21 Christmas Books for 2021 - Bruships 59: Books & Naval History Chat

A recommendation for Simon Elliott's Roman Conquest of Britain, using Boudicca's revolt to show its accessible treatment of Roman rule.

Not yet: the available work is scarce or prohibitively expensive, and the affordable chapter he read framed responsibility in a way he found unconvincing.

The faster aircraft would be extremely difficult for Italian forces to counter and could sustain further strikes.

Rome would probably return with a much larger force, so the victory would begin a wider counterfactual rather than settle it.

Nicholas Tracy's Quiberon Bay study frames Hawke as a crucial predecessor to Nelson and examines the limits of line-of-battle tactics.

Ship design, particularly explaining why ships were designed the way they were.

They were an interesting idea, but a hybrid cruiser-seaplane ship made damaging compromises that dedicated ships could avoid.

Yes. The Royal Navy would probably seize the chance for a Copenhagen-style pre-emptive attack.

The carrier-first arrangement is preferable, though its 8-inch guns should still give way to dual-purpose 6-inch weapons.

Lawrence Paterson's First U-Boat Flotilla earns a recommendation for its depth, while prompting a call for an equally strong account of the opposing side.

It depends on launcher height, but the rails were normally lowered as part of going to action stations.

John Paul Davis's study of England's civil war is recommended for its account of William Marshal and the 1217 struggle for Lincoln.

He has a soft spot for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau because they better suited Germany's strategic limits than a few very large battleships.

Total Germany is recommended as an overview of the Royal Navy against the Axis, with a useful warning about the compromises of compression.

It could release the Royal Navy for amphibious operations intended to break the Western Front stalemate and put Germany under pressure elsewhere.

No. The relevant issues were training, teamwork and whether leaders and crew were prepared to respond to the emergency.

It probably becomes the fleet around which ABDA command forms in Southeast Asia.

Not yet; he will judge the incoming book after reading it before making a recommendation.

They would probably cut early Royal Navy losses sharply, while radar and dual-purpose guns would also make its numerous destroyers more capable in surface combat.

Yes, and its eight-reactor plant made the burden of supporting a unique carrier still greater.

Begin with John Jordan's Warships After Washington and Warships After London.

Yes. It is a solid published overview, accompanied by a joke that an unpublished doctoral thesis is better.

Monica E. Simon's Two Courtiers uses conflicting immediate reports to ask whether Francis Lovell fought at Bosworth and why Henry VII named living opponents among the dead.

Headlines simplify context; historians should recognise every source's perspective and compare evidence rather than equating bias with dishonesty.

Germany likely wins quickly because Britain and France lose the maritime protection on which their war effort and supplies depend.

They were interned on the basis of ancestry. The period's broader use of concentration camp differed from a death camp, and the imprisonment is condemned.

Give her substantially more speed and improve the flight deck, catapults and arresting arrangements, while accepting the limits of her basic hull.

They could make Britain an 18-inch-gun fleet, drive the calibre into later capital ships and treaties, and leave Germany struggling to match it.

Fighter strafing and rockets would probably come first because night attack requires extensive training, though Britain might shift sooner.

Probably a 28-knot, six-gun development that preserves the basic layout without paying for a much larger eight-gun ship.

Gareth Glover's Nelson's Navy in 100 Objects is recommended as an engaging route into the ships, weapons and careers of the age of sail.

Many resisted reassignment away from frigates, whose independent commands and prize opportunities were especially attractive.

The Pope's Greatest Adversary links Savonarola's prophecies to Charles VIII's 1494 invasion and Piero de' Medici's political collapse.

Hetzer: The Jagdpanzer 38 Tank Destroyer combines operational background, photographs and model comparisons for readers who want an accurate build reference.

It might have worked if range were addressed, perhaps through refuelling, but an eventual E-7 replacement would still be likely.

It was already working when cancelled, but nineteen aircraft were too few.

A focused Justinian II biography opens into the uncertain evidence around Carthage, fleets and Byzantine Africa.

Domestic work supported jobs and, more importantly, the industrial skills needed to sustain an aerospace sector.

Simon Parkin's A Game of Birds and Wolves is recommended for its account of the Western Approaches Tactical Unit and the stakes of the convoy war.

They are good starting books for learning the outline of a campaign.

It depends on range and depth: local vision may help little, while broad awareness could be more valuable in ASW or naval intelligence.

No. Their failure came primarily from lack of interest.

Philip Matyszak's Greece Against Rome broadens the story beyond Greece to the successor kingdoms whose civil wars and succession crises eased Roman expansion.

The original Rome: Total War ties recruitment to control of the city that can raise those troops.

Sparta was not worth the effort, and Macedon had better ways to defeat or contain it than fighting it directly.

Matthew Wright's Battlecruiser New Zealand shows how a warship tour could bind naval power, local identity and imperial politics together.

Lindsay Powell's Bar Kokhba establishes the revolt's imperial setting through Hadrian's travelling court, provincial discipline, diplomacy and visit to Palmyra.

Their response depends on whether the ships count as independent dominion forces or as part of the Royal Navy's treaty strength.

The Brown Bess is a plausible firearm candidate, but cutlasses and especially long-lived boarding pikes broaden the answer beyond guns.

The Usurpers compares contested medieval accessions and argues that Stephen took a crown already designated for Empress Matilda.

Possibly HMS Warrior, although later ships may have retained comparable weapons outside a formal allowance.

Confident institutions teach competing accounts and let students reason, while suppression advertises fear and gives a forbidden work greater power.

They were outside proposals rather than an RAF requirement, needed wider industrial support and did not suit British needs.

Timothy Venning's Royal Mysteries uses Richard II's overthrow to compare royal favourites, aristocratic reaction, tyranny and contested succession across two reigns.

Not in the completed Dreadnought form, but British armoured cruisers already showed the hull and primary-gun layout from which the concept developed.

They are much older than they appear: the Royal Navy's Queen Bee target system reaches back to the interwar period.

Yes, but it is clearer as two arcs: Dreadnought to Vanguard, then Vanguard to the modern Queen Elizabeth class.

Atlantic Linchpin explains why the Azores mattered to aviation, replenishment, diplomacy and sovereignty in two world wars.

Critical race theory provides an example of why readers should consult underlying scholarship and treat frameworks as openings for evidence-based discussion.

Potentially a great deal; accuracy depends on linguistic skill, historical knowledge and preserving meaning when literal wording misleads.

Richard Jones's 50 Greatest Shipwrecks is valued less as a final canon than as a lively prompt to compare losses and remember overlooked wrecks.

Michael Green's United States Tanks and Tank Destroyers of the Second World War combines photographs, design context and soldiers' judgments of American equipment.

That it shows what can be built when the carrier is designed from scratch rather than adapted from a liner.

David Hobbs's Taranto and Rod Macdonald's Task Force 58 make a paired study of carrier warfare in the Mediterranean and Pacific.

Possibly if resources allowed; they could prompt an Alaska-class response and serve in surface groups with Japan's largest battleships.

They retained limited convoy and deterrent value because many surface raiders would still avoid their armour and heavy guns.

Largely yes: political and economic short-termism affected programmes, and the LCS illustrates a concept whose relevance was limited in time.

They kept crews employed and gaining sea experience until modern replacements were available.

They reveal vulnerabilities, but their significance depends on the exercise rules, assumptions and the lessons actually drawn.

No general cross-conflict survey comes to mind. There is relevant Vietnam work, but the literature is fragmented by war.

Ask Simon McLean for the literature. Tontines probably did not normally belong to Royal Navy pensions, though the earliest period remains uncertain.

Probably an evolution or continuation of the Bay-class landing ship dock, with a broader general-purpose role.

They preserve most major stages, although some minor propulsion variations are missing.

The British approach is more likely, but lifetime fuel avoids refuelling only if high-enriched-uranium production and stocks can support it.