The Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific War (General Military)

While not a stirring history of naval actions in WWII Pacific, this book lays out the fundamentals of the IJN in a solid and readable fashion.Wonder why the IJN had such success Dec 1941 to November 1942? The answer is in their naval designs and implemented strategy. Likewise their demise can be traced back to those pre-war ship designs.For those with significant prior knowledge of the naval conflicts in the Pacific War, this book fills in a lot of details and background. Not a “light read” but worthy of consideration if you want detailed information.

To start off with, I'll try to clear up what apparently has been some confusion regarding what this book is about. The title could be taken to mean one of two things: this book is either an operational history of the IJN during World War II, or a reference work about the specific ships of the IJN during that time period. So here you go: about 10-15 percent of it is the former, and the remaining 85-90 percent the latter.I imagine that many people who are considering this book are wondering how it relates to the books of the New Vanguard series, which separately cover each ship-type. I own the New Vanguard books on IJN aircraft carriers and battleships, so assuming that how those books relate to this one is representative of the rest of the series, I can say that the main part of 'IJN in the Pacific War' is essentially a very slightly condensed version of the separate books.What is mainly new is introductory chapters on overall IJN doctrine as it related to how they envisioned their ships would be used in combat (though, some of this material is also covered in the New Vanguard books), followed by a fairly brief yet remarkably comprehensive look at how things worked out in actual practice, during the major battles of World War II. As well, this book concludes with a summary of the IJN's overall performance during the war, as well as how each ship-type did.The bulk of the book is devoted to the ships themselves. This is the part that will look very, very familiar to anyone who has read any of the New Vanguard books. Each major ship-type (carriers, battleships, heavy cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, and subs) is given its own chapter. Within each chapter, the ships are broken down by class. For each class, details are given about their design, construction, and technical specs; then, for each each individual ship within the class, a brief overview of their operational history and fate is presented. The book is lavishly illustrated with black-and-white photographs and color drawings, including profile views of most (if not all) classes of all ships. For anyone interested in the ships of the IJN (which, if you are reading this review, probably includes you), this book is a fantastic one-stop resource, and one in which you can easily lose yourself for hours at a time, just soaking up the details.As compared with the individual New Vanguard titles, the material is very slightly abridged; basically a sentence here and a sentence there might have been removed. Most, though not all, of the photos and illustrations from the separate books have been carried over. While the quality of the photos in this book is almost uniformly very good, I found the photo quality in the New Vanguard books to be just ever so slightly better. One more thing that struck me: in the separate books, ships are referred to as "she"; but in 'IJN in the Pacific War' they are referred to as "it." This was apparently deliberate, in that even sentences that had been lifted word-for-word from the New Vanguard books (which is to say, most sentences) still changed the pronoun from feminine to impersonal.For readers who have a general interest in the ships of the IJN fleet as a whole, I enthusiastically recommend this book. The cost of this one book, as compared with the sum of the separate New Vanguard books to cover the same material, is vastly less; and nearly all of the material from the separate books is here (along with the newly included overall summaries). But if you are specifically interested in a particular type of ship, and don't really care about the other types, then I would recommend just getting the particular New Vanguard title that covers the ship-type in which you are interested.One more thing, which is a very specific (and, admittedly, very petty) gripe. Most people who would be considering a book like this probably have a favorite ship or class of ships, and for me it's the Kongo-class battleship 'Haruna.' So when I first opened this book, I went straight to the Kongo class and checked out the pictures. This four-ship class is represented by 9 photos and 3 illustrations, which in theory should average out to three images per ship. Right? Nope. While the other three ships are shown several times each, there's not a single one -- zip, nada, zilch -- of the 'Haruna.' (The New Vanguard title includes two shots of her, so I know that the publisher had access to them. Why wasn't at least one of them included here, since the other ships of the class were each shown multiple times?) To be completely fair, she does appear in one photo, elsewhere in the book -- way way back in the misty background behind two other ships of a different class. But even so, it was kind of annoying to see my favorite IJN ship shortchanged like this.Nevertheless, notwithstanding my nit-picky disappointment, I still highly recommend this title to anyone who would like to have a single, comprehensive summary resource about the warships of the IJN during World War II.

This is a great overview of the Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN) in World War II. This is less an operational history than an examination of the IJN's various ship types, from destroyers all the way up to carriers and super battleships like the Musashi and Yamamoto.The book is well-illustrated photos and diagrams as well as info-boxes full of ship and weapon data. It is a hefty book, and the author offers a brief history of the Pacific War to get things going, followed up a conclusion and analysis and a very brief bibliography.I bought this book both because of my interest in the Pacific War, and because of an interest in warships in general and also to provide some background to Wargamers' World of Warships, where players fight battles using ships of the pre-war and WWII era.This book contains pretty much all the information you will need to understand the ships of the IJN and how they were used, including not only what they were expected to do, but what they actually did. It will serve as an excellent resource as I read further books on the Pacific War, and I will keep is handy for just that purpose.

This book is a compilation of Osprey's excellent references on various types of ships employed by the IJN in WWII. While it omits smaller vessels like minor escort vessels, it covers all major warship classes. The technical descriptions include excellent diagrams and artwork, as well as a brief account of the ships' war records and performance during the conflict. An excellent reference for history buffs or scale modelers.

STIlle brings together a breadth of operational, strategic, and technical information that makes this an excellent resource on the Japanese navy in World War Ii The book could have been stronger with more context on Japanese Navy administration and supply chain. For ship enthusiasts who have read some of Stille' s other books on Japanese warships, there is little new material here. Nevertheless, this book makes a handy, single volume reference source.

An expansion of Mark Stille's "Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft Carriers", this title extends the coverage of the World War II era Japanese fleet to cover battleships, cruisers and destroyers as well. After its release had been delayed a few times, its finally out now and well worth the wait.It is superbly done, with none of the obvious grammar or spelling mistakes that many Kindle editions of books often suffer, and has a good level of technical coverage of the vessels and their histories. It includes numerous photos of the ships, and it seems there is at least one photo for each class of ship discussed. While the depth of coverage isn't on the level of Conway's or Jane's ship reviews, its not meant to be. Conway's and Jane's editions are multiple volume references, thousands of pages long, cover ships right down to the patrol boat level, and cost hundreds of dollars. For less than $10 for the Kindle edition, you get considerable information and photos for the value, especially if you have a tablet or larger screened device (to better appreciate the great and often rare photos).

As I said in my review of the volume covering the US Navy for the same period, these books do not purport to be the be all and end all, or "definitive" volumes on the respective forces during WW2. They do provide a nice rundown of the various classes and types of vessels used by the respective combatants, and as such, they are of use. I have other books detailing the IJN during the WW2 years (and prior) including the six-volume Kure Maritime Museum set of photographic studies, but this volume is a handy and valuable little reference on its own. If you want more detail, then there are plenty of books from which to choose on most subjects; but; if you are looking for a good starting point, or just a nice overall reference on the various ships the IJN put to sea suring WW2, then this book will fill the bill nicely.

Muito bom

Sehr aufschlussreich und gut Bebildert

Un libro di particolare bellezza, ricco d'informazioni e interessanti analisi sulla Marina Imperiale Giapponese durante la guerra nel Pacifico. Tonnellate di foto d'archivio e tanto materiale storico e tecnico. Copertina rigida e rilegatura solida, il tomo ha un aspetto estremamente raffinato. Consigliatissimo.

Cet ouvrage est une version étendue de sept ouvrages Osprey sur la marine japonaise : aircraft carriers, submarines, battleships, heavy cruisers, lights cruisers et destroyers 1 et 2. Soit 48 pages x 7 = 336 pages. Notre livre fait lui 392 pages. Quand on connait le prix d'un petit fascicule Osprey, on comprend tout de suite que l'on fait une bonne affaire et on n'est pas déçu.