Warship 2020

For many years this month has marked the arrival of the WARSHIP annual ... and my copy of the 2020 edition was delivered just a few days ago.

From 1977 to 1989, WARSHIP was published in a softback, quarterly format*, but after twelve years it moved over to become a hardback annual publication ... and I have all forty-two volumes.

This year the annual contains the following:

• Editorial
• From Battleship to Carrier: Béarn by John Jordan
• The Eight-Eight Fleet and the Tosa Trials by Hans Lengerer
• Italia and Lepanto: Giants of the Iron Century by Sergei Vinogradov
• The Reconstruction of HMS Victorious by David Hobbs
• The Beginnings of Soviet Naval Power by Przemyslaw Budzbon and Jan Radziemski
• The Development of the Small Cruiser in the Imperial German Navy (Part I) by Dirk Nottelmann
• Design Trends in Modern Surface Combatants by Conrad Waters
• The Fleet Battleship Charles Martel by Philippe Caresse
• The Quest for an Italian Aircraft carrier 1922-1939 by Michele Cosentino
• On Barren, Hideous Rocks: The Grounding of HMS Dauntless, July 1928 by Michael Whitby
• T 47 Surcouf by John Jordan
• Warship Notes
• The 6in Turrets of Nelson and Rodney by John Jordan
• The Mobile Naval Base by David Murfin
• An Unpublished Account of the loss of HMS Victoria by Kenneth Fraser
• Resurrecting LCT 7074 by Stephen Fisher and Nick Hewitt
• A's and A's
• Reviews
• Warship Gallery
• Cold War Fleet: Ships of the Royal Navy, 1966-1991 by Stephen Dent, with Clive and Sue Taylor

As usual, there are lots of different articles for me to get my teeth into ... including David Murfin's one about the Royal Navy's Mobile Naval Base. This post-World War I proposal included the conversion of HMS Agincourt into a Mobile Naval Base Depot Ship. Five of her seven turrets would have been removed during the conversion, and the space that was released would have been used to provide storage, additional accommodation, and numerous workshops. The project never came to fruition, and she was scrapped.

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* The original softback editions were later sold as hardback annuals, with each volume containing four of the quarterly softbacks.

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WARSHIP 2020 was edited by John Jordan and published in 2020 by Osprey Publishing (ISBN 978 1 4728 4071 4).