US NAVAL VESSELS 1943 by Baker, A D, introd

Annapolis 1986, Naval Inst. Pr, reprint of 1943 US manual ONI - 54 series, oblong hardbound in dj, 10 1/2 x 7, Fine/Fine condition, approx 200 pages, hundreds of photos & drawings. More than 900 illustrations - including 679 photographs and 227 line drawings- depict the might of the US Navy at the height of the Second World War.----------------------------------Reproduced from the official publication first published in 1943, it presents a comprehensive portrait of the US Fleet at the period where it was beginning to expand into the vast armada that ultimately overwhelmed the enemy forces at sea. In mid-war, the ships showed the advances in equipment and protection prompted by early combat experience, yet they still betrayed their pre-war elegance of design, having not yet had their symmetry destroyed by crowds of antiaircraft guns and director tubs or by complex thickets of radar and counter measures antennas.The photographs were selected from a Naval Intelligence Division collection that at the time was approaching some 50,000 prints. The views incorporated were intended to enable the user to recognize as friendly the hundreds of classes of US Navy ships from virtually any angle. Scaled and shaded line drawings were prepared (usually by trained architects, who found themselves at drafting boards for the duration of the war) either from General Arrangement Booklet plans or from simplified, smaller scale recognition plans done by the builder's yards or repair yards each time a ship was completed or altered. There is also basic data on each ship or class and notes on salient recognition features or differences between units within a class.The excellent selection of photographs and the scrupulously accurate plans will make this miniencyclopedia of immense value to historians, enthusiasts and model-builders. Especially useful is the fact that the book contains the complete range of ships then in service with the U S Navy -from 800-foot battleships to quarter-ton amphibious jeeps.