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Product Description
For its final battleship design Italy ignored all treaty restrictions on tonnage, and produced one of Europe s largest and most powerful capital ships, comparable with Germany s Bismarck class, similarly built in defiance of international agreements. The three ships of the Littorio class were typical of Italian design, being fast and elegant, but also boasting a revolutionary protective scheme which was tested to the limits, as all three were to be heavily damaged in the hard-fought naval war in the Mediterranean; Roma had the unfortunate distinction of being the first capital ship sunk by guided missile. These important ships have never been covered in depth in English-language publications, but the need is now satisfied in this comprehensive and convincing study by two of Italy s leading naval historians. The book combines a detailed analysis of the design with an operational history, evaluating how the ships stood up to combat. It is illustrated with an amazing collection of photographs, many fine-line plans, and coloured artwork of camouflage schemes, adding up to as complete a monograph on a single class ever published. Among warship enthusiasts battleships enjoy a unique status. As the great success of Seaforth s recent book on French battleships proves, that interest transcends national boundaries, and this superbly executed study is certain to become another classic in the field.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book covers the Italian Littorio class battleships, in detail. It appears to be an English translation of the 2010 book "Le Navi da Battaglia Classe Littorio 1937-1948", second edition, by Bagnaso & DeToro.
It is organized into 6 major chapters entitled "Battleships and Italian Naval Policy between the two World Wars", "Design and General Characteristics", Technical Description", "Construction, Sea Trials and Commissioning", "Operational History", and Comparisons and Conclusions". Appendices include a listing of operational movements and locations, detailed evaluations of each incident of battle damage, and gunnery details. The book is extensively illustrated with occasionally grainy, but frequently unusual photographs, extensive sketches and line drawings, and contains a section of small-scale plans and color/camouflage images.
The book is a gold mine of detail. Some examples of this include cut-away drawings of turret layouts, ammunition stowage and armor placement plans, and detailed discussion of topics such as the Pugliese underwater protection system and the "composite"-construction side armored belt. The book also contains quite a bit of objective-sounding discussion of the pros and cons of these various design elements, and of their performance in comparison with equivalent elements in contemporary battleships of other nations.
Physical quality is quite good. I recommend this book.
(Note that this is a review of the Naval Institute Press printing (ISBN 978 1591144458), which Amazon won't let me review yet for some reason, even though I received it last week. I hope people will forgive me for posting that review in connection with this earlier Seaforth Publishing printing. However, I believe both the USNI and Seaforth printings to be of the same English edition of the book, and the book derserves praise.)
It is organized into 6 major chapters entitled "Battleships and Italian Naval Policy between the two World Wars", "Design and General Characteristics", Technical Description", "Construction, Sea Trials and Commissioning", "Operational History", and Comparisons and Conclusions". Appendices include a listing of operational movements and locations, detailed evaluations of each incident of battle damage, and gunnery details. The book is extensively illustrated with occasionally grainy, but frequently unusual photographs, extensive sketches and line drawings, and contains a section of small-scale plans and color/camouflage images.
The book is a gold mine of detail. Some examples of this include cut-away drawings of turret layouts, ammunition stowage and armor placement plans, and detailed discussion of topics such as the Pugliese underwater protection system and the "composite"-construction side armored belt. The book also contains quite a bit of objective-sounding discussion of the pros and cons of these various design elements, and of their performance in comparison with equivalent elements in contemporary battleships of other nations.
Physical quality is quite good. I recommend this book.
(Note that this is a review of the Naval Institute Press printing (ISBN 978 1591144458), which Amazon won't let me review yet for some reason, even though I received it last week. I hope people will forgive me for posting that review in connection with this earlier Seaforth Publishing printing. However, I believe both the USNI and Seaforth printings to be of the same English edition of the book, and the book derserves praise.)
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I highly recommend this book to all enthusiasts of the capital ships from dreadnought and superdreadnought era. Proper size, excellent paper, lots of technical drawings, never-seen-before photographs (most of which are very high quality). Very balanced book, beating all the references I've had on Littorio class to the moment. Some modeling aspects are touched very briefly as well.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This lovely book with excellent production values arrived from the UK ahead of Amazon's schedule by 10 days which is probably a reflection on how slow the USPS service is so it arrived in California much much quicker then it would have taken two years ago!
Oversized, incredible photographs, a great book. The authors are pretty even-handed in noting problems with the design (range-finders do indeed have weather related problems) and with Italian strategies in WWII.
Well done and highly recommended.
Oversized, incredible photographs, a great book. The authors are pretty even-handed in noting problems with the design (range-finders do indeed have weather related problems) and with Italian strategies in WWII.
Well done and highly recommended.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Littorio Class
The Littorio Class: Italy's Last and Largest Battleships 1937-1948
This is an excellent book, which I thoroughly recommend. Read more
This is an excellent book, which I thoroughly recommend. Read more
Published 2 months ago by Neil Robertson
The Littorio Class
This is one of the finest, in-depth studies on a single class of battleship published. This is technical history at its best. Read more
Published 4 months ago by Passat
Utterly awesome!
If your into battleships, the war in the Mediterranean or the Regia Marina, this is a book you must have in your collection! Read more
Published 6 months ago by M. Riddell
Magnifico
I can confirm that this is indeed a translation of the Erminio Bagnasco / Augusto De Toro book "Le Navi Da Battaglia Classe Littorio 1937-1948", and it is just as magnificent (I... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Black Baron
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