Product Description

Britain, like other colonial powers, established, controlled and accessed her empire from the seas. It was realised that the preservation of secure trading conditions required armed ships able to operate in shallow coastal and river waters. The gunboat was developed to meet this need: a small, shallow-draft, steam-powered screw or paddle driven vessel, sufficiently fast and manoeuvrable to take the enemy, whether on shore or afloat, by surprise. In this book Bryan Perrett recounts thirteen episodes of exciting gunboat action, ranging from the Burma war in 1824, through two world wars and on to the dramatic escape of the Amethyst down the Yangtze in 1949.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1079222 in Books
• Published on: 2001-08-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
Bryan Perrett is a former British Army Officer and now a noted writer on military history. He has written 20 books, covering all periods, and all based on his own meticulous research.

Customer Reviews

Unfortunately flawed book covering interesting topic
Brian Perrett's book covers interesting topic material from a fresh viewpoint. Examining several historical military campaigns from a naval gunboat perspective sheds new light on them, and even a reader with no particular interest in the topic will find it interesting reading.

The first part of the book is exceptionally good, covering the gunboat diplomacy exercised by the British around the world. The time period covered extends right up to the 'Brown Water Navy' US riverine operations in Vietnam.

That said, the book has several flaws which unfortunately prevent it from being a 'great' book rather than merely 'good'.

Firstly, he has an irritating tendency to mention the US-UK 'special relationship' as often as he can, often when it has no direct bearing on the material being explored. This can get a little grating as it does get quite noticeable by the end.

Secondly, he seems to take a very simplistic view of certain key areas of his book. 'The Orient' and China are used, it seems at times, interchangeably. He also mentions the heavily cliched 'loss of face' again and again when referring to the Chinese. Sentences such as 'the communists never did go in for subtlety' have more place in a Tom Clancy novel than a serious historical text.

Thirdly, the ending is extremely poor when compared to the strong opening. Rather than have an 'epilogue' chapter (or something similar), he lumps the ending in with a very short (and, one feels, very rushed) final chapter on Vietnam riverine operations.

However, these minor points should not detract from what is overall a very interesting book. The book is reinforced by a 10 page (or so) photo section in the middle which adds interest and provides visual reference. The book is also liberally laced with maps, not particularly high quality (being of the computer-generated variety that seem to be creeping in nowadays), but enough to give you a 'feel' of the area in discussion.