German Battlecruisers 1914-18 (New Vanguard)

[MartinJQuinn]

Although I haven't been that impressed with other Osprey New Vanguard titles, I picked this one up from my LHS the other day.

By far, IMO, this is the best New Vanguard (NV) release to date. I've already read the whole thing, and found it easy to read. In line with other NV releases, it's more an overview than in-depth, but it was still informative and interesting to read.

One of the interesting things the book states is that the German Naval Command considered sending the Moltke to replace the Scharnhorst in the Asiatic Squadron, but eventually decided not to. Interesting to think how the Battle of the Falklands might have played out if the Moltke was Von Spee's flagship...

The drawings are, IMO, very good. Much better than the ugly computer generated drawings in the NV German Heavy Cruiser book. If you are interested in Battlecruisers or WWI naval history, I highly recommend this book. If the forthcoming British Battlecruiser book is of the same quality, I'll definitely pick that up as well.

[G. Shoda]

Thanks for the review. Will keep my eyes open to check it out at my local Borders or Barnes and Nobles. Like you, I have not been impressed by the Osprey series so far. I did buy the British battlecruisers book, which was well written, I thought, but did not provide much that was new.

[Laurence Batchelor]

I have around 10 of the New Vanguard Series Osprey books and like you Martin when this new Gerry WW1 BC one came out I had it preordered as there isn't tons of stuff in English on them.

I agree it won't set the world alight with technical detail but its simple and easy to read and a good basic start if you wish to know a little on these ships.

The British Battlecruiser one is worse as in my opinion it tries to cover too many ships and merely skirts over them. John Roberts British Battlecruisers book, for around the same money, really shows what can be done by a proper naval researcher and draftsman. This is a general complaint of all this series on warships though the ones on famous naval battles are better Osprey's Jutland one I highly recommend.

[MartinJQuinn]

The British Battlecruiser one is worse as in my opinion it tries covers too many ships and merely skirts over them John Roberts British Battlecruisers book for around the same money really shows what can be done by a proper reseracher and draftsman. This is a general complaint of all this series on warships though the ones on famous naval battles are better Osprey's Jutland one I highly recommend.

Yes, I agree - I just picked up the Osprey New Vanguard British Battlecruisers 1914-1918 from my LHS. While not a bad book, it's not nearly as good as the volume on the German Battlecruisers. If I were to recommend only one book on British Battlecruisers, I'd recommend the John Robert's book as well.