December's Book Vote and Last Month's Results

This month we are asking you which titles you would like to see in our New Vanguard series. Have a read of the descriptions below and let us know which of these you’d like to see us publish!  

European Ironclads 1860-75

When the French ironclad warship La Gloire was launched in 1859, she sparked a naval revolution. A year later, the Royal Navy launched Warrior, the first iron-hulled warship. These armoured, steam-powered warships made the wooden warship obsolete overnight, and in the decade that followed Europe’s most powerful navies desperately fought to keep their advantage, while others saw an opportunity to overturn the existing order. This would be a two-part NVG, with one volume covering the early ironclads of the Royal Navy and the other their continental European contemporaries.

The Imperial German Navy 1871–1906

The 35 years after unification saw Germany grow from an insignificant sea power to a battleship-armed navy that could contemplate a challenge to the world’s most powerful, the Royal Navy. This book examines how that navy was developed, the role of Admiral Tirpitz and German strategy, and the warships that Germany built in the decades leading up to the launch of Dreadnought.

World War I British Light Cruisers

Overshadowed at the time by the more glamorous new concept of the battlecruiser, the Royal Navy still needed modern, capable, powerful, long-range warships that could assert British sea power around the world, and be built and operated in larger numbers than the ferociously expensive battlecruisers. This book examines these cruisers of the Town, Arethusa, C- and D-classes, and the war at sea that they fought – often far from the centre of attention in the North Sea.

Spy Ships of the Cold War

From the Soviet Union’s huge fleet of intelligence-gathering trawlers to the US Navy’s ‘technical research ships’ and the extraordinary Hughes Glomar Explorer, specially built to recover the sunken Soviet submarine K-129, a Cold War at sea was fought between these discreet but vitally important ships. This New Vanguard would cover the spy ships of all the major nations involved, their roles and capabilities, and telling the stories of when spy ships found themselves the focus of unwelcome attention – occasionally sabotaged, captured, or attacked.

Aegis Guided Missile Cruisers and Destroyers 1983-present

For more than 30 years, the US Navy’s Aegis Combat System has been arguably the world’s most capable surface ship weapons system. This New Vanguard examines the system’s capabilities and how it has been developed, and the ships that have been built around it, from the Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke destroyers to those of the increasing number of US allies around the world that use Aegis on their own destroyers.

Click here to vote!

And now for the results of the November vote on our newest series, Air Campaign. This was one of the closest book votes we’ve ever had, but the winner with 27.5% was Operation Focus 1967, Israel’s devastating first strike in the Six-Day War. Close behind in second place was Operation Bodenplatte, 1944–45: The Luftwaffe’s last throw of the dice, and Bloody April in 1917, was a close third.