---
product_id: 11841465
title: "US Cold War Aircraft Carriers: Forrestal, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise Classes (New Vanguard, 211)"
brand: "brad elwardpaul wright"
price: "€ 43.23"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.fi/products/11841465-us-cold-war-aircraft-carriers-forrestal-kitty-hawk-and-enterprise
store_origin: FI
region: Finland
---

# US Cold War Aircraft Carriers: Forrestal, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise Classes (New Vanguard, 211)

**Brand:** brad elwardpaul wright
**Price:** € 43.23
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** US Cold War Aircraft Carriers: Forrestal, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise Classes (New Vanguard, 211) by brad elwardpaul wright
- **How much does it cost?** € 43.23 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.fi](https://www.desertcart.fi/products/11841465-us-cold-war-aircraft-carriers-forrestal-kitty-hawk-and-enterprise)

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## Description

US Cold War Aircraft Carriers: Forrestal, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise Classes (New Vanguard, 211)

## Images

![US Cold War Aircraft Carriers: Forrestal, Kitty Hawk and Enterprise Classes (New Vanguard, 211) - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51vkXFNQ+uL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐ 







  
  
    This book is a disaster
  

*by D***N on Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014*

I received this book in the mail today, and within five minutes of leafing through it am disgusted, and I've only gotten to page 18.The first color plate, USS Ranger, shows her with all four 5"/54s aft and a Mk 29 NATO Sea Sparrow forward. She never had this configuration. She was down to two 5" aft before Sea Sparrows were installed, and the guns were removed in the same 1977-78 overhaul when the Mk 29s were installed. The painting is actually a line-for-line color version of the A.D. Baker drawing in Friedman's 
  
U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History







  
  
    , labeled "November 1973," and either the artist or author misinterpreted the drawing to imagine a Mk 29 where there was none. The first production Mk 29s were not produced until 1975 in any case. I gave the erroneous painting a little bit of a pass, as in painting-oriented books like these (also Squadron/Signal books) the artists routinely don't know anything about the ships they are painting, and often appear to have had no contact with the authors, so I generally don't blame the author (also see UPDATE below). But as Osprey books used to be thought of as references for modelers, this sloppiness is not acceptable. They really need to make a better effort to create new art that can be trusted.But then on page 18 the author asserts that the Forrestals were originally built with "eight Mk 12 single-mount 5in/38 caliber guns." No, everyone knows that they were built with eight Mk 42 5"/54s, I knew that when I was a little kid. (Also there is no such thing as a "Mk 12" mount. "Mk 12" is the designation for the 1934 gun by itself.) If you don't know the difference between 5"/38s and 5"/54s you have no business writing books about ships. The author then goes on to claim that when the guns were removed they were replaced with Terrier guided missiles, a preposterous engineering assertion, not to mention plain wrong. Forrestals never carried Terriers, only the K Hawks did. (This is comparable to writing about the 1968 Ford Mustang Station Wagon with Z71 suspension package.)With that kind of appalling, inexplicable error, there is no way I can recommend this book. Any other statement in the book I would have to double-check before I accepted it, so why own this book?I have been a big advocate and defender of Osprey books in these Amazon reviews. They're small and cheap but full of lots of good information and pretty pictures, but come on, this is only a 48 page book, and it's only about 9 ships. Is it that hard to get it right? This was researched about as well as a throw-away magazine article.Osprey, are you really in such a hurry to crank out these titles that you can't hire authors or editors that know their subject matter? This is pathetic. I will say this for the author, he does know how to correctly refer to a ship, by her name, without constantly cramming "the" in front of it. He does insist on calling them "it," however.DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. Unless you're looking for untrustworthy information that you have to buy other books to compare it against, then knock yourself out.UPDATE: Fearing that I might have been too hard on this book due to my irritation, I went back and flipped through the rest of it. Some of the highlights: The color plate of JFK has catapult 3 running from the waist off the bow, the centerfold cutaway does not show Forrestal's third rudder mentioned in the text, the VF-103 F-14 from Saratoga lost in Desert Storm is misidentified as being from VF-101 (the Oceana Fleet Replacement Squadron), reference to Operation Desert Fox has the wrong year, misidentifies the "CV concept" as "CVW concept," misstates the difference between 600 and 1200 psi steam plants, refers to the Gallery Deck as "Galley Deck." The photograph captions are particularly awful. They consistently misidentify Mk 29 NATO Sea Sparrow launchers as "Mk 25" (Mk 25 is the BPDMS launcher), misidentify a CCA dome as SATCOM, and don't know how to name aspects of a ship, inventing tortuous terms like "forward-quarter starboard" for starboard bow, and "forward-quarter port-side" for port bow. Finally, on page 19 the 5"/54 guns on Ranger are TWICE more misidentified as 5"/38s (for a total of three times in two pages).Interestingly, the text claims that Enterprise's original ECM dome (which it calls "ECM radar," there is no such thing) rotated. I've never heard that before, and given the trouble they took to install the non-rotating phased array SPS-32 and 33 think it is unlikely, and given the poor quality of the rest of the book's information, see no reason to take the author's word for it. My earlier assessment is unchanged: This book is an amateurish mess, and the "information" presented in it us utterly unreliable.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    The Cold War supercarriers...
  

*by H***E on Reviewed in the United States on August 18, 2017*

The United States Navy came out of the Second World War with considerable expertise in carrier warfare.  The demands of the Cold War led to the creation of new classes of "supercarriers", large enough for jet aircraft and lots of them.  The Forrestal, Kitty Hawk, and Enterprise classes would see the U.S. through the Cold War and even the follow-on wars in the Middle East..."US Cold War Aircraft Carriers" is an Osprey New Vanguard Series book, well authored by Brad Elward, who provided a detailed but high readable narrative.  This is a short book at less than fifty pages, but there is lots of interesting information here, along with period photographs, diagrams, and modern illustrations.  The discussion of changing deck configurations was especially interesting to this reviewer.  Highly recommended as a good introduction to the topic.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Great ship history. I went aboard the Forrestal the day she was put in commission to visit.
  

*by M***T on Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014*

I was serving on the USS Randolph and walked across the pier to see a brand new ship. I feel really old, now that she and others in the class are being scrapped! A small but well written and illustrated book.

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*Product available on Desertcart Finland*
*Store origin: FI*
*Last updated: 2026-03-05*