Featured battle : Ashdown

Part of Viking Invasion

Date : 08 January 0871

The Danes formed into two divisions and the Saxons formed two columns to match them. The Danes were formed up on higher ground than the Saxons and Alfred, fearful of the impetus they would gain by charging downhill, took the initiative and attacked first. His brother Aethelred, was hearing Mass and was late in bringing his column into action. Two Viking kings and five earls were killed along with a large number of their men. The Danes retreated in disarray into their earthworks at Reading. This battle was only a temporary set back to the Vikings during this phase of the campaign.

The Last British Battleship HMS Vanguard 1946-1960

R A Burt
The last books I reviewed, published by Seaforth, were two volumes on Coastal Forces [see elsewhere on this site] which dealt with the smallest WW2 Naval craft so it is quite a jump to the largest battleship we ever built. Vanguard’s displacement was about 500 MTBs a truly magnificent ship which I know from personal experience having been on board at a Navy Day in Portsmouth in the late 1950s. So my question was is this book as good as the Coastal Forces books and will it do the ship justice?
My hopes were fully realised by the text, the photographs and the technical drawings. The text is very technical in parts which truly reflects the subject but in the main can be easily followed. Although there are a few difficult bits where unexplained initials are use. The photographs are many and varied showing every stage of the ship from builders yard to breakers yard. One very poignant picture, the last in the book, is of the bow section just lying forlorn in the mud.
The technical drawings, nearly all by the author, are superb. The drawings are of the whole ship including two three page and one four page spreads. There are also many detailed drawings of weapons systems, radar etc. All drawings are fully annotated as appropriate to their scale.
All this is presented in a beautifully produced large portrait format, about 260mm X 300mm.
We very highly recommend this well researched work.
Footnote: There is an error in the title as the Royal Navy still has a battleship in commission
i.e. H M S Victory, flying the flag of the Second Sea Lord/C-in-C Naval Home Command.
Seaforth Publishing, 2019