Suchergebnisse

"This work is a close examination of the conditions surrounding and precipitating the last gasp of British naval hegemony and events which led to its demise. Great Britain undertook a massive naval building program in the late-1930s in order to deter aggression and secure dominance at sea against her nascent enemies, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. But the failure of the policy of Appeasement to deter war or delay it into the early 1940s left the building program only partially complete, and the exigencies of war led to the cancellation of the critical but costly and time consuming "Lion" class battleships, and the slow delivery of the "1940 battlecruiser" (HMS Vanguard) and two vital fleet carriers. Adding to these issues the fall of France spurred the USA to initiate her own, even larger, naval building program, and the entry of the powerful and capable Imperial Japanese Navy completely overwhelmed Britain's position as the world's premier naval power. This book will be of value to those interested in the history of the Second World War, and the British navy"--

We military historians have a tendency to obsess over the causes of victory and defeat in war. Like economists, we have a profound desire to identify those ac- tions that ensure success or generate failure, and like economists we are not overly good at it. At best, we can state the obvious, as when the disparity of forces between two opponents is extreme, or ascertain certain verities, like "It is good to have the better trained troops," or "Keep your troops better equipped, fed, and rested than your opponent's." At worst, this obsession with winning and losing can lead to a lot of shameless Monday-morning quarterbacking and counterfac- tual historical speculation.

The Royal Navy's 1939 'Fighting Instructions' provide a unique and underutilized window onto British naval doctrine in the World War II era. A comparison with US and Japanese pre-war tactical/operational thinking clarifies and illuminates the ideas and issues faced by naval officers in the interwar period. Additionally, this line of inquiry foregrounds the question of how we assess naval tactical schemes.