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Norman Friedman
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Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Gunnery in the Dreadnought Era Kindle Edition

by Norman Friedman (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 135 ratings
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An in-depth history of naval battleship firepower from before World War I to the end of World War II, by America’s leading naval analyst.

For more than half a century, the big gun was the arbiter of naval power, but it was useless if it could not hit the target fast and hard enough to prevent the enemy doing the same. Because the naval gun platform was itself in motion, finding a “firing solution” was a significant problem exacerbated when gun sizes increased, fighting ranges lengthened, and seemingly minor issues like wind velocity had to be considered. To speed up the process and eliminate human error, navies sought a reliable mechanical calculation.

This heavily illustrated book outlines for the first time in layman’s terms the complex subject of fire-control, as it dominated battleship and cruiser design from before World War I to the end of the dreadnought era. Covering the directors, range-finders, and electro-mechanical computers invented to solve the problems, author Norman Friedman explains not only how the technology shaped (and was shaped by) the tactics involved, but also analyzes their effectiveness in battle. His examination of the controversy surrounding Jutland and the relative merits of competing fire-control systems draws surprising conclusions. He also reassesses many other major gun actions, such as the battles between the Royal Navy and the Bismarck, and the U.S. Navy actions in the Solomons and at Surigao Strait. All major navies are covered, and the story concludes at the end of World War II with the impact of radar.
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  1. Print length
    662 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Seaforth Publishing
  5. Publication date
    August 20, 2013
  6. File size
    86684 KB
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B00KTI0T0E
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Seaforth Publishing (August 20, 2013)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 20, 2013
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 86684 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 662 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.9 3.9 out of 5 stars 135 ratings

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Norman Friedman

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Customer reviews

3.9 out of 5 stars
3.9 out of 5
135 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Mike M.
5.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating look at fire control during the Dreadnought era
Reviewed in the United States on March 7, 2019
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HMS Dreadnought was the first of the all-big-gun capital ships, but heavy artillery demands good rangefinding and fire control. Get that right, and you win. Botch it, and the other guy sinks you.

In the last twenty years or so, the fire control systems of the Dreadnought Era have come under increasing scrutiny by historians such as Jon Sumida. Friedman assembles all of this research, adds in his own formidable expertise, and comes up with a solid overview of the fire control systems of the era. He starts with the British, who were the first to address the issue (and had the nastiest fights over systems). But he addresses German, American, and Japanese systems with equal thoroughness.

One comment, though. The Kindle edition is readable, but you might want to get the print edition for the drawings. Books like these are very image-intensive, and e-books are constrained in that area. But this is a definite read for anyone interested in the Dreadnought Era.
15 people found this helpful
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P. Weiser
4.0 out of 5 stars Good, but Expected More about the Guns
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2020
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This is about fire control (about 3/4 British fire control) rather than the full artillery system including tubes, projectiles, propellants, and mountings. Covers the mechanics of plotting, the devices used, and their assembly into pre- or early-electric manual systems exhaustively. Majority of illustrations are CIC (American, others used different abbreviations inclding ZAP for Soviets) layouts including where each piece of equipment was placed and who stood or sat by it. There is an appendix for projectiles and propellants.

As such, the politics and economics of which system each navy ended up with, and how (well) they worked in battle are quite interesting, but I tended to skip over who-stood-where and which dial he turned or read. Early stepper systems eventuating in selsyns for remote angle-matching are worth considering even today.

Can't help contrasting with "Fighters Over the Fleet," which went into considerable detail about the aircraft involved and proposed. There is some good commentary about battlecruiser vulnerability, though "luck" tends to appear often.

Worth the Kindle price, not sure I'd be happy to pay the hardback price for all those seating diagrams and photos of complex mechanical-optical devices. Having grown up with sliderules, I do have a soft spot for the Dumaresq, though.
3 people found this helpful
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Kenneth B. Vollenweider
3.0 out of 5 stars Naval Firepower
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2020
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Very British centric, very detailed, hard to read. An interesting book but reading it felt like a grind at times. Some information from the book was surprising. I had thought that the USN gunnery “hit” rate was higher than documented in the book. But after this read, the many variables necessary to accurately collect data, then input and plot that data correctly, and then successfully hit at long range, suggest that any hit was remarkable; no matter what navy is being discussed.
One person found this helpful
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Roy
5.0 out of 5 stars Massive detail!
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2020
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This book contains everything you want to know (and more) about naval gunfire. Very detailed and engaging. Highly recommend if you are interested in this subject.
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Gordon L
2.0 out of 5 stars Too technical for a layman
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2019
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As a layman without any technical background in the subject, just interested in naval history, I found the technical info completely confusing. Hate to admit this, the material is completely incomprehensible to me. No doubt, someone in the field (naval officers) would find this a valuable book.
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hfalbatross
4.0 out of 5 stars Deep look into naval gunfire control development
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2020
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An extensive, technical history and explanation of naval gunfire control systems by the different powers. The author has gathered a lot of information both technical and historical and done a nice job of putting it together. This is not light reading but is worth tackling if you have an interest in how they developed these early computers. This is probably best read in hard copy to allow easier flipping back to diagrams and pictures. An illuminating book either way.
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Paul Carrier
5.0 out of 5 stars Once again Mr Friedman provides a comprehensive review of the subject at hand, naval fire control.
Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2019
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The SUN efforts were known to me but this book covers all the major naval powers and touches on systems provided to many of the minor ones.
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thomas l Greene
5.0 out of 5 stars Good grounding for the development of naval thinking
Reviewed in the United States on June 30, 2019
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Clarifies the development of naval gunnery up to the end of World Wsr Two.
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M. J. Tittensor
5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely detailed but…
Reviewed in Germany on November 25, 2023
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Ok, this book is the last word on naval gunnery solutions from about 1890 to 1945. It explains what the challenges were and the solutions proposed and implemented in the different navies of the world. As such, it is a great book. I have only one critical comment in that it does not really address why these increasingly, allegedly sophisticated systems still didn’t work well. There’s a definite improvement over time but the hit rate doesn’t get over 9-10% for any navy (even with radar and ‘computers’) so the area of “why 90%+ missed” could have been expanded. The problems are very clearly identified and they are analysed. I just wish that the relative effectiveness of each improvement could have been compared. However, I’m not sure that this data survived is even available. Summary: buy this book. It is a Must Read.
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J. J. Bradshaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Just what you'd expect of a Norman Friedman book, impeccable research and analysis
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 12, 2019
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There are three things I expect when picking up a book by Norman Friedman, impeccable research, analysis of the highest order and balance, and this book delivers exactly what I'd expect. Friedman is, in my opinion, the pre-eminent naval writer of his generation and of the modern era. His series of books on Royal Navy ships are pretty much the definitive works on their subjects.
This book addresses a very specialized subject, one which few have any understanding of. The matter of gunnery is one of those highly technical subjects which most find rather intimidating, and the highly analytical and technical nature of fire control means it is not the most approachable of subjects. Of course gunnery and fire control are mentioned in many naval books, but generally at a very superficial level. For example lots of books will inform readers that the Pollen fire control system was better than the Dreyer table but can't really say why other than repeating a few generalised statements provided by others. I suspect that very few naval writers have studied the subject, or been able to understand it (to be clear, it's not a subject I could claim any knowledge of). Ship buffs love arguing over what battleship could have beaten what other battleship in a fight by looking at gun sizes, armour belts, ship speed etc but very, very few even think about the rather significant issue that in order to destroy another ship those large guns had to be able to hit the target. In an era before electronic computers and radar the matter of establishing range and course of enemy ships was a real problem, as was feeding such information into the guns and bringing them on target. This got more difficult still given that ships roll, pitch and yaw. In the early part of the 20th century some remarkable electro-mechanical computers were developed in order to solve the problem of hitting a moving target with guns fired from a moving platform.
Friedman reviews the way each of the major battleship navies controlled gunnery, starting with the Royal Navy. The book gives a disproportionate number of pages to Royal Navy and United States Navy gunnery but this is reasonable given the subject and the contribution of these two navies to gunnery development. For those who have always wondered just why the Pollen system was superior, they will find the answer here with a detailed explanation of the Pollen synthetic system vs. Dreyer's analytical system. The nature of analytical and synthetic systems is fundamental to this whole argument yet this most important distinction between the Pollen and Dreyer systems is very rarely commented upon. Friedman covers the evolution of fire control, the changing ranges at which ships intended to fight (as an aside, the analysis of Royal Navy fighting range and the seeming reversion from long range to medium range tactics in the run up to WW1 is a fascinating one which few other writers have ever commented upon), the influence for gun design (hih velocity guns were preferred for short - mid range engagements but low velocity guns with heavy shells for long ranges), the old arguments over coincident and stereoscopic range finders and much more is covered.
In parts the book challenges many long held assumptions and conventional wisdom, for example although Friedman highlights the problems with RN gunnery at Jutland he demonstrates that contrary to popular belief it was at least as good as German gunnery and better according to how you count hits. The issue of stereoscopic range finders is interesting, it has become an acknowledged truism in English language works at any rate that stereoscopic range finders were very fatiguing for their operators and that performance steadily declined in battle, it would appear that this may not have been the case at all.
Given the nature of the subject this is a book that requires some commitment, it is a highly technical subject and to appreciate the book requires the reader to make a little effort. That said, with a little effort I do believe it is accessible to non-technical readers and the book is free of complex maths and equations. Friedman's writing is as it ever is, tight and free of hyperbole or superfluous words. Some criticise his writing as dry, I'd rather call it precise and balanced.
Overall a fascinating book on a fascinating subject, highly recommended, 5*.
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霧島さん
5.0 out of 5 stars 列強海軍の砲術史
Reviewed in Japan on November 23, 2022
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電子書籍版を購入
内容は戦艦の始まりから〜大体WW2の終わりまでかな。
個人的な興味がWW2中の米英の砲術にしかなかったのでそこ以外は買って呼んで欲しい。

流石ノーマンフリードマンと言った感じで内容の質が高く、中々面白かった。
やはり米英のレーダーを使った射撃は極めて強力なんだなと改めて感じる事が出来た。
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P. Bruno L. Araujo
5.0 out of 5 stars Avaliação artilharia de encouraçadps
Reviewed in Brazil on July 21, 2015
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Excelente livro, como todos do autor. Mas apenas para um público restrito e com conhecimento técnico. O livro fala dos canhões e também dos sistemas de direção de tiro, assunto complexo mesmo para os iniciados.
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Silvin
4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 19, 2021
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The book goes behind the scenes and explaines the hard work and the learning process that turned the battleship/battlecruiser/Dreadnought in a sophisticated machine that ruled the waves for the first half or so of the 20th century. And their ignominious demise at the hand of the ship brakers when fased out by new naval technologies
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