Royal Navy Grand Fleet 1914-18

by Angus Konstam

ISBN: 9781472866837

Published: 2025-02-25

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, and stationed in Scapa Flow, Orkney. The Grand 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...