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Title: Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I by Jane's Information Group, Outlet Book Co ISBN: 0517033755 Publisher: Outlet Pub. Date: September, 1990 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.99

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Average Customer Rating: 4

Rating: 5
Summary: A good Book
Comment: I found Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I to be a great reference book that goes along with Jane's Fighting Ships of WWII. The book includes all navies that were in WWI (too many to list). All pictures are black & white. The only color picture is the dust jacket. For each Navy, the book lists or shows the ranks that are availible, the flags used, location of naval bases, etc. Usually, there is only one picture (if one is available)of each ship. If you are a WWII buff, you will need this book to go along with the Jane's Fighting Ships of World War Two.

Rating: 3
Summary: Good for what it is, but perhaps not what you really want
Comment: These books are valuable in giving you a slice of Jane's work, but as a source for information on the ships themselves, there are better alternatives. Foremost among the faults I'd cite in these Janes compilations are that they are contemporary accounts from a single national source-- meaning that the particulars for the speeds, armor, and capabilities of a good many ships are foggy or incorrect owing to the lack of proper information from potential enemies who did not care to advertise the precise specifications of their ships. Another issue is that the content comes not from a single edition of Janes annual catalog, but from a smattering of editions that spanned the era. The edition from which each ship's section is culled is not spelled out, so you are denied the ability to understand perhaps how reliable you may wish to regard each profile. However, owning Janes material has its own value, in that this is the Farmers' Almanac of the subject, and sometimes the weather forecast in an old Almanac is not as valuable as possession of the edition.

For a better source for this information, I would recommend Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. You will probably have to use a bookfinding service for this, but you will not be dissatisfied if you can procure a copy. It features much more information on each ship, and in many cases provides valuable context that cannot readily be seen through endless tables of horsepower, armor, and the like. For instance, in many cases the specifications may not be false per se, but carry with them a host of caveats that defy a tabular form, and Conway's gives these to you. to paraphrase, e.g.: "This class was intended to be much the same as the preceding class, aiming solely to reduce per unit cost and fatten the fleet." or "The new Mark XI guns these ships carried had a longer range than the preceding Mark X weapons, but their higher velocity came at a cost of greatly reduced accuracy at common ranges and was seen in retrospect as a failed design." That type of contextual overview is what any source like this needs to be a truly reliable document. While it cannot thereby tell you EVERYTHING, it creates in each reader a sense that numbers lie, and that sometimes looking to sources for comparative analysis is an essential companion to having a table of figures that purports to capture the ship.

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Title: Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II by Francis E. McMurtrie, Francis E. McCurtie, Jane's Information Group ISBN: 0517679639 Publisher: Crescent Books Pub. Date: July, 1994 List Price(USD): $29.99