Osprey Publishing

German Battleships 1914-18[1] Deutschland, Nassau & Helgoland classes

by  Gary Staff. Illustrated by Paul Wright

Reviewed By  Marc Blackburn, IPMS# 42892

MSRP: 9.99 GBP [$15.16 USD] ISBN: 978-184603467-1 Website: Osprey Publishing Several years ago, the New Vanguard series branched off into naval subjects. With several volumes dealing with the Kriegsmarine in World War Two under their belt, the series editors are now turning their attention to the navy of Kaiser Wilhelm II navy during World War One. Given the number of battleships built by the Kaiser, Osprey has chosen to split this particular subject into two volumes. Volume I of deals with thirteen battleships of the Deutschland, Nassau and Helgoland classes built at the beginning of the Dreadnought era. Each section provides a brief history of the class, there technical specifications – armor, armament, engines, and boilers – and a service history of each ship. Given the size of the New Vanguard series, the historic photographs are on the small side and there is a color profile of one ship in each class, along with three paintings that illustrate particular episodes that these ships took part in. The illustrations are rounded off by a cut away of the SMS Rhineland. This book provides a brief introduction to the German response to the Royal Navy’s Dreadnought. While the Deutschland class was typical of late pre-dreadnought warships, a mixed caliber armament, they continued in service through the war, including participating in Jutland. The Nassau and Helgoland classes were larger and had better protection than their Anglo contemporaries. To illustrate their superior protection, the author chose to highlight the Westfalen’s success in surviving a torpedo strike in 1917. Unfortunately, they adapted a hexagonal arrangement for the turrets meaning that two turrets with four guns were masked if an enemy was engaged on either their port or starboard beams. As was demonstrated at Jutland, the first generation of German dreadnoughts could take a considerable amount of punishment and stay afloat. Every ship discussed in the book had a role to play in clash at Jutland (or Skagerrak as it’s called in the book) and only the Pommern (pre-dreadnought) was lost to enemy action. In addition to Jutland, some readers may recognize the Ostfriesland as the ship that Billy Mitchell sunk in his famous bombing experiments in 1921. While the small size of the photographs is disappointing, aficionados of the Kaiser’s navy will find this a handy reference book for these three classes of German battleships. My thanks to Osprey Publishing for providing the review sample and to IPMS/USA for allowing me to review it.