Book recommendations sought - to me WW1 naval buffs!

[Richard Hakluyt]

I've got a bit of a reading craze going on at the moment centred round the Great War. As part of that I'm re-reading Castles of Steel, a good introductory book to the naval part of the war IMO. However, I find that I'm rather vague about naval doctrine and tactics and the ships themselves. Can anyone recommend a book, or books, that will help me attain the next level of comprehension on these matters?

[The Brain]

Ask for naval. Oh you did. Nm.

[Neil]

Well, in terms of books about the ships themselves, I have a few suggestions:

The Grand Fleet: Warship Design and Development 1906-1922 by David K Brown - Excellent book about the technological advances of the naval race.  Especially good when combined with Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Design and Development 1860-1905.  It's very technical, but it also does a good job of explaining what it's talking about, and why it's important.

British Battleships of World War One by R A Burt - Just reprinted, it covers all the RN dreadnoughts in some detail.  It used to be out of print, but they've just done a new edition and I'm waiting for my copy to come in.  Judging for the companion book, British Battleships of World War Two, it covers every dreadnought in the war in moderately exhaustive detail.  If you want to be able to tell St. Vincent from Collossus, this book will help you.

Dreadnought Gunnery and the Battle of Jutland by John Brooks - Very technical, the book has a very tight focus on the birth of fire control, which was critical in transforming naval warfare from the age of Tsushima to the age of Jutland.  It also deals with the controversy surrounding the Argo Clock, and takes a very pro-Dreyer look at it.  It's a bit dry, but it attacks the topic with a granularity I haven't otherwise encountered.

Books by Norman Friedman - These books are a little bit lighter, but full of excellent pictures.  They're rigourous enough that I wouldn't call them coffee table books.  British Destroyers from the Earliest Days does a pretty good job describing the birth of destroyers and the reasons they were built.  British Cruisers Both Wars and After only deals a little with Great War Cruisers because of the Treaty, but Victorian Cruisers is coming out in mid-October, and should provide some detail on the much undercovered armoured cruiser type.  He also did Naval Weapons of World War One, which describes pretty much every weapon used by every power in the Great War with varying degrees of detail.

The Global Crisis 1914-18 by Winston Churchill - Not exactly a naval book, but it's interesting because Churchill was involved in so many strategic decisions in the war as First Lord, and he does go into them a little bit.

Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting, by John Campbell - Probably the most detailed book on the battle that I've ever read.  It's tactics and technical details.  Might be hard to find.

Kaigun:  Strategy, Tactics and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy 1887-1941, by Evans and Peattie - This is what I'm working on right now, and I'm finding it incredibly interesting.  Talking about building a naval tradition and doctrine from scratch, they also detail both imported and native Japanese tactical thought.  Given that the Japanese were the victors in the great naval battle that shaped the thinking leading into the Great War, I think it would be an interesting read.  Not only that, but the IJN pre-WWII is just an interesting topic in general.

[CountDeMoney]

I picked up not too long ago US Battleship Operations In World War I by Jerry Jones, Naval Institute Press, 1998. 
It's a little book. 

But, it does dig into the development of the post-Mahan USN in working with the Grand Fleet, particularly in regard to UK tactics and especially gunnery.  Has a nifty chapter on the plans surrounding convoy protection by the US due to late-war success of German surface raiders in the event the war extended beyond 1918.

But, it's US battleships.  It's a little book.

[Neil]

That would be interesting.  A lot of people forget that early USN fire control owes a lot to working with the British during the war.  Then again, it WWII it went the other way.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Thanks for that Neil 

I've decided to get the two DK Brown books, the Jutland book and the Churchill. The Friedman and Burt books look delightful but I'm currently imposing budget cuts here and taking delivery of lavishly illustrated expensive books about 100-year old ships may send out the wrong message 

The book by Brooks may be purchased later if the craze continues, atm it is probably too detailed for me. The one about the Japanese navy sounds great, but I have to try and retain focus. Similar with the slim volume you recommend CdM.

I'm hoping that, by the end of October, I will have some idea of what armoured cruisers were for. Reading Castles of Steel their main purpose seems to be boosting German morale by getting sunk 
At a guess the Dreadnought revolution made them instantly obsolescent and the Admiralty were too tight to take them out of commission.

[Neil]

The use of armoured cruisers sort of varied depending on what kind of navy you were.  For the British, their primary purpose was to protect their commerce from attack, tracking down lone enemy raiders or cruiser squadrons.  For other, more marginal navies (the Japanese, the Russians, the Mediterranean powers) they were more like cut-rate battleships.  The dreadnoughts definitely made them useless in the line of battle, and the battlecruiser definitely outclassed them in their primary role.  On the other hand, there were only three powers in 1914 with battlecruisers(Britain, Germany and the British ally Japan), and the only one that ever even tried to break out and do its job was Goeben, so I would say that the continued use of armoured cruisers was not a terrible move.  Their construction costs were already paid, and you were looking at 1.5-2 million pounds per battlecruiser, which would also have higher operating costs.  And then you're going to take that massive investment and park it at Port Stanley, Aden or Hong Kong?

Coronel wasn't so much an indictment of RN armoured cruisers as it was an indictment of sending a weaker squadron to attack a more powerful one.  Craddock's command was a mixed bag of elderly warships, sent out to pursue a homogeneous German squadron of the most powerful cruisers they had.  The German 8.2" gun was a whole different animal in terms of firepower and range when compared against the 6" guns that the British had, and Von Spee's professional crews totally outclassed Craddock's reservists.

[dps]

Weren't Craddock's ships mostly protected cruisers, not armored cruisers?

[Neil]

Weren't Craddock's ships mostly protected cruisers, not armored cruisers?

HMS Good Hope was a Drake-class armoured cruiser built in 1901 armed with 9.2" and 6" guns.
HMS Monmouth was a Monmouth-class armoured cruiser built in 1901 armed with 6" guns.
HMS Glasgow was a Town-class light cruiser built in 1909 armed with 6" and 4" guns.
HMS Otranto was a liner built in 1909 which was pressed into service for the war and a few 4.7" guns were bolted on.

They were old armoured cruisers, but they still had an armour belt, which is the difference between them.