★★★★★ 4
The Details of the Height of British Naval Power
Format: Hardcover
This is the final volume in Rodger's three part series. This coves a lot of ground that includes Britain's height of imperial/naval hegemony and then its exhaustion after two world wars. Read this book if you want to learn about the details that actually go into an important national organization like the Royal Navy. Things like politics, administration, logistics, ship design, talent pipelines, engineering difficulties, etc. Rodgers goes deep. Things like:
1) Fire control on big guns on warships is a very hard technical challenge and wasn't really solved until the 2nd World War with more advanced electronics.
2) In the coal fired age of ships, most of the navy were coal stokers. The limit of range was actually their exhaustion, not how much coal was on board.
3) Twice the number of bombs were dropped on Malta in WW2 as on London during the Blitz!
4) Britain's naval dominance was tied to economic dominance and was sea power/trading based. Sea based trade is so powerful and economical that it was cheaper to ship a ton of coal by sea than train within Britain itself!
5) Britain had a monopoly over undersea cables for global communications. They used this as a weapon to spy on enemy communications and to cut off others access to the network. Sound familiar to the SWIFT banky network today?
6) Welsh coal was the best coal. So good that the Austo-Hungarian navy stockpiled before the war enough that they used it exclusively throughout WW1.
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Reviewed in the United States on November 16, 2025
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