Fleet’s second full year of publication includes six new titles, primarily looking at World War II sea power, but also concluding Angus Konstam’s two-part examination of the major battle fleets of World War I, and including Corbin Williamson’s look at US naval power in Korea. I’m particularly pleased to see Larry Paterson’s two new Kriegsmarine books on the list, and his North Sea Command will bring deserved attention to a relatively little-studied area of the naval war.

 

FLT 10: Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914–18: Britain’s last supreme naval fleet

By Angus Konstam

Illustrated by Edouard A. Groult

27/02/2025

World War I was Britain’s last moment as the world’s naval superpower, and its Grand Fleet was then the most powerful ever seen. Fully illustrated, this explores its fighting power.

At the start of World War I, the Royal Navy’s forces were amalgamated into a single entity, the Grand Fleet. Stationed in Scapa Flow, the fleet was the largest amalgamation of modern naval power the world had seen, with over 30 dreadnought battleships or battlecruisers, and a plethora of cruisers and destroyers. In 1917 it was reinforced further by a powerful American squadron.

In this book, based on extensive primary source research, naval expert Angus Konstam assesses the Grand Fleet’s ships, technology, organization, command and intelligence, and how it fought. While ship-for-ship its German counterparts were better designed, as a combined fleet Admiral Jellicoe’s armada was unstoppable. It took part in several clashes with its German foe during the war, but it was only at the Battle of Jutland, in 1916, that Jellicoe finally had a chance to destroy the enemy. However, it was not fleet battles but the Grand Fleet's economic blockade that ultimately led to Germany’s surrender in November 1918.

 

Packed with battle diagrams, spectacular artwork, and archive photos, this book is an essential guide to the last time the Royal Navy would be indisputably the world’s most powerful.

 

FLT 11 Kriegsmarine Atlantic Command 1939–42: Naval Group West's surface menace

By Lawrence Paterson

Illustrated by Jim Laurier

22/05/2025

Germany’s legendary Atlantic surface war was fought by Naval Group West. Superbly illustrated, this unpacks the details of how it operated and fought.

Having spent the 1930s on an ambitious but confused bid to build a new battle fleet, Germany began World War II woefully unprepared. Under Marinegruppenkommando West, its heavy ships and raiders were tasked with challenging Allied dominance of the Atlantic.

In this book, Kriegsmarine specialist Lawrence Paterson explores how Naval Group West took on the challenge. He reassesses the qualities of the fleet, and how the confusion over their original role meant that ships like the Bismarck were less than ideal for raiding. Operating as far afield as the Indian Ocean also relied on an elaborate tanker and supply network, as well as Germany’s superb signals intelligence. He also explains the complex Kriegsmarine command structure during the 1930s and early war, how responsibility for the ships veered between Naval Group West, the Naval Staff, and type commanders, and how the conquest of France transformed the command. He also explains how the Luftwaffe failed the surface fleet, both in scouting at sea and defending them in port.

With superb artwork, 3D diagrams, maps and archive photos (some unpublished), this book explores and assesses Germany’s commerce war, from the Graf Spee’s cruise to the ill-fated exploits of Bismarck, and the final high-risk retreat from Brest, the Channel Dash.

 

FLT 12 French Navy 1939–42: The Marine Nationale in World War II

By Hugues Canuel

Illustrated by Adam Tooby

28/08/2025

An authoritative, illustrated analysis of the official French Navy in World War II, under the command of the Third Republic and of Vichy.

At the outbreak of World War II, France's Marine Nationale was the most powerful navy in continental Europe, unified in its purpose of defending the nation and the colonial empire. However, the fall of France in June 1940 fractured that unity, forcing France’s officers and sailors to rally to either Pétain’s collaborationist regime in Vichy or to de Gaulle and his Free French.

In this book, Captain Hugues Canuel presents a sharp, focused operational study of the official French Navy in World War II, from its actions alongside its British allies at the start of the war to the fiery end of its Vichy successor in Toulon harbour in 1942. Based on a wealth of French, British, and American archive material, it explores the warships and their capabilities, the roles the fleet was designed and structured to perform, and the combat they saw, including operations off Norway; tackling German raiders in the Atlantic; the controversial attack on the fleet at Mers-el-Kébir; operations in Indochina; Operation Torch; and the final scuttling of the fleet at Toulon. Much of this fascinating period remains largely ignored in English, even though the history of those engagements provides valuable insights into the unique nature of French naval doctrine and armaments, developed during the interwar period by a continental power burdened with worldwide interests.

Illustrated throughout with rare photos, spectacular battlescenes, 3D diagrams of engagements and fleet formations, and a strategic map of France’s naval responsibilities, this book is an essential guide to one of the least-known major navies of World War II.

 

FLT 13 US Seventh Fleet, Korea 1950–53: The first Cold War naval campaign

By Corbin Williamson

23/10/2025

In the Korean War, South Korea relied on Allied naval power to fight and survive. Packed with illustrations, this explains how the US Seventh Fleet brought its war-winning naval power to bear in a complex campaign.

Fought just five years after the US Navy’s carrier-led forces swept into Tokyo Bay, the naval campaign in Korea was a very different war, and one that set the template for naval warfare for the rest of the century.

In this book, Dr Corbin Williamson, a specialist on the US Navy of the period, explains how a fleet built to fight an uncompromising total war rapidly adapted to a successful Cold War multinational intervention. Operating as the major part of the United Nations force, Seventh Fleet’s role included blockading enemy ports, escorting convoys, close air support, aerial interdiction, naval gunfire support, and amphibious invasions and evacuations. Seventh Fleet’s operations in the Korean War are notable for their international nature, which many participants viewed as a pattern for future international naval cooperation. With few exceptions, Seventh Fleet’s command of the sea around the Korean peninsula was unchallenged, allowing the fleet to focus its efforts on supporting the ground war.

The Korean War was also part of a period of intense technological change, and it saw the combat debut of naval jet aircraft and helicopters. This book examines the ships and technology, command and organization, logistics, intelligence, and combat performance of the fleet, while analysing the extent to which its actions contributed to the end of the war. It is a rounded portrait of how Seventh Fleet proved the flexibility and importance of sea power in an unexpected theatre.

 

FLT 14 Kriegsmarine North Sea Command 1939–42: Germany's coastal naval campaign

By Lawrence Paterson

20/11/2025

An expert, illustrated history of how Germany fought to dominate the North Sea in early World War II, and take the naval war to Britain's coasts.

Britain’s war economy relied not only on the Atlantic Convoys, but also on superiority in coastal waters. Six days out of seven, convoys left Scotland and northern England, laden chiefly with the coal that the south required – London alone needing 40,000 tons a week. Cutting these lines, as well as challenging military and naval movements, was the responsibility of Germany’s North Sea Command.

Here, Kriegsmarine expert Larry Paterson offers the first study of Germany’s fierce war in the North Sea to be written from a strategic and operational perspective. Although famous for its dashing S-boats, the North Sea campaign saw an array of warships from battleships (briefly) and cruisers to converted fishing boats. Destroyers, torpedo boats and minelayers laid extensive mine barrages close inshore, suffering casualties at the hands of the Royal Navy and, in one disastrous mistake, the Luftwaffe. It also explores the command’s defences, with its many Kriegsmarine shore troops, artillery emplacements, flak batteries and small units of marines.

German coastal forces engaged British forces at Dunkirk and, with the fall of France, spread along the entire coastline to wage a relentless naval war. With diagrams, archive photos and original artwork, this is the story of the Kriegsmarine’s struggle to cut Britain’s military and trade arteries.

 

FLT 15 D-Day Fleet 1944, British Sector: The Royal Navy's Eastern Task Force

By Michael Whitby

Illustrated by Paul Wright

18/12/2025

The D-Day amphibious landings were the biggest in history, and relied on a huge naval operation. Fully illustrated, this explains the detail of the Royal Navy’s sector on D-Day and after.

Although D-Day is possibly the most written-about event in military history, little has been published on the nuts-and-bolts of the sea power that Overlord relied upon. In this book, eminent naval historian Michael Whitby examines the fleet that secured the British Assault Area from the eve of D-Day until the end of the assault phase of operations on 30 June. While led and dominated by the Royal Navy, it was multinational, including forces from Canada, Norway, and the Free French.

The invasion had many moving parts and proved there is more to a successful assault than simply putting soldiers ashore on a beach. This book explains the minesweeping that allowed the landings to take place, and the various naval operations that brought British and Canadian troops to the beaches. It also explores how the fleet defended the British Assault Area from counterattacks by enemy destroyers, coastal forces, mining, and special attack units, and how it sustained the build-up that fed resources to the growing Allied forces ashore.

Illustrated with archive photos, original artwork and 3D diagrams and maps, and drawing upon primary documentation that has previously gone largely unused, this book offers a fresh exploration of the sea power behind D-Day.