Gunboats of World War I/Канонерские лодки Первой мировой войны

Книга на английском языке
It was official – the age of the gunboat had passed. In December 1904, with a few strokes of his pen, the First Sea Lord Sir John ‘Jacky’ Fisher decreed that the Royal Navy would scrap most of its large fleet of gunboats. It was a force he felt had become obsolete following the launch of HMS Dreadnought.
Unable to protect themselves in this new age of steel, speed and firepower, these floating relics of a bygone era had become little more than a liability. As Fisher put it, these vessels were too weak to fight and too slow to run – collectively he called them ‘a miser’s hoard of junk’. Under Fisher, over 90 warships were disposed of, and the money and manpower spent on maintaining these vessels was diverted into the building and manning of new dreadnought battleships.
The signal was clear – the Victorian fleet was no longer fit for purpose, and the modern Royal Navy would be leaner, fitter and far more powerful.

Contents
Introduction
Design and development
Early Development
Pre-war Gunboats
Monitors and River Gunboats
Combat potential
Main Armament
Smaller Weapons
Gunboats in action
Europe
Africa
The Middle East
Gunboat specifications
Austria-Hungary
Germany
Great Britain
Russia
Turkey
United States
Further reading
Index