effectively spelled the beginning of the end not just of most American gunboats, but also the century-old world order in Asia that had provided US gunboats with their primary mission.

Download or read book US Navy Battleships 1886 98 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2019-06-27 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After the American Civil War, the US Navy had been allowed to decay into complete insignificance, yet the commissioning of the modern Brazilian battleship Riachuelo and poor performance against the contemporary Spanish fleet, forced the US out of its isolationist posture towards battleships. The first true US battleships began with the experimental Maine and Texas, followed by the three-ship Indiana class, and the Iowa class, which incorporated lessons from the previous ships. These initial ships set the enduring US battleship standard of being heavily armed and armoured at the expense of speed. This fully illustrated study examines these first six US battleships, a story of political compromises, clean sheet designs, operational experience, and experimental improvements. These ships directly inspired the creation of an embryonic American military-industrial complex, enabled a permanent outward-looking shift in American foreign policy and laid the foundations of the modern US Navy.

Download or read book US Navy Dreadnoughts 1914 45 written by Ryan K. Noppen and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2014-08-20 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The development of the US Navy's dreadnought battleships was a pivotal part of America's evolution into a true world power. By the beginning of World War I, the United States possessed the world's third largest navy, with ten dreadnoughts in service and four more under construction. By the end of World War II, the US Navy was the undoubted global superpower, despite initial crippling losses to its battlefleet at Pearl Harbor. Richly illustrated with archive photographs as well as a full cutaway of the world's only surviving dreadnought, this comprehensive and detailed title covers the technical characteristics and combat record of the US dreadnoughts throughout their long careers.

Download or read book Teddy Roosevelt s Great White Fleet written by James R. Reckner and published by US Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on previously untapped sources, naval historian James Reckner provides a complete picture of the fleet that thrust the United States into the ranks of great world naval powers. His fresh interpretations of the fleet's historic 1907-09 world cruise, which won him the 1989 Roosevelt Naval History Prize, allow today's readers to fully appreciate the significance of the famous fleet that set sail during Teddy Roosevelt's second term as president. Reckner recreates the colorful pageantry of the event--sixteen U.S. battleships on a fourteen-month voyage around the world--that drew thousands of sightseers at every port of call, but his main emphasis is on the cruise's long-range impact on the Navy. He shows how the cruise revealed the fleet's shortcomings and forced the naval establishment to acknowledge the faults and make concessions that eventually led to permanent benefits.

Download or read book Manila and Santiago written by Jim Leeke and published by Naval Institute Press. This book was released on 2013-07-10 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The U.S. Navy's first two-ocean war was the Spanish-American War of 1898. A war that was global in scope, with the decisive naval battles of war at Manila Bay and Santiago de Cuba separated by two months and over ten thousand miles. During these battles in this quick, modern war, America s New Steel Navy came of age. While the American commanders sailed to war with a technologically advanced fleet, it was the lessons they had learned from Adm. David Farragut in the Civil War that prepared them for victory over the Spaniards. This history of the U.S. Navy s operations in the war provides some memorable portraits of the colorful officers who decided the outcome of these battles: Shang Dewey in the Philippines and Fighting Bob Evans off southern Cuba; Jack Philip conning the Texas and Constructor Hobson scuttling the Merrimac; Clark of the Oregon pushing his battleship around South America; and Adm. William Sampson and Commodore Scott Schley ending their careers in controversy. These officers sailed into battle with a navy of middle-aged lieutenants and overworked bluejackets, along with green naval militiamen. They were accompanied by numerous onboard correspondents, who documented the war.In addition to descriptions of the men who fought or witnessed the pivotal battles on the American side, the book offers sympathetic portraits of several Spanish officers, the Dons for whom American sailors held little personal enmity. Admirals Patricio Montojo and Pasqual Cervera, doomed to sacrifice their forces for the pride of a dying empire, receive particular attention. The first study of the Spanish-American War to be published in many years, this book takes a journalistic approach to the subject, making the conflict and the people involved relevant to today s readers. This work details a war in which victory was determined as much by leadership as by the technology of the American Steel Navy.

Download or read book US Navy Protected Cruisers 1883 1918 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-20 with total page 113 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Explores the history of the US Navy's 11 new steel warships, built during the late 19th century to advance American naval supremacy. After the American Civil War, the powerful US Navy was allowed to decay into utter decrepitude, and was becoming a security liability. In 1883, Congress approved four new steel-constructed vessels called the “ABCD” ships. The three protected cruisers Atlanta, Boston, and Chicago were the first steel warships built for the US Navy, whose 1880s–1890s technological and cultural transformation was so total it is now remembered as the “New Navy”. This small fleet was joined by a succession of new and distinctive protected cruisers, culminating in the famous and powerful Olympia. These 11 protected cruisers formed the backbone of the early US steel navy, and were in the frontline of the US victory in the 1898 Spanish-American War. It was these warships that fought and won the decisive Battle of Manila Bay. These cruisers also served faithfully as escorts and auxiliaries in World War I before the last were retired in the 1920s. Written by experienced US naval researcher Brian Lane Herder, and including rare photographs, this book explores the development, qualities, and service of these important warships, and highlights the almost-forgotten Columbia-class, designed as high-speed commerce raiders, and to mimic specific passenger liners. All 11 protected cruisers are depicted in meticulously researched color illustrations with one depicting the Olympia deploying her full sail rig.

Download or read book British Pacific Fleet 1944 45 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-11-23 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An illustration-packed new account of the powerful Royal Navy fleet that fought alongside the US Navy throughout the last year of the Pacific War. The British Pacific Fleet was the Royal Navy's primary contribution to the direct defeat of Japan in 1945, and is among the most powerful fleets Britain has ever sent into action. With naval supremacy in home waters achieved by 1944, many of the best and most modern ships in the Royal Navy could be sent to the Pacific, including battleships, submarines, light forces, replenishment groups, and shore establishment. However, the main striking force was the fast carrier force. Illustrated throughout with dramatic new artwork, 3D diagrams, maps and archive photos, this book explains how the Royal Navy joined the Pacific carrier war, and how the fleet adopted the US Navy's ruthlessly effective fast carrier doctrine. With ships optimized for short-range operations in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, the BPF had to rapidly adapt to the long-range, high-tempo warfare of the Pacific, and the story is often one of inspired improvisation. The BPF shared the US Navy's terrifying experience of kamikaze strikes, and famously its armoured carriers proved tougher than the US counterparts. With discussion of the ships, their technology, how the fleet was organized and commanded, and how it fought the campaign, this book is a fascinating exploration of the Royal Navy's part in the victory over Japan.

Download or read book The Naval Siege of Japan 1945 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-04-30 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The final months of Allied naval bombardments on the Home Islands during World War II have, for whatever reason, frequently been overlooked by historians. Yet the Allies' final naval campaign against Japan involved the largest and arguably most successful wartime naval fleet ever assembled, and was the climax to the greatest naval war in history. Though suffering grievous losses during its early attacks, by July 1945 the United States Third Fleet wielded 1,400 aircraft just off the coast of Japan, while Task Force 37, the British Pacific Fleet's carrier and battleship striking force, was the most powerful single formation ever assembled by the Royal Navy. In the final months of the war the Third Fleet's 20 American and British aircraft carriers would hurl over 10,000 aerial sorties against the Home Islands, whilst another ten Allied battleships would inflict numerous morale-destroying shellings on Japanese coastal cities. In this illustrated study, historian Brian Lane Herder draws on primary sources and expert analysis to chronicle the full story of the Allies' Navy Siege of Japan from February 1945 to the very last days of World War II.

Download or read book World War II US Fast Carrier Task Force Tactics 1943 45 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-02-20 with total page 65 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing on difficult-to-access wartime documents and other contemporary sources, this is the first compact, illustrated study of the tactics and techniques of the US fast carriers of Task Forces 50, 58 and 38 during the naval war against Japan in 1943–45. This title concentrates on exactly how these highly successful forces actually operated: their composition in ships, aircraft and men; the essential technology at their disposal; the evolving doctrine for their employment; the opposition and dangers they faced; and how they overcame them at the tactical level. It explains in straightforward terms the intricate details of topics such as how ships manoeuvred, how aircraft were deployed and recovered, the formations and approaches used by fighters, dive-bombers and torpedo-bombers against naval and land targets, and how Task Forces defended themselves. The text is supported by a wide range of wartime photos and full-colour illustrations, showing, for example, the formations employed by ships and aircraft, with altitudes and ranges throughout the course of attacks.

Download or read book Technological Change and the United States Navy 1865 1945 written by William M. McBride and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 374 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner, Engineer-Historian Award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers Navies have always been technologically sophisticated, from the ancient world's trireme galleys and the Age of Sail's ships-of-the-line to the dreadnoughts of World War I and today's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and submarines. Yet each large technical innovation has met with resistance and even hostility from those officers who, adhering to a familiar warrior ethos, have grown used to a certain style of fighting. In Technological Change and the United States Navy, William M. McBride examines how the navy dealt with technological change—from the end of the Civil War through the "age of the battleship"—as technology became more complex and the nation assumed a global role. Although steam engines generally made their mark in the maritime world by 1865, for example, and proved useful to the Union riverine navy during the Civil War, a backlash within the service later developed against both steam engines and the engineers who ran them. Early in the twentieth century the large dreadnought battleship at first met similar resistance from some officers, including the famous Alfred Thayer Mahan, and their industrial and political allies. During the first half of the twentieth century the battleship exercised a dominant influence on those who developed the nation's strategies and operational plans—at the same time that advances in submarines and fixed-wing aircraft complicated the picture and undermined the battleship's superiority. In any given period, argues McBride, some technologies initially threaten the navy's image of itself. Professional jealousies and insecurities, ignorance, and hidebound traditions arguably influenced the officer corps on matters of technology as much as concerns about national security, and McBride contends that this dynamic persists today. McBride also demonstrates the interplay between technological innovation and other influences on naval adaptability—international commitments, strategic concepts, government-industrial relations, and the constant influence of domestic politics. Challenging technological determinism, he uncovers the conflicting attitudes toward technology that guided naval policy between the end of the Civil War and the dawning of the nuclear age. The evolution and persistence of the "battleship navy," he argues, offer direct insight into the dominance of the aircraft-carrier paradigm after 1945 and into the twenty-first century.

Download or read book D Day Fleet 1944 American Sector written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2024-12-19 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fully illustrated study of how the US-led half of the Normandy invasion fleet was composed, commanded, and how it fought, from D-Day until the fall of Cherbourg. The D-Day landings and their aftermath were among the most complex and important naval operations in history. With the target beaches divided into two areas of responsibility – one US-commanded, one British – this armada launched a month-long operation to first support the landings, then to protect, supply, and support the troops ashore, as they fought to expand their toehold in occupied Europe. In this book, illustrated throughout with 3D diagrams, photos, maps and dramatic artwork, naval historian Brian Lane Herder explains how the US Navy-led Western Task Force was built, and outlines its operations off Normandy during June 1944. It covers this multinational fleet's organization, assembly, and training, as well as the intelligence and logistics picture, and explores its actions that were so crucial to success on D-Day, from its superb and continuous minesweeping efforts to the aggressive gunfire support off Omaha and Utah beaches. A unique portrait of the American naval sector in the D-Day landings, this book also examines the Western Task Force's operations off Normandy after the beachheads were established, including the destruction of the American Mulberry harbor in a storm, up to the conquest of the port of Cherbourg in late June 1944.

Download or read book Early Pacific Raids 1942 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-06-22 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fascinating exploration of how between February 1 and March 10, 1942, three small US task forces launched several unexpected raids across the Japanese defensive perimeter in the Central and South Pacific. After the devastating Japanese blows of December 1941, the Allies found themselves reeling with defeat everywhere in the Pacific. Although stripped of his battleships and outnumbered 10:3 in carriers, the US Navy commander-in-chief Admiral Ernest J. King decided to hit back at Japan's rapidly expanding Pacific empire immediately, in an effort to keep the Japanese off-balance. On February 1, 1942, Vice Admiral Bill Halsey led the US Pacific Fleet carriers on their first raid, using high-speed hit-and-run tactics to strike at the Japanese, at a time when most of the Japanese carrier fleet was in the Indian Ocean. Halsey's aggressive commitment inspired its American participants to invent the mythical “Haul Ass With Halsey” club. The last of the 1942 US carrier raids in March 1942 would form a defining moment in the Pacific War, prior to a new phase of high-seas battles between the opposing fleets. This superbly illustrated book documents for the first time in a single volume this little-known but important World War II naval campaign. The fabulous illustrations, including maps and colour artworks, bring to life the US air and naval raids on the Japanese bases in the Marshall and Gilbert Islands, Rabaul, Wake Island, Marcus Island, and Lae and Salamaua in northern New Guinea.

Download or read book US Navy Gunboats 1885 1945 written by Brian Lane Herder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2021-04-15 with total page 49 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the history of the US Navy's gunboats and their role in building a worldwide American naval presence abroad and in combat, from the Yangtze era through to World War II. For more than half a century, American gunboats were the ships often responsible for policing small crises and provided deterrence and fast-response capabilities around the world – showing the flag, landing armed parties, patrolling river and littoral areas, and protecting ex-pats. They were often the United States' most-visible and constant military presence in far-flung foreign lands, and were most closely associated with the Far East, particularly the Philippines and China. Most famous, of course, was the multinational Yangtze Patrol. Many US gunboats were built, purchased or reassembled overseas where they usually served out their entire careers, never coming within 7,000 miles of the national homeland which they served. Numerous gunboats were captured from the Spanish during the 1898 war, many being raised from shallow graves, refurbished, and commissioned into USN service. The classic haunt of US gunboats was the Asiatic Station of China and the Philippines. Gunboat service overseas was typically exotic and the sailors' lives were often exciting and unpredictable. The major operational theatres associated with the US gunboats were the pre-1898 cruises and patrols of the earliest steel gunboats, the Spanish-American War of 1898 (both the Philippines and the Caribbean), the guerilla wars of the early 20th century Philippines and Latin America, the Asiatic Fleet and Yangtze Patrol of the 1890s–1930s, and finally World War II, which largely entailed operations in China, the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Alaska, and on convoy routes. It was Japan's sudden 1941–1942 'Centrifugal Offensive' that effectively spelled the beginning of the end not just of most American gunboats, but also the century-old world order in Asia that had provided US gunboats with their primary mission.

Download or read book Theodore Roosevelt and the Great White Fleet written by Kenneth Wimmel and published by Potomac Books. This book was released on 1998 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: But scarcely a generation earlier, in 1880, the U.S. Navy had reached the nadir of a precipitous decline that had begun just after the Civil War.