Norman Friedman is well-known for his writings on naval technology, and particularly for his series of books on the design of various kinds of U.S. Navy ships, from aircraft carriers and battleships on down to P.T. boats. However, this series has always seemed to me to assume the reader knows a fair bit about the subject already.

It turns out that Battleship Design and Development is not only his first book, but it also can be regarded as a kind of preface for his ship type series. The title is a bit misleading, as he himself acknowledges; while the book does focus on capital ships, most of its contents are applicable to the design of any type of warship. It is very thorough, with sections on hull form, machinery, armament, armor, sensors, and so on.

It is particularly good at outlining the design tradeoffs a naval architect must face. These won't terribly surprise any engineer, but the details are interesting. Long ships have superior speed performance, because the waves generated at the two ends do not begin to reinforce each other (with the effect that the ship is essentially sailing up a hill of water) at as low a speed. On the other hand, long ships are unmaneuverable. The best hull form for speed is deep and full; unfortunately, this makes for poor stability, which favors a wider hull. Stability itself favors survivability, but a ship that is too stable make a poor gunnery platform and exhausts the crew from the abrupt recovery from each roll.

The tradeoffs must fit within the design displacement. Weight devoted to armor is weight not available for guns and magazines or machinery. The tradeoffs are easier for larger ships, hence the race to the top. On the other hand, besides exhausting the national budget, large ships require large and expensive facilities.

What surprised me most was the discussion of how arms control affected design. Fuel oil was not included in standard displacement, which was used in all limitations clauses. This favored cruisers optimized for speed, since the extra fuel required for adequate endurance didn't count against the limits.

Underwater defense was full of surprised for everyone. It was realized early on that the best defense against torpedoes was something to take up the energy of their detonation. Bunkers full of coal were favored because the coal crushed, absorbing some of the energy. This actually caused skepticism about replacing coal with fuel oil, until it was realized that a liquid space was an even better torpedo defense, by spreading the energy over a larger area. The Japanese, however, could never bring themselves to use liquid loading. Instead, some Japanese ships used crushable tubing, as did a few British designs, until it was realized this didn't work very well. My impression is that good torpedo protection is rather difficult to achieve.

As I said, something of a preface to everything Friedman wrote after, and would be worth recommending for that reason alone. But also a pretty interesting read for technology geeks. ( )