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It's been a long time since I've had a new book review published to the site, and I'll face up to it folks, I've been going through writer's block these last few months, and I just plain haven't had a whole lot of inspiration lately. I wrote reviews of two books in the "Anatomy of the Ship" series for the site a couple years back, but my current collection includes 23 of the 38 books in the series. So, instead of nagging Neal and asking him to publish 21 separate reviews, I'm going to review these books individually in this thread, in chronological order of their release. I'm going to try to do one book per day - although I'll no doubt fall behind at time.

To avoid making these reviews longer than they need to, here's a little FAQ before getting started:

What was the "Anatomy of the Ship" series?
"Anatomy of the Ship" was a series of monographs published in the UK by Conway Maritime Press, and in the US by the Naval Institute Press, between 1982 and 2005. Each book (except for a few on classes of ships) focused on a single ship, and explored it's internal and external arrangements in a level of detail not usually found in general maritime histories.

What format did these books follow?
Each book was a 10 x 10 inch hardcover, usually 120 or 128 pages in length, although some were only 96 pages long, while a few were 144, 160, 192, or 256 pages. Each book was divided (although segregated might be a better term) into three sections, including a text introduction, a series of photographs, and a set of drawings which occupied the bulk of the book. The drawings chapters were divided into numerous alphabetically ordered sections (A General Arrangements, B Hull Structure, C Machinery, etc.), each section divided by subject, and each drawing assigned a letter/number (i.e. section D (Machinery), D2 (2750hp Marine Engine), D2/4 (Section through high pressure cylinder looking aft).

What types of drawings were usually included?
Each book includes a set of general arrangement plans, showing the layout of the exterior and of each deck. A longitudinal section through the hull was usually included, along with at least one transverse section. Most books on steel ships included sections on hull structure and machinery, though the level of detail varied greatly from book to book. Detailed drawings of each type of weapon were usually included, along with drawings of deck fittings, ground tackle (anchor gear), ship's boats, and rig. Books on wooden ships had numerous views of the masts and yards, along with the rigging and usually some depiction of the sails. The majority of the drawings in each book were of the traditional three-view type, but most books included numerous perspective views, cutaways, and the occasional diagrammatic view.

Cost and availability?
About a dozen from the series are still in print or easily available, although they've been reprinted a few times through the years. These can usually be purchased online for between $20 and $30. Some are out-of-print but still available cheaply through used book merchants. Unfortunately, some of them are scarce and go for an arm and leg online - the cheapest used copy of Royal Yacht Caroline on Amazon is $84, the Battleship Fuso is $100, and The Four-Masted Barque Lawhill is currently going for $168 used.

So, on to my first review.

Anatomy of the Ship: The Battlecruiser Hood
1982
John Roberts

Like a lot of historic warships, the British Battlecruiser Hood received that recognition the hard way - by being sunk. The mighty Hood, pride of the Royal Navy, fell victim to a 15-inch shell fired from the Bismarck, which as the most popular theory goes, pierced through her thinly armored decks and exploded inside one of her powder magazines, setting off a massive explosion which broke the ship in two. Hood sank in three minutes, taking with her a shocking 1,416 of her 1,419 man crew.

To the British public, the destruction of the Hood was almost as shocking as the loss of Singapore to the Japanese in early 1942. Commissioned in 1920, Hood had attained celebrity status in the proceeding two decades. 860 feet long, and displacing 48,630 tons fully loaded, Hood was by far the largest fighting ship in the world. Besides being enormous, Hood was an especially fine looking warship, and featured technical advancements such as a sloped armor belt, geared steam turbines, and an integral anti-torpedo belt. In peacetime, Hood would represent the British empire during overseas assignments, and more than 700,000 people visited her while she was flagship of the Special Service Squadron in 1923 and 1924.

Despite her size and technological advancement, Hood's armor protection was never adequate against long-range gunfire. Instead of a single thickly armored "protective deck," Hood had three thinly armored decks and additional plating prevent shell fragments from entering the ship's vitals. When Hood was laid down in 1916, her designers hadn't foreseen the use of armor-piercing shells with delayed fuses, rendering whatever protection a multi-deck system would have provided useless. All warship design is based on compromise, but in Hood's case, a seemingly minor compromise proved to be a fatal one.

John Arthur Roberts, a British naval draughtsman, former editor of Warship Magazine, and the co-author of British Battleships of World War II, chose the Hood as the subject of the first Anatomy. The 15 page introduction provides details on the evolution of the design, and fairly detailed descriptions of the hull structure, machinery, armament, fire control systems, and anchor gear. It also includes a detailed timeline of modifications and refits, and tables providing specifications of the ship's guns, boats, armor protection, and fire control systems. 23 photographs are included in the next section, including some interesting shots taken while fitting out and a number of interior photographs from 1932.

The General Arrangements section depicts Hood as completed in 1920 at 1:600 scale. There's one longitudinal and 22 transverse sections through the hull, along with plans of each superstructure and hull deck, and a plan and profile of the ship as it appeared "as sunk." The next section focuses on the structure of the hull, opening with views of the different types of steel sections, riveted joints, and structural members used in Hood's construction. Perspective views of the bow, midships, and stern structure and supplemented by detailed views of the hull and deck plating, the arrangement of one of the 15-inch barbettes, and the arrangement of deck beams, brackets, and the structure of the double bottom.

Section C focuses on machinery, and includes 1:300 scale plans of Hood's main and auxiliary machinery spaces, propeller shafts, and steering gear. Besides the traditional plans, the section includes detailed plan, perspective, and partial-cutaway views of machinery such as the turbines, boilers, condensers, feed pumps, and exhaust fans, and diagrammatic views showing how the ventilation, magazine cooling, feed water, and oil fuel systems operated. Section D shows some of the accommodation spaces at 1:150 scale, including the sick bay and wardroom. Section E depicts the evolving appearance of the superstructure, depicting each deck at 1:300 scale and the forward superstructure in perspective view in it's 1931 state.

Section F details the layout of the rigging to the main and foremasts, along with the wireless rig, main derrick, mast yards, and flagstaffs. Section G features a number of exceptionally detailed plans of the internal arrangement of the aftermost 15-inch turret, along with views of the secondary armament and anti-aircraft guns. The remaining chapters cover a hodgepodge of various subjects, including the ship's boats, ground tackle, deck fittings, and the aircraft launching arrangements fitted briefly in 1931.

I wasn't entirely certain what to expect when I bought this book. I already owned Roberts' later book on the battleship Dreadnought, and considering this was the first book in the series, it had to be somewhat crude, right? I was in for a pleasant surprise. For a book first published in the early 80s, the level of detail and the quality of the drawings is absolutely stunning. I wouldn't consider any of them works of art, but they certainly are detailed, sharp, and easy to follow. Granted, some of the drawings are a little crude, but Roberts hits it out of the park when it comes to detail. There's all kinds of little morsels for ship buffs to chew on here, ranging from sectional views of the stern casting, a depiction of the fittings on a boiler steam drum, to a closeup of the clip on an armored hatch, and a perspective view showing the clinker construction of a 32 foot cutter. I also have to give Roberts kudos for noting when items were either added, moved, or removed from the ship in his plans of the superstructure. There are several model kits of the Hood currently available, and builders will appreciate having appropriate reference material to build an accurate model!

Although I compared this book to the Dreadnought anatomy when I first bought it, the comparison seems a little unfair in retrospect, considering it's only half as long as The Battleship Dreadnought. Unlike that book, there's no overall view of the shell plating, almost nothing about the torpedo installation, fewer photographs, and the page layouts are occasionally over-cluttered. Some of the exterior plans are apparently based on dated information, although I can't really vouch for this. However, Hood's drafting style is more visually appealing, and the deck fittings and machinery components are depicted in more detail in this book. Either way, both both books represent a detailed study of the state-of-the-art in British naval architecture at the time, and complement each other nicely.

Except for a couple of minor omissions, which were probably the result of inadequate space in the final book, The Battlecruiser Hood is an excellent study of an historic warship that's unfortunately most remembered for her tragic demise. Like the other Anatomies (I'll just point this out now so I don't have to later), it won't appeal to anyone looking for a narrative history of the ship. But for anyone looking for technical details of the Hood, her machinery, and her armament, this is the best place to start.

Final score: 9/10.