The Modern Cruiser

The Evolution of the Ships that Fought the Second World War

Robert C. Stern

• Publisher: Seaforth Publishing
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781526737915
• eBook ISBN: 9781526737922
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

"An entertaining and informative review of the evolution of one of the most important classes of warship, from the technology of WWII into the missile age." —Firetrench
Cruisers probably vary more in their characteristics than any other warship type and have certainly been subject to the most convoluted development. There was always a basic tension between quantity and quality, between numbers and unit size, but at a more detailed level every one of the naval powers made different demands of their cruiser designers. This makes the story of cruiser evolution in the world's major navies fascinating but complex.
This book sets out to provide a coherent history of the fortunes of this ship-type in the twentieth century, beginning with a brief summary of development before the First World War and an account of a few notable cruiser actions during that conflict that helped define what cruisers would look like in the post-war world. The core of the book is devoted to the impact of the naval disarmament treaty process, which concentrated to a great extent on attempting to define limits to the numbers and size of cruisers that could be built, in the process creating the "treaty cruiser" as a type that had never existed before and that existed solely because of the treaty process.
How the cruisers of the treaty era performed in the Second World War forms the final focus of this "interesting, well-written, and well-grounded" book, which concludes with a look at the fate of the cruiser-type since 1945 ( Warship International). The result is probably the best single-volume account of the subject to date.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Dedication
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Photo Credits
• A Note on Nomenclature and Units, etc.
• List of Abbreviations/Acronyms
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 Cruisers in all Sizes and Shapes – A First Glimpse of the Future: 1897–1914
• Chapter 2 The Test of Battle, Part 1: 1914–1916
• Chapter 3 War Production and the Gold Standard – The Hawkins Class and their Contemporaries: 1914–1922
• Chapter 4 The Washington Treaty and its Immediate Consequences: 1920–1922
• Chapter 5 Treaty Cruisers – The First Generation: 1922–1926
• Chapter 6 Treaty Cruisers – Trying to Stem the Tide: 1926–1930
• Chapter 7 Treaty Cruisers – The ‘Big Babies’: 1930–1936
• Chapter 8 Treaty Cruisers – The Last of the Type: 1934–1938
• Chapter 9 True Babies – London’s Offspring and Other (Mostly) Small Cruisers: 1936–1941
• Chapter 10 Mass Production: 1935–1944
• Chapter 11 The Test of Battle, Part 2: 1939–1945
• Chapter 12 The More Things Change . . . : 1946–
• Afterword
• Notes
• Sources