Cruisers of the 1st Rank: Avrora, Diana, Pallada (Maritime)

I do not wish to just repeat most of Mr Taylor's excellent review, so I have approached mine in a rather different way.This was a class of rather unimpressive Russian cruisers the history of which was really not very glorious. However, they were present at a series of major 20th century naval and political events and of course Aurora played a symbolic role in the 1917 revolution: she survives to this day - or at least some bits of the original ship still survive!The publishers are noted for books on military aircraft and their work is always of good quality. This book seems to have originated in Russian and has been translated by Poles into English, so some curiosities are to be expected (referring to turrets as 'towers', for example) .As Mr Taylor has noted, linguistic construction can be somewhat tortuous, but on the whole a good job has been done.In the 1890's the Russians were scrambling to quickly build a modern navy and looked abroad for both inspration and building capacity. Of course the problem with copying existing designs is that they are usually already outdated: I was interested to learn that the Russians were influenced by William White's British cruisers of the early 1890's, but their direct experience was with French designs and notably the French built Svetlana, a sort of cruiser come yacht. As the author points out, the Diana class ended up being under- armed, rather poorly protected and, at 19 knots, much too slow. Despite high freeboard the class did not prove very good seaboats and they used prodigious amounts of coal when their engines had not actually broken down! All considered these three were considered by the Russians themselves to compare very poorly with foreign built cruisers such as Varyag and Askold which were also built much more rapidly and thus did not 'date' so quickly.Technical description occupies the first 91 pages of the book and this is dominated by hundreds of drawing of all sorts. These range from excellent annotated 'cutaways' to rather obscure construction details- also curiosities like the original funnel design (intended to be retractable, apparently). It is not always very clear exactly what is being illustrated but there are many excellent details, including the designs of the many ships boats.The career history of the class begins at page 94 and is quite detailed. Most particularly there are hundreds of excellent period photographs. The text is in the form of one continuous narrative rather than a history of each ship individually. It includes details of breakdowns, admirals inspections and so on, as well as war time operations. The escape of the Diana after the Battle of the Yellow Sea is particularly interesting. Since Pallada was lost to the Russians at Port Arthur and Aurora fought at - and escaped from - Tsushima, the class was involved in most of the key naval events of the Russo Japanese War.During WW1 Aurora and Diana did engage in one major battle with German destroyers (in 1916), but of course most interest focuses on the events of 1917. It becomes clear that Aurora's story that year was really a rather grim tale of murder ind insurection. I was interested to learn that the famous shot fired from one of her 152mm guns that October (a blank) was really not very significant, but the act was subsequently regarded as symbolic and was manipulated for propaganda purposes.In WW2 Aurora played a prominent role in the defence of Leningrad and this finally secured her position as a national monument. Thereafter, the most interesting event was her reconstruction in 1985. An entirely new lower hull was built and it would seem that ultimately precious little of the original ship remained. Just as Lenin lies curiously preserved in his mausoleum so Aurora is also a somewhat bizarre survival- more a late 20th century reconstruction than a preservation.All considered this is a really fascinating book. The tale is well told, but for me the great features of it lie in the hundreds of superb photographs and all those technical drawings, These ships were not remarkable examples of naval architecture and their operational record was largely one of desperate attempts to evade destruction but they, and especially Aurora, became embroiled in the history of world affairs as few ships ever have been. At less than £20 to buy this book is a bargain and I heartily recommend it to all naval enthusiasts.(NOTE- there are some excellent double sided fold out plans. As Mr Taylor has observed, unfortunately these are loosely tucked into the book and so are sure to be lost or purloined, especially on the second hand market. I received four of these, which is probably the full set, so please check that these are included when you buy).

This is a really splendid book, albeit a specialist one. The contents and flavour of it are shown very well on the subsidiary photos on the Amazon listing (at top left hand corner, by the cover photo) so they do not need much explanation. Perhaps the most detailed technical account I have ever seen of a class of warships, plus excellent career histories.The good pointsThe author, given as Alexsiey Skvorcov , was associated with at least one of the restoration projects of the Aurora and clearly knows his subject well.The photos are numerous, apposite and on the whole of good quality and informatively captioned. Most are accurately dated. They cover every aspect of the three cruisers from keeling laying , assorted changes of layout, and war views to current photos of Aurora's interior and fittings. Pictures of armaments, machinery and armour. Crew spaces, battle damage , bridge details . EtcThe plans, diagrams and schematics are however the glory of this book . From several sources, including the Russian State Archives on the construction and some refits, the Severnoye Design Bureau for the 1985 resurrection of the Aurora ,and some clearly drawn specifically for this book. They are numerous, wide ranging in subject , very well reproduced and well captioned . Many cross and longitudinal sections, many with a detailed key to the compartments.An excellent sources and bibliography, although only of Russian sources -however a translation of the Cyrillic title into English is givenNothing however is perfect , although this book comes, in my opinion closer than most !The bad pointsThere is no indexThere are four excellent sheets of plans included with the book, but no pocket for them , nor any listing in the Table of Contents. This makes checking that you have the correct number impossible , especially when copies of this book come onto the second-hand market.On some of the plan captions it is sometimes difficult to tell what was actually built and what was projected only.The English translation is good, but somewhat stiff, and by someone whose native tongue is not English . Sometimes interpretation of the text is a little difficult and it can be an uneasy read. Too much is literal translation in the form as it would be written in Russian . For example the A.A.Zhdanov Shipyard is always given as " the Shipyard named after A.A. Zhdanov ".Although the proof-reading has been good, there are mistakes on the keys to some of the plans .There were many armament changes to these ships, especially Aurora, so I would have appreciated a full table by date for each ship. It's all in the text, but can be hard to find. Some schematics of this have been done for the book, but are not comprehensive.General.Despite being published by a firm called Mushroom Model Publications this is not specifically for modelmakers . It's mainly for naval historians, and would need a little effort to work up a set of plans suitable to make a large scale model, although the material is all there and the results worthwhileConclusionIf you've interested to read this far, you need to buy this book before it goes out of print,Thoroughly recommendedThe publishers advise that there may be more books from them of a similar nature . Let's hope so !

Terrific book full of details and drawings, including some large pull out schematics of the ships. Brilliant buy for someone interested in these 3 ships and highly recommended.

Excellent detail for making models

Great photos and plans, a must for IRN enthusiasts