Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1868-1945: The Yamato Class and Subsequent Planning

Most detailed account I have read of these magnificent ships. It uses many Japanese books or accounts as the basis for the text and discussion. Much of the discussion on the Japanese strategic thinking behind the ships is covered in "Warship Volume VII" (1983, edited by John Roberts) and in fact this book references the "Warship" volume. A lot of technical design issues for these ships are also covered in "Battleships -- Axis and Neutral Battleships in World War II" by Garzke and Dulin (1985). Where this book really offers something new is in the level of detail regarding the specific design issues of armor and armament. Separate chapters are devoted to each subject.The book also contains a large number of photos, many of which I believe have previously only been published in Japanese texts (at least, I have never seen them before and I believe that I own or have read just about every book in English ever published on these ships). It appears to me that many of these photos were probably taken by amateurs, quite likely by officers with cameras on adjacent or neighboring Japanese warships. In some cases, it is obvious that both warships were in motion. Consequently, some of the photos are a bit indistinct, largely because of the distance involved.. But I think they are still worth examining -- they aren't that bad and certainly are not useless. The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because of the lack of modern 3-D color graphics. The best book on World War I or II warship design I have ever seen in this respect is "German Battlecruisers of World War I" by Gary Staff (2014).

This is a great book. Physically it is an 8-1/2" x 11", 550 page, hardcover with decorated boards. It purports to be the first in what should be a series of 4 or 5 books. The series title is "Capital Ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy 1868-1945". This is Volume III of the subseries "Ironclads, Battleships & Battle Cruisers: An Outline History of Their Design, Construction and Operations". Right on the cover of the book we are told that there are "87 Photos, 202 Figures & Drawings, 15 Maps and Track Charts, and 60 Tables". I didn't count but there seems to be little reason to doubt these numbers.The contents of the book are compiled using almost exclusively Japanese sources with the report of the US Technical Mission to Japan being the most notable exception. The book is divided into three parts. The technical section is the largest running about 370 pages. It covers many of the technical aspects of the Yamato class class in detail, especially the main armament and the protection system. Other aspects are barely mentioned at all like secondary and antiaircraft armament, aircraft facilities, and boat facilities. The operations section is about 150 pages and focuses heavily but not exclusively on the ships' loss. The subsequent planning section is a mere 15 pages but certainly not without interest.The book is for the hard core enthusiast almost exclusively. The casual reader will find the technical section especially tough going. The book is fairly well written but it should be kept in mind that English is not the authors' native language and sometimes their choice of word order can cause some confusion. The production values are somewhat on the low side. Reproduction of the drawings and photos (whose condition probably weren't great to begin with) is adequate but occasionally too small for perfect clarity. There is an extensive bibliography but no index.One issue that was not covered is *why* the technical documentation is as sparse as it is. I've always heard that much documentation was destroyed between the Japanese acceptance of the surrender terms and the occupation. If this is the case the Japanese did themselves a grave disservice considering the position of the Yamato in Japanese postwar popular culture. In any event I would like to have the real story here.The book is highly recommended to the hard core "rivet counters" among us. I hope we see future volumes in this series in timely fashion. Nothing is more discouraging than a series that gets off to a good start and grinds to an end far short of its stated goals.

Good book on the capital ships of the IJN. Not as detailed on the ships designs, construction and operational history as I have seen in other books but is a good addition to any collection

The work that went into this book is amazing! Practically ANYthing you might want to know about Japan's 2 super battleships is here, along with many great photos. Ive read about the IJN for 40+ years---and there are many many photos here I'd never seen before!!Of course there are negatives: the paper 'feels' flimsy, some of the diagrams/layouts are 'muddy', and the Shinani isn't covered--but in a work like this......My opinion? WELL worth the price! Any serious student of the IJN needs to have this handy. I expect I will go back to it time and time again.....

this seems to be essentially a summation of the USN post war intell. rpt. on the Yamato class. text & pictures look like they were xeroxed & so many of the photos are not 'crisp.' the book seems to have been inexpensively made. there are a few pictures that are not well known, but for the most part there is nothing really new as far as the photographs are concerned. the text maybe another matter, but I haven't gotten very far into that yet. having several other good books on the class, like the Naval Institute Press 'Battleships' series, I may just send this one back if I don't find anything especially interesting in the text.

It is worth purchasing but was not what I expected. But this book does contain much valuable information on the Yamato class ships.

A perfect addition to "Anatomy of the Ship" (Janusz Skulski). Although it doesn't contain many pictures, it does include many technical drawings that go along with the detailed technical discription of the design, armament, armour etc. Definitely recommended and certainly worth every penny!

This detailed book of the super Japanese battleships is an essential for any WWII historian or naval historian. The disappointment is in its editing and layout. It appears the author and/or publishers were rushing to meet a deadline and did not perform their du diligence in insuring this important work met the high standards this book deserves.

First comment concerns the production quality, which is an unusually 'big issue' with this book. The publishers seem proud of the sustainability of their materials, but the printed paper covered boards will not survive any hard use and the paper used inside is unsuitable: it has a smooth but dull finish that it may be OK for a simple narrative account, but not for a book that has to reproduce old photographs of poor original quality and many diagrams 'lifted' from other books which have lost definition in the process.Although there are 550 page the print is single column and the type face large (a good thing). The basic narrative is quite concise and easy to read but unfortunately the authors have gone mad with the footnotes, which sometimes are as long as the account they are supposed to support, so if you plough through all those it becomes somewhat irksome to read the book: in my view if its worth saying it should be in the main text. At least this main text is easy for a 'general reader' to understand. Diagrams are nearly all lifted from Japanese works: most are well annotated (though often 'over the page'!) but some are not explained at all.Overall though a good attempt has been made to show how these ships functioned. Chapters cover design history (including armour protection), armament, fire control, bridge structure (until now on Japanese ships these have rarely been described in English) and main turret design. The coverage is not eulogistic in tone and deficiencies, especially in protection, are explained in detail. There are many internal arrangement drawings, but they are reproduced from old orginals and are too small to read. The chapter on fire control at first seems daunting, but actually this is the first time I have ever understood how those massive analogue computers actually worked- similar ones were fitted to all battleships of the day. This is also the most thorough account I have seen of traditional big gun turrets- without radar assistance and almost entirely hydraulic in operation they were really a huge modernized version of those current in the British Royal Navy during the First World War. Perhaps mercifully, coverage of the ever- changing secondary AA armament is rather 'skipped over'. The operational history of the ships starts at page 369: it focuses on their loss due to massed air attack and includes much detail of damage sustained, also included are sobering tables of casualties: again, the account is somewhat spoiled by an excessive use of footnotes.I apologise for spending so much time here on production quality, but it's an 'issue' with this book. I suspect most of the photos known to exist are present- including some very interesting on- board scenes, but they deserved better reproduction. Some photo's are very small, but their poor original quality would not reward over- enlargement. The authors have leaned heavily on Warship International articles from the 1980's and on various Japanese accounts, but that is not a bad thing and despite all my criticism the book is a brave effort. Given the poor coverage of these ships elsewhere (at least in English), it is worth investing the high £40 asking price in this magnum opus- after all, these two battleships have always been largely shrouded in mystery and were certainly amongst the most fascinating warships ever built.

A collestable volume bringing all know photos of yamato class into one volume a must for japanese capital ship fans

Magnífica edición del acorazado Yamato. Muy interesante. Recomiendo su lectura. Ya lo he hecho tres veces. Explica muy bien el armamento y el sistema de puntería

Very impressive book - I learned a great deal about not only the ships themselves, but of the design & characteristics of armor, fire control, and of the trade offs that designers of capital ships had to make.

This book adds to the scarce information available on the Yamato Class.Good book worth the price