This is an excellent book on the design of cruisers from around 1897 through the ships that were launched immediately after WW II. The “Introduction” and Chapter 1 describe late 19th century cruisers and their classifications, at least as developed by the Royal Navy.
The book offers very comprehensive discussions of the negotiations with regard to cruisers involving the Washington Treaty of 1921, the abortive Geneva Disarmament Conference of1927, the First London Treaty of 1930, and the Second London Treaty of 1935. It discusses in detail the political decisions and diplomatic positions of the primary participants: Britain, the US, Japan, France, and Italy along with the inputs (ignored or considered) of the attending Naval advisors. The book then discusses the naval architectural or technical aspects of the resulting cruisers and the designers’ or constructors’ efforts to meet the requirements of the Naval staffs while complying with the allowable numbers, displacements, and armaments of the treaties. The text provides brief ship or class design histories and includes tabulations of displacements, dimensions, armament, armor thicknesses, and propulsion machinery horsepower and speeds.
There are occasional short discussions of specific subjects such as why the Japanese cruisers were consistently overweight: it was not intentional. It appears that the designers simply miscalculated the weights. This book does not discuss or speculate why this occurred, but I have read elsewhere that it was most likely because the Japanese junior designers in the 1930s were inexperienced. The book explains why the overweight conditions adversely affected the ships’ performance and stability, so it could not have been intentional.
There is also an interesting discussion of the development of armor in the late 19th century (Chapter 1).
There are now several books available providing detailed design histories of cruisers of the major navies of WW II such as the US, Britain, France, and Japan. “Warship” annual has produced many articles on the designs of cruisers of the world’s WW II navies over the years. I won’t attempt to list them all. Several that I think are especially informative are:
• Volume II (1978): “The Salt Lake City Class,” “The Seven-Turret Colony Class,” and “Capitani Romani Class.”
• Volume IV (1980): “US Flight-Deck Cruiser Designs” and “USS Worcester;”
• Warship 1992: “Second World War Cruisers: Was Armour Really Necessary?” by D. K. Brown. I thought this was a fascinating article. Unfortunately, Stern does not pursue this subject in his book;
• Warship 2011: “Damnable Folly? Small Cruiser Designs for the Royal Navy Between the Wars;”
• Warship 2017: “HMS Surrey: Britain’s Last Treaty Cruiser.” The articled discusses the last heavy cruiser design after the 1921 Washington Treaty that was never constructed. The project was terminated as a consequence of the 1930 London Treaty.
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