British Battlecruisers 1939-45 (New Vanguard) [Illustrated] [Paperback]

Konstam begins with a short introduction outlining the history of the battlecruiser concept in the Royal Navy back to the 1860s, followed by lengthier sections on the development, construction and modifications of the six British battlecruisers that were built between 1916-1920. Of these, three were converted to aircraft carriers shortly after completion and saw minimal service as battlecruisers. Konstam then provides outline sections on the service history of the Repulse, Renown and Hood and summaries of the three main battlecruiser actions in the Second World War. The color plates include: HMS Repulse in 1916 and 1941; HMS Hood engaging the Bismarck; HMS Hood in 1920, HMS Glorious as battlecruiser and carrier; a very nice cutaway of HMS Hood in 1941; HMS Renown in 1941 and 1943; the sinking of HMS Repulse; and a gun turret from the Hood. Overall, the graphic quality of this volume is very high but the bibliography is suspiciously lightweight (no mention of the Naval Institute classic on British battleships and battlecruisers by Allen Raven).

Unfortunately, the technical detail in this volume does not go beyond - or even meet the ordinary. A quick glance at the three pages of Jane's from the Second World War editions provide more technical data than Konstam does in 48 pages here. Unlike Jane's, Konstam provides no overhead deck layouts of the vessels and no diagrams that depict the armor belt. All of this was easily feasible from available secondary sources, but no effort was made. In fact, the only data that Konstam provides is the very basic features such as displacement, measurements, machinery, speed, armor belt in inches, armament and complement. The author also provides a separate data box on the 15" gun, but there is no data on the secondary armament. Part of the problem is that the author devotes too much space to the three battlecruisers that were converted to carriers, which steals valuable space available for the main topic.

However, Konstam also fails to attempt any real analysis of these three warships and he omits critical data altogether, less cost and fuel consumption. While the "R" class battleships each cost about £2.5 million and the "Queen Elizabeth" class battleships cost £3 million each, HMS Repulse cost £2.6 million, HMS Renown cost £3.1 million and HMS Hood cost a whopping £6 million to build. Furthermore, during the 1920s when budgets were tight and the Royal Navy could only afford to build a small number of modern warships, HMS Hood was costing over £400,000 a year to maintain. Thus, instead of three lightly protected, under-armed (Repulse and Renown had only six, not eight main guns) but fast battlecruisers, the British could have had four more battleships that were more capable overall. The high cost of the battlecruisers was further exacerbated by their excessive fuel consumption - Konstam does not mention that the 20-30% greater speed of the battlecruisers over the battleships came at the cost of 300% greater fuel consumption, both at full speed and even cruising. Hood, Renown and Repulse were fuel hogs with very short legs. Adding insult to injury, the Royal Navy spent upwards over £5 million constantly tinkering with these ships during the interwar period, but they were still woefully unprepared for war in 1939.

Konstam hints that these ships were retained for non-practical reasons such as sentimental attachment to the battlecruiser theory (despite disaster at Jutland in 1916) and prestige reasons, but he does not delve deeply enough into this subject, which is probably crucial to understanding why Britain devoted so much resources to a faulty weapons system. Konstam also fails to scratch more than the surface of the two main battlecruiser actions in the Second World War - the Battle of Denmark Strait and the destruction of Force "Z" off Malaya (no tactical maps or eyewitness accounts provided). Vice-Admiral Holland's (on HMS Hood) decision to engage the Bismarck while in the aggressive tradition of the Royal Navy, exceeded his mission which was to find the enemy, deny them use of the strait and then track the enemy until superior forces could be brought to bear. A 1-1 fight to the death against two of the newest warships in the world was unnecessary and dumb. Similarly, the poor judgment of Admiral Phillips contributed greatly to the loss of HMS Repulse (unfortunately, Konstam apparently did not use Martin Middlebrook's excellent book on the sinking of the Repulse). Thus, the aggressive nature of the men who rose to command battlecruisers might have been as culpable as the designers.

It is also odd that Konstam makes no mention of the wrecks of the Hood and Repulse, both of which have been found and photographed. In particular, recent visits to the grave of the Hood have revealed new details about her demise. In sum, this volume is fine as a bare-bones summary, but provides no in-depth detail.