A recent addition to the Casemate Illustrated Special series. A 240-page hard-cover book.
After a neat introduction, the book is divided across 8 chapters. It tackles the topic in a simple chronological sequence, from the background of the pre-dreadnought era and on to the change driven by the appearance of the Royal Navy's HMS Dreadnought itself. The book takes us through the detail of all 11 classes of US Navy battleship, and the 1 of battlecruisers. Each class is covered, with the development stories, including the context of what other battleships were being built by other countries such as Great Britain, Japan, and Germany. Each class is then described covering elements such as armament, armour protection, propulsion systems, radars and so on. We also get their individual service stories. It became an arms race, with ever increasing size to their main armament. There are of course a lot of super archive images, plus some diagrams showing detail such as the arrangement of the torpedo protection belts for the hull. Some of the early classes also featured torpedo tubes in the hull, below the waterline.
Famously, a group of these battleships were moored in Pearl Harbor in December 1941, when the Japanese attacked. It does of course cover the ones which were sunk or damaged, and those which were raised/repaired and put back into service. There were 2 that were not recovered of course, not only the Arizona, but also the older battleship, USS Utah, and both of these remain as memorials in the water around Ford Island in Pearl Harbor to this day. There is a good account of the story of the Utah, as there is an account of those who have dived on the wreck of the Arizona, which still contains the bodies of so many of her crew. The Iowa class of battleships were the last ones to remain in service, right up to the Gulf War. Now kept as museum ships, the USS Missouri is kept in Pearl Harbor and there is one chapter containing a photo tour of her today.
The stories of these battleships is fascinating, including the context of their international contemporaries. There are the limitations imposed by the Washington and later London treaties to be taken into account, as well as the simple matter of costs. Design factors evolved over time, from coal powered steam engines to later oil powered ships. Engagement in the war also led to the necessary changes in anti-aircraft protection, and the sheer numbers of weapons fitted is not just staggering, but the fact these ships were big enough to accommodate them. There was a regular series of refits/changes to these ships over the years, some fitted with modern cruise missile systems that saw them in action through Vietnam, the Cold War and on to the Gulf War of 1991. I really enjoyed this book, in both the text and the collection of photos. I am also lucky enough to have visited Pearl Harbor and seen the Missouri, the Arizona Memorial and the wreck of the Utah, so felt myself remembering some of that emotion I felt when we visited that famous battleground.

Military Model Scene