Amber Books Sea Combat From WW1 to the Present Day

[Shar2]

Sea Combat From WW1 to the Present Day
Amber Books Ltd

This is the third and last book in the series that we’ll be reviewing and it follows the same style and set-up as per the other two reviewed HERE and HERE. The book actually begins with the Naval arms race between 1900 and 1913 before moving on to the Naval encounters and designs of WW1 ending with the scuttling of the German High Seas Fleet in Scapa Flow. As with the other books there are some superb photographs, which I’m sure will be familiar to others, but were new to this reviewer. Naval Expansion deals with the inter war years, which is a bit of an intriguing title considering the various treaties that prevented expansion. WW2 is well covered, and I particularly enjoyed reading about the invasion of Norway and the battles of Narvik, but then I’m biased as the HMS Warspite was involved in the 2nd battle.

Each intermediate section covers a different theatre of operations, and it s good to see that it’s not all about the big front line units, but also about the smaller units, such as the destroyers, commerce raiders and Q Ships. The Battle of the Atlantic section has some rather harrowing pictures included to remind us of the human cost of war, as does the Mediterranean theatre section. I certainly learnt a few new facts about our forces in the Pacific, which is always good, amidst all the information that has been well written before.

The Cold War era begins with Korea and has some more great photos from the 50’s and 60’s of Russian and US warships in use up to and including Vietnam. It then moves onto the Falklands War and the final years of the Cold War before the Wall came down. Unfortunately this si pretty much when the book ends, as there isn’t anything from the latest conflicts where naval power has been used, not even from the first Gulf War, The Balkans, etc. This is a real shame; if you’re going to go to the trouble of updating a book, at least add some new information as there is so much more that could be added.

Conclusion
There we have it, another well produce and printed book, that doesn’t quite make the grade. There is so much that could have been included, but it doesn’t look like the publishers let the author loose on it. It could have added another 100 pages with what’s happened since 1998, the last picture in the book, let alone 2008 and the last publication.

Review sample courtesy of

[whitestar12chris]

Great review Dave, many thanks for your insights on this publication, as you say theres a lot more that should have been added after 1998.

All the best chris