The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World (16th edition)

RR 2014/133 The Naval Institute Guide to Combat Fleets of the World (16th edition) Eric Wertheim Naval Institute Press Annapolis, MD 2013 xiv + 984 pp. ISBN 978 1 59114 954 5 ISSN 1057 4581 £225 $295 Available in the United Kingdom, Europe, the Middle East and Africa from Eurospan

Keywords Countries, Guides and handbooks, Naval vessels

Review DOI 10.1108/RR-02-2014-0034

Reference works about contemporary warships do not often figure on these pages, because there are only two important ones in English. The first was Jane's Fighting Ships, founded by the eponymous F. T. Jane in 1897. Eighty years later, by which time its size and price had risen to the degree that not many libraries could afford to buy it (the current issue costs £705 and presumably is sold chiefly to defence establishments), a competitor appeared in the form of Combat Fleets of the World, which was originally a translation of the long-established French series Les flottes de combat. A comparison of the present volume with the current edition of Jane's suggests that the information provided in each is for the most part roughly comparable in quantity and quality. The main texts are about the same in extent, and the page...