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man with unshined shoes is not made to march for an hour to repent his sins, nor is he hauled up to mast and restricted to the ship for a week.
^ Emphasize that authority and discipline do hold a rightful place in any military organization. Serious breaches °f regulations presently require a personal appearance before the midshipman’s battalion officer or the Commandant, at which time the number °f demerits is assigned. This facet of rhe conduct system should be retained ar>d modified to resemble a captain’s roast. A midshipman placed on report would first go to a hearing with his company officer in a fashion akin to xO’s mast, where it can be decided whether the matter warrants the attrition of the battalion officer. If so, a battalion officer’s mast is conducted and disciplinary action such as restriction or forfeiture of pay taken. Cases which seem to merit more serious measures such as forfeiture of annual leave or separation from the Academy cannot be decided on the battalion level but must be referred to a Commandant’s mast.
► Provide positive incentives for good performance. It is imperative that some record of a midshipman’s performance at the Naval Academy stay with him after commissioning. Under the existing aptitude reporting system each midshipman submits evaluations of all subordinates in his squad twice a year. The company officer reviews these reports and combines them with his own observations to determine an aptitude "ladder” for each class within the company. Under this proposal the company officer would justify each man’s ranking with a fitness report to go into his permanent jacket at BuPers. Only reports for the last three years as a midshipman would be retained; the plebe year is a period for adjustment to and learning about military life. This exception will not free the plebes from the consequences of poor performance however.
V Expand and apply the shadow command concept. Midshipmen ought to be given real responsibility and authority over their subordinates. Specifically, company policies should originate with the company commander and not the company officer; personnel inspections should be conducted solely by the stripers; and approval of liberty chits and other normal requests should be striper decisions.
Also, the responsibility for plebe training should be distributed equally among the upper three classes to allow them more development of their leadership ability.
Book Reviews
Jane’s Fighting Ships: 1976-77
Captain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired), Editor. New York: Franklin Wat«, 1976. 831 pp. Ulus. $72.50.
Reviewed by Commander Steve Kime, RfS. Navy
{Commander Kime is a 1962 NROTC &raduate of the University of Louisville. He received his masters and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. A submariner, he has served in Moscow as an Assistant Naval Attache and in the Defence Intelligence Agency. He is currently assigned to the National Defense University and teaches ■soviet-related subjects at the National War College,)
Jane’s Fighting Ships should be viewed, and judged, as two separate efforts under °ne cover. It is at once a "handbook” and a source of widely-publicized analy- s,s °n maritime affairs. It is important to loake the distinction between these two facets of Jane’s because they are of ungual merit and impact.
The nearly eight decades of background, experience, and reputation that the publication enjoys make it the leader among naval reference works. It is this preeminence as chronicler of naval forces which has annually focused a spotlight on the analysis in the foreword to the book. Perversely, Captain Moore’s six-page commentary receives more publicity than the hundreds of pages devoted to the actual purpose of the work: i.e., presenting the specifics on the world’s navies.
As a reference work, Jane’s competes with its French counterpart, Les Flottes de Combat, which is now available in English as a Naval Institute Press book, Combat Fleets of the World. Although Jane’s is the better publication in many ways, with its ship descriptions, larger photos, and its easier to read layouts, especially for laymen, its painfully high price may cause potential buyers to carefully consider the alternative at $49.50. It is reasonable to wonder why the more than 100 pages of advertising, unfortunately presented before the text, does not reduce the price of the volume. In any case, the publication’s editors seem to strive for continued improvement in both comprehensiveness and presentation. The latest edition of Jane’s is no exception. It offers a new, more open layout which generally makes the book easier to read and to view. The new layout also accounts, in part, for the addition of some 150 more pages than last year’s edition.
The improved page layouts present a more orderly top-to-bottom presentation of photographs and accompanying data. A much less "busy” presentation results, and it is further enhanced by a number of new, and better, photographs. The return of line drawings to the beginning of country sections is also an improvement to this year’s layout. Unfortunately, the line drawings, though now drawn to a standard scale, are not always reproduced well. Another negative facet
of this year’s format is the removal of running headings, such as "submarines,” "destroyers,” etc., on each page of the book. This is a loss, especially to the inexpert reader.
Of particular use is the continuation of last year’s new section, now entitled "Major Matters,” which reviews the most important naval developments about the world. In one-and-one-half pages the reader can gain a sense of appreciation for the myriad transfers, construction efforts, and retirements which determine the character of the world’s navies, and with which the publication must cope. Near the beginning of individual country sections, deletions are now listed. This information helps the reader recognize trends in each individual navy. Additional improvements, however, are needed. The dates of past deletions should be carried forward each year; U. S. deletions should be consolidated at the beginning of the U. S. section; and a list of the past year’s additions to each fleet should be included before or after the list of deletions.
Some errors, however, also appear. Photographs used to represent the types of U. S. ships which have been transferred to other navies are sometimes ill-chosen—i.e., the photo of the U.S. LST shown to represent the type transferred to China is a more modern version than the type actually transferred. The three U. S. Tang<\iss submarines shown in the Iranian inventory are also shown still to be in the U. S. Navy where, in fact, they will likely remain for at least two more years. Errors are bound to be made in as large an undertaking as Jane’s, but one wonders if there might not be more of them in the future, when the publication begins to do without the efforts, and the considerable access to information, of Norman Pol- mar, whose editorship of several important sections ends with the 1976-1977 volume.
All told, Jane’s is a fine reference book, but the analysis annually tacked to it somehow seems out of place. Indeed, one must suspect that the journalists, who repeat its assertions and opinions, do not bother examining the prestigious work itself. Sadly, they are provided a press release which highlights, and even exaggerates, precisely the kind of politi
cal judgments which a reference work should avoid.
Jane’s would be better served to avoid off-the-cuff conclusions where no sup- 1 porting analyses or data are presented. Surely the reader would not miss commentary on the state of international relations, lamentations about internal U. S. military politics, and preachments on the state of NATO. Similarly, simplistic and vague treatment of the utilization of navies in the nuclear age, if they are to merely be asserted, are of little benefit to the reader. Jane’s should concentrate on descriptions of the navies of the world, where its performance is unsurpassed. Any judgments or analyses presented should either flow from the facts in the body of the book or from tightly reasoned and documented analysis. Such analysis, and certainly the opinions of the producers of Jane’s , might better be published elsewhere.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Combat Fleets of the World 1976/77: Their Ships, Aircraft, and Armament was reviewed in the September 1976 Proceedings on pages 86-87■
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Decisive Battles of the Twentieth Century:
Land-Sea-Air
Noble Frankland and Christopher Dowling (Editors). New York: David McKay Company, Inc., 1976. 384 pp.
Maps. Illus. Source Notes. $15.00.
Reviewed by Major General J. L.
Moulton, Royal Marines (Retired)
(Major General Moulton’s long career in the | Royal Marines stretched from 1924 to 1961 and included extensive combat service in World War 11. Among the several books he has written on military subjects is The Norwegian Campaign of 1940. He has contributed several Naval Review essays and was editor of Brassey’s Annual from 1964 to i 1973.)
Asked by Russian officers after the war what he considered to have been the decisive battle of World War II, General Gerd von Rundstedt replied, "The Battle of Britain.” The Russians, says Christopher Dowling, who tells the story in his chapter on the battle, "closed their notebooks and went
away.” Unlike von Rundstedt, Dr. Frankland and Mr. Dowling, respectively Director and Keeper of the Department °f Education and Publications at the Imperial War Museum, London, present ln their editorial role no less than 14 decisive battles of World War II, five from World War I, and one each from che Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, Korea, French Indo-China, and Vietnam.
So what is a decisive battle? E. S. Creasy, who named the game in his The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo, chose a mere 15 from the history of the world. Major- General J. F. C. Fuller, who adopted a similar title (The Decisive Battles of the IWestern World and Their Influence upon History), hung upon it a massive history °f warfare from the dawn of history to the end of World War II. It may seem pedantic to find fault with a mere title, and so it would be if a clear theme emerged from the text. But out of Deci- Slve Battles of the Twentieth Century there c°mes neither a reasoned list of turning points of history, nor a study of the evolution of armed conflict in the preset century.
The standard of individual authorship Is high. Many of the distinguished authors have important full-length works t0 their credit. The battle descriptions are competent, crisp, and authoritative. S°me have a paragraph or two explaining why the author believes his battle to ave been decisive; some do not. But at engths of 5,000-10,000 words they cannot be studies in depth, and a diversity °f authors, however distinguished, cannot singularly provide unity of theme, ne misses Creasy’s lucid preface.
If at Tsushima, described by Christopher Lloyd, the Russians had sunk the Japanese fleet, that might have been ecisive, but there was little chance of it nappening, and the issue of the war, ^*th all that it implied to the future of
that could be more accurately described as a classic indecisive battle or, as some have said, a non-battle.
Verdun certainly contributed largely to the near collapse of French morale in 1917 and to its complete collapse in 1940, but was that due only to Verdun or to the whole succession of shattering casualties from the battles of the frontiers to Chemin des Dames in 1917? It is asking much of Alistair Horne, the author of three memorable books on the
process from 1870 to 1940, to condense his analysis into some 5,000 words. And how was it that the Germans could seemingly shake off their losses in Lu- dendorff’s "Offensive 1918,” described by Corelli Barnett, in time for their successful aggression of 1939 and 1940?
Space forbids even a listing of the World War II choices, but the postwar trio claims special attention. "The smashing defeat of the U. S. Eighth Army at the hands of the Chinese on
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ang, Port Arthur, and Mukden. At annenberg (Sirjohn Wheeler-Bennett’s napter), however, a crushing victory set e pattern for what followed, and so it Can properly be claimed that the battle Pointed the way to the Russian Revo- non. It would have been unconven- |l°nal to have omitted the Marne, ana- yznd by Alan Palmer, from the list, but
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This volume’s coverage includes descriptions of 23 battles, each presented with a map like the one of the Tet Offensive printed here.
the Chongchon River transformed the Korean War,” writes Robert O’Neill. But he fails to add that the Chinese losses then and subsequently were such that never since have they pitted their massed manpower against Western firepower. Instead they, like the Russians, have adopted the method of Dien Bien Phu (Air Vice-Marshal Stewart Menaul’s chapter): the support of client revolutionaries in protracted guerrilla warfare.
And so Vietnam. Incurring tactical defeat in a suicidal offensive, says Bernard Brodie in a thought-provoking chapter, "Tet Offensive,” General Vo Nguyen Giap achieved "fabulous strategic and political gains.” The armed conflict of the 20th century had, in fact, evolved from the convulsive, Napoleon-inspired Clausewitzian concept attempted at Tannenberg and on the Marne to the new reality of protracted revolutionary guerrilla warfare under the threat of nuclear confrontation. Thinking in Clausewitzian terms, American higher command and public alike were, to use Brodie’s word, "stunned” by the Communists’ ability to continue and even intensify a conflict they believed them to have lost. The evolution, at present better understood by the Communist enemies of the West than by their opponents, would repay study, but it is not until nearly the end of this book that the first suggestion of it appears.
The Soviet Soldier:
Soviet Military Management at the Troop Level
Herbert Goldhamer. New York: Crane, Russak & Company, Inc., 1975. 350 pp. $17.00 ($8.75 for paper).
Reviewed by Captain William H. J. Manthorpe, Jr., U. S. Navy
(Captain Manthorpe is an intelligence specialist currently serving as an Executive Assistant in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He served as an Assistant U. S. Naval Attache in Moscow from 1971 to 1974.)
Despite its unlikely title, this book makes an extremely important contribution to our ability to understand and assess the capabilities of the Soviet Navy. Based on a review of four years of Soviet military newspapers and journals, The Soviet Soldier is a study which provides considerable information on the personnel-related aspects of the Soviet Armed Forces. There are chapters dealing with conscription, pre-induction training, military training, discipline, morale, political indoctrination, and party influence. In each case, the author describes Soviet concepts and methods of personnel management and comments on how these enhance or limit Soviet military readiness and effectiveness. All of this is documented by frequent verbatim quotations and illustrated with specific examples, many of which relate to the Soviet Navy. In concluding chapters, the author summarizes by pointing out some peculiarities of Soviet military administration which affect performance and, by listing some constraints on Soviet military, effectiveness arising from Soviet personnel-related policies and practices.
In Soviet journalism there are two predominant themes: Marxist-Leninist- Soviet glorification, and frank self-criticism. By his skillful analysis and comment, Herbert Goldhamer draws on both themes to provide the reader with a balanced picture of Soviet military personnel capabilities and limitations. Although this may be some readers’ first exposure to the content of the Soviet military press, most probably will not be surprised to find that the Soviets’ concepts and methods for obtaining, motivating, and controlling the personnel of their armed forces are totally different from those of the West. What may come as a surprise, however, is the considerable evidence in the Soviet press which shows that, despite the totally different system, the Soviet military is still plagued by many of the same personnel problems which affect Western military establishments. Furthermore, there is other evidence to indicate that the nature of the Soviet system creates additional and unique problems which further limit the Soviet military’s performance.
Soviet military writings discuss a number of problems which most readers will recognize as common to both East and West. For example, although the Soviet Union has universal military service and maintains a huge and active reserve force, it still faces a chronic
shortage of well-trained career noncommissioned officers. This shortage apparently has not been alleviated by several versions of the warrant officer program. Likewise, another common problem seems to be the alienation of youth from the accepted norms of the military establishment and an aversion to traditional forms of military life and discipline. It is clear, as the author points out, that with respect to youth the Soviet military is "On the Defensive—For the First Time.”
On the other hand, there are a number of drawbacks unique to the Soviet system. One is the tremendous pressure created by the constant unrelieved pace of military training, the continual demands of socialist competition, and the incessant political indoctrination. There is ample evidence from Soviet writings to show that these pressures are often ’ counterproductive. Conscripts and jun- j ior officers are turned against making the military a career by the lack of free time and poor living conditions. Readiness is undermined as the requirements of socialist competition are often met by falsification and formalism rather than by real efforts. Much valuable training time is lost and much manpower ab- ^ sorbed by the political indoctrination efforts. Another counterproductive feature of the Soviet system is the attempt by the Party to increase its control over the military through a revitalization and , expansion of the political officer system- This effort has undercut the proclaimed | principle of "one-man command,” limited the success of other efforts to get Soviet commanders to exercise more initiative and ingenuity in the conduct of their commands, and has demeaned ' the professionalism of the regular officer corps.
"The difficulties facing the Soviets reviewed above,” the author concludes, "do not signify a profound weakness in the military forces of the USSR. They do not seem sufficient to prevent Soviet troops from performing their peacetime and wartime functions with a substantial measure of success. There is, however, a tendency to view Soviet soldiers, both individually and collectively, and the Soviet military as an organization, a5 being qualitatively superior to most of their western counterparts—in short, to view the Soviet military as TO feet tall.’
I9li)>
compounded rather than clarified
far as naval books are concerned, 1976 was a very good year. Eighteen of the best of them have been selected for this annual roundup. As in the past, no attempt has been made to achieve any particular topical or chronological balance. Each book is evaluated individu- a%- Among them are a few which apPear too late for inclusion in last year’s survey.
The most imposing is the three-vol- tttne edition by Robert Seager II and oris D. Maguire of the Letters and “pers of Alfred Thayer Mahan. The first nem it contains is a thank-you note ahan wrote his grandmother at the Y seven; the last, an undated essay rafted late in life on "The Christian octrine of the Trinity.” The letters, *aries, and papers included in the over >000 intervening pages represent a kind 0 organic autobiography of the most lnfluential strategic thinker America has fjer produced. Beautifully printed and ourid as it is, a boxed set which tips the Scales at over ten pounds and costs upwards of $70.00 is clearly not a natural candidate for the average home library, ut no reference collection should be 'Vlth°ut it. For insight into the personal and intellectual development of the man Who added "sea power” to the world’s v°cabulary, it is the indispensable s°urce.
^fahan retired from the Navy in 1897. year later he was recalled to duty to sit °n the three-member Naval War Board established by Secretary John D. Long at outbreak of the Spanish-American g. ar' The immediate cause of that con- ct was the mysterious destruction of e battleship Maine in Havana Harbor °n the evening of 15 February 1898. The tnerican public leaped to the conduit011 that the dastardly dons had done it; Ut this was never proved. Three subse- Suent investigations, one Spanish ^98) and two American (1898 and mystery. The key question, of cours^ was the origin of the explosion.
. e Spanish found that it had been ^nternal; the Americans, external. Am- 'fiuities in the configuration of the . eckage offered support to both theo- s> and for the last 60 years the ques- n has remained open. Now at last it is . moritatively answered by Admiral yman G. Rickover, U. S. Navy (Retired), in How the Battleship Maine Was Destroyed. Following a reconstruction of the tense diplomatic circumstances attending the Maine’s visit to Havana and a review of the controversy surrounding her destruction, the evidence gathered by the 1911 inquiry is analyzed in light of modern technical knowledge. The conclusion: the Maine blew up as a result of spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker, which ignited an adjacent magazine.
By the time of the Spanish-American War the impact of electricity on naval warfare was already becoming apparent. U. S. naval forces cut the submarine cables linking the Spanish colonial authorities in Cuba and the Philippines with Madrid, and at night the ships blockading Santiago used their searchlights to illuminate the mouth of the channel in case Cervera’s squadron attempted to slip out under cover of darkness. In Electronics and Sea Power, Vice Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlet, Royal Navy (Retired), analyzes the effect of the employment of increasingly sophisticated electric and electronic devices in war at sea. Beginning with the British Admiralty’s utilization of the telegraph to communicate with the naval commander in the Baltic in 1854, Admiral Hezlet traces the accelerating tempo of technological change through the later 19th century and the two world wars to the present. A fitting companion to his masterly studies of The Submarine and Sea Power (1967) and Aircraft and Sea Power (1970), this volume completes a trilogy covering what Hezlet identifies as the three greatest influences on modern naval warfare. A notable feature of them all is the clarity with which quite complex technical matters are rendered comprehensible to the layman.
Naval Policy between the Wars is scrutinized in a major history by Captain Stephen Roskill, Royal Navy (Retired). Volume I, The Period of Anglo-American Antagonism, 1919-1929 (1968), describes the era of bad feeling between the two great naval powers, the Washington and Geneva naval arms limitations conferences, the origins of the aircraft carrier versus battleship controversy, and the naval aspects of the international crises of the early 1920’s. Volume 11, The Period of Reluctant Rearmament, 1930-1939, treats the collapse of the arms limita-
Notable Naval Books of 1976
By Professor Jack Sweetman, Associate Editor
tions agreements and the democracies’ slow response to the increasingly aggressive actions of Nazi Germany, Italy, and Japan. Author of the highly acclaimed official history of British naval operations in World War II, Captain Roskill brings to his new work the same scholarship, judgment, and style which distinguished his earlier volumes. While, as might be expected, he writes from a distinctly British perspective, the American side of the story receives a thorough if somewhat less sympathetic coverage.
As usual, the chief concentration of notable naval books is on World War II. American participation in the conflict is generally considered to have begun with the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on the morning of 7 December 1941. In reality, however, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had committed the Atlantic Fleet to an undeclared limited war with German U-boats long before that. When in September 1941 the destroyer Greer (DD-145) was attacked by a U-boat she had been bird-dogging off the coast of Iceland, Roosevelt announced that the U. S. Navy would begin convoy escort in the western Atlantic. The numerous antisubmarine actions fought in the following weeks eventuated in the torpedoing of one U. S. destroyer, the Kearny (DD-432), and the sinking of another, the Reuben James (DD-245), with heavy loss of life. This little-known chapter of American naval history is described by Patrick Abbazia in Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy: The Private War of the U. S. Atlantic Fleet, 1939-1942. A work of extensive original research, it is also first-rate reading.
The naval war against Germany is also the subject of an enthralling memoir, Night Action: MTB Flotilla at War, by Captain Peter Dickens, Royal Navy (Retired). From August 1942 to July 1943, the author, then a 25-year-old lieutenant, commanded the 21st MTB (Motor Torpedo-Boat) Flotilla, whose mission it was to interdict enemy coastal traffic in the English Channel and the North Sea. Captain Dickens sets the tone of his narrative with the prefatory note: "It is presumptuous for someone as unimportant as I am to write about his own doings, and some attempt at excuse is called for. To most people small, fast, fighting craft were exciting and glamourous, but to the Royal Naval Establishment they were anathema and now we have none. There seems a case therefore for trying to pass on some of the thrill, the delights and disappointments, failures and successes, problems and their solutions, experienced by a very young man in the enviable and uncommon job of Senior Officer of a Motor Torpedo-Boat Flotilla." He succeeds remarkably well.
Last year’s "Notable Naval Books” included Commander Thomas Buell’s life of Admiral Raymond A. Spruance, The Quiet Warrior, which was described as the best World War II naval biography to date. It must now share that distinction with E. B. Potter’s study of Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz. Spruance’s boss as Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Fleet, and Commander, Pacific Ocean Areas, Nimitz directed the operations of incomparably the greatest concentration of naval power which had ever been assembled. In 1956, Professor Potter, a member of the History De- ' partment of the U. S. Naval Academy! asked Admiral Nimitz to assist him m editing a history of sea power to be used as a text at the Naval Academy and in the Naval Reserve Officers Training Course. Nimitz agreed to do so. Their i long collaboration developed into friendship, and, following the admiral s death ten years later, Mrs. Nimitz chose Professor Potter to write the biography her husband would not allow to be undertaken during his lifetime. Augmenting the insights of personal acquaintance with exhaustive research, Potter has produced the definitive treatment of Nimitz the commander and the man.
The opening months of the Pacific war settled for once and for all the , battleship versus aircraft carrier controversy of the interwar years. For anyone ) with eyes to see, the carrier was revealed as the true measure of naval power. To maintain command of the sea it svas necessary to attain command of the am The course of that struggle is recounted in Titans of the Seas: The Development and , Operations of Japanese and American Car rier Task Forces during World War II, by James H. Belote and William M. Belote- In this, their third book on the Pacific conflict, the brothers Belote searched through Japanese and American afteraction reports as well as published sources to compile what is probably the ^ best one-volume account of Pacific cat' rier operations to appear to date. The decision to wrap up the narrative with the battle of the Philippine Sea (June 1944) seems odd at first glance, but that , event is a logical end to the story the Belotes chose to tell. The Mariannas 1 Turkey Shoot was the graveyard of Japanese carrier air; from then on, it was no contest. At Leyte Gulf, four months 1 later, Japan’s surviving flattops were used as bait.
The fast carriers were escorted by fast battleships built following the collapse of the arms limitations treaties if the mid-1950s. No less than ten of these leviathans—BB-55 {North Carolina) : through BB-64 (Wisconsin)—were commissioned between 1941 and 1944. I[ | was the irony of fate that these last and greatest of American dreadnoughts j should serve primarily as outriders for j
the ships which had superseded them as sovereigns of the seas. Despite their obsolescence, however, their majesty and their significance as the final flowering °f a doomed technology are a source of continuing interest. Their design, construction, technical characteristics, and deployments are detailed in Battleships: United States Battleships in World War II, by Robert O. Dulin, Jr., and William H. Garzke, Jr. In addition to battleships which actually entered service, seven others—the last two Iowas and the entire Montana class—cancelled prior to completion are covered, as are the de facto battlecruisers of the Alaska class.
The South Dakota, name-ship of the second class of the new battleships, is among the vessels treated in the newly published sixth volume of the Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. A project of the Naval History Division, the aim of the series is to provide a brief history of every ship ever commissioned m the U. S. (or Continental) Navy from the Revolution to the present. This latest volume treats some 1,563 vessels whose names begin with the letters R and S, including R- and S-Boat submarines. Two appendices are devoted to submarine chasers and Eagle-class patrol craft.
The longest-running notable naval book is Jane’s Fighting Ships, whose thoroughly revised 1976-1977 edition is the fourth to appear under the editorship of Captain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired). Since its founding by Fred T. Jane over three-quarters of a century ago, Jane’s has been the standard naval annual of the English-speaking world. This year, however, it faces a new challenge: Combat Fleets of the World 1976/77: Their Ships, Aircraft and Armament, an up-to-the minute, American edition of Jean Labayle Couhat’s prestigious French annual. Comparisons may be, as the saying goes, invidious, but in a case like this they are inescapable. The principal points to consider are content, format, and price. So far as content is concerned, both books provide a fine basic coverage of all the world’s navies. While Jane’s contains approximately 200 more pages of text, the English annual’s new, more open format is in part responsible for its extra size. Jane’s offers more detailed commentaries; Combat Fleets includes naval aircraft and weapon systems. Combat Fleets’ oblong, 8 x lO'/j- inch format, reminiscent of the Jane’s of long ago, is much easier to handle and shelve than the ungainly 12% x 9 inch Jane’s of today. There is little to distinguish between the two in the way of illustrations, although the paper used for Combat Fleets does not come up to the quality ofJane’s glossy, coated stock. The most marked difference between them is price. Jane’s costs almost twice as much as Combat Fleets. For readers concerned solely with the U. S. Navy there is a still more inexpensive alternative, Samuel L. Morison and John S. Rowe’s tenth edition of The Ships & Aircraft of the U. S. Fleet.
Proceedings readers will need no reminder that in the last 20 years a peacetime construction program unparalleled since the creation of the Imperial German "Risk Fleet” has given the U.S.S.R. one of the world’s most powerful navies. Jane’s’ Captain John E. Moore surveys its present status in The Soviet Navy Today. The book is divided into three parts. The first consists of a series of short essays on such topics as Soviet naval expansion, command structure, shipbuilding, etc. The second is devoted primarily to a description of Soviet ship
types currently in service. Its organization and layout is strongly reminiscent of the Soviet section of Jane’s Fighting Ships. The third part deals with the Soviet naval air force and naval infantry. Five useful appendices treat naval missiles and guns, ASW weapons, radars, and ocean surveillance satellites. Captain Moore does not attempt to interpret the political purpose or strategic options of the systems he describes; his approach is basically nuts-and-bolts. The absence of analysis makes this a work of reference
rather than synthesis; but it is an excellent reference.
The crucial question of how the Soviets intend to use this fine new fleet is addressed by Rear Admiral Edward Wegener, Federal German Navy (Retired), in The Soviet Naval Offensive. A former Commander of NATO Naval Forces, Baltic Approaches, Admiral Wegener finds that it is no longer plausible, as it was less than a decade ago, to contend that the Soviet naval deployment is only a forward defense: "World revolution [i.e., Soviet imperialism] is the motor propelling Moscow’s naval strategic offensive. . . . The threat which the naval strategic challenge of the Soviets poses for the entire Western world must be clearly recognized in its frightful dimensions. Only then will the need for a defense effort be understood. There is no avoiding the effort if the future of the West is to be safe and detente is to be preserved.”
The manner in which the United States should respond to the Soviet naval challenge is one of the central themes of what will undoubtedly be remembered as the most controversial of 1976’s notable naval books, On Watch: A Memoir, by Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., U. S. Navy (Retired). In this outspoken narrative the past Chief of Naval Operations deliberately departs from the genteel tradition of naval autobiography to provide an insider’s account of the policy struggles he witnessed and waged during his two tours at the top. Characterizing the Nixon Administration as a bureaucratic jungle in which "certain continuing policies and procedures were inimical to the security of the United States,” he explains that "what I learned during four years in the thick of that miasma made it my duty to write a book.” Among its more provocative aspects are the criticisms leveled at Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and
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•Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Secretary Kissinger is portrayed as a cultural pessimist whose diplomacy is predicated on the assumption that American society is unequal to the strain of prolonged competition with the U.S.S.R.; Admiral Rickover, as an irascible tyrant whose obsession with enormously expensive, high-technology ships proved a "persistent and formidable obstacle” to the development of the high-low fleet mix Admiral Zumwalt deems imperative to tnatch Soviet naval expansion. Whether or not the reader accepts Admiral Zum- walt’s views, his book is a must for anyone interested in current naval affairs.
Two notable naval books concern the U. S. Marine Corps. Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired), presents a compact history of the Corps from the Revolution through the Mayaguez incident in The United States Marines 1775-1975. A veteran of World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, General Simmons is presently Director of Marine Corps History and Museums. The Corps’ activities in its first war are chronicled in Charles R. Smith’s superb
Marines in the Revolution: A History of the Continental Marines in the American Revolution 1775-1783. The author’s well- researched narrative is complemented by numerous contemporary illustrations and 14 splendid, double-page, color reproductions of original paintings by Major Charles H. Waterhouse, U. S. Marine Corps Reserve. This year’s choice of books does not include a pictorial; except for the fact that its scholarship is as impressive as its graphics, Marines in the Revolution would be notable for its visual impact alone.
•Ran Labayle Couhat, Editor (Translated by *-°mmander James J. McDonald, U. S. Navy 1 et*red]). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute
Press,
($39.60).
Battleships: United States Battleships in World War II
kobert O. Dulin, Jr., and William H. Garzke, Jr- (Line drawings by Robert F. Sumrall). nnapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1976.
67 PP- Ulus. Append. Bib. $24.00 ($19.20).
S3 Combat Fleets of the World *976/77; Their Ships, Aircraft and
Armament '' 1976. 575 pp. Illus. Append. $49.50 dictionary of American Naval F‘ghting Ships: Volume VI, R-S
V’ashington, D.C.: Naval History Division, apartment of the Navy, 1976. 750 pp. Map. us- Append. Bib. $13.00.
® Electronics and Sea Power
^lcc Admiral Sir Arthur Hezlct, KBE, CB,
SO, DSC, Royal Navy (Retired). New York: te,n and Day, 1975. 318 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. Bib. $15.00 ($12.00).
How the Battleship Maine was
destroyed
Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, U. S. Navy Jetired). Washington, D.C.: Naval History vision, Department of the Navy, 1976. 173 Pp- Maps, Illus. Append. Bib. $5.70.
Jane’s Fighting Ships: 1976-77
Gptain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired), itor. New York: Franklin Watts, 1976. 831 Pp- Illus. Append. $72.50.
!~® betters and Papers of Alfred *nayer Mahan
kobert Seager II and Doris D. Maguire, lf°rs. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, Tvr5 Three volumes. 2,330 pp. Illus. Append. lb- $96.00 ($76.00).
Marines in the Revolution: A History of the Continental Marines in the American Revolution, 1775-1783
Charles R. Smith. Washington, D.C.: History and Museums Division, Headquarters, U. S. Marine Corps, 1975. 491 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. Bib. $20.30.
S Mr. Roosevelt’s Navy: The Private War of the U. S. Atlantic Fleet, 1939-1942
Patrick Abbazia. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1975. 520 pp. Maps. Illus. Bib. $18.50 ($14.80).
ES Naval Policy between the Wars Volume II: The Period of Reluctant Rearmament 1930-1939
Captain Stephen Roskill, Royal Navy (Retired). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1976.
525 pp. Illus. Append. Bib. $19.50 ($15.50).
S Night Action: MTB Flotilla at War
Captain Peter Dickens, DSO, MBE, DSC, Royal Navy (Retired). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1976. 242 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. Bib. $10.00 ($8.00).
S Nimitz
E. B. Potter. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1976. 507 pp. Maps. Illus. Bib. $16.95 ($12.00).
S On Watch: A Memoir
Admiral Elmo R. Zumwalt, Jr., U. S. Navy (Retired). New York: Quadrangle (Copublished by the Naval Institute Press), 1976. 568 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. $12.50 ($10.00).
ES Ships and Aircraft of the U. S. Fleet
Samuel L. Morison and John S. Rowe.
Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1975.
294 pp. Illus. $14.50 ($11.60).
S The Soviet Naval Offensive
Rear Admiral Edward Wegener, Federal German Navy (Retired). Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 1975. 135 pp. $11.00 ($8.80).
H The Soviet Navy Today
Captain John E. Moore, Royal Navy (Retired). New York: Stein and Day, 1976. 254 pp. Maps. Illus. Append. Bib. $15.95 ($12.75).
Titans of the Seas: The Development and Operations of Japanese and American Carrier Task Forces during World War II
James H. Belote and William M. Belote. New York: Harper & Row, 1975. 336 pp. Maps. Illus. Bib. $12.95.
S3 The United States Marines 1775-1975
Brigadier General Edwin H. Simmons, U. S. Marine Corps (Retired). New York: Viking, 1976. 342 pp. Maps. Append. Bib. $8.95 ($7.15).
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