After WWII, most of the Allied nations did a massive drawdown of their forces. What this meant for their navies was a mass scrapping and selling of assets they could no longer use and for some, like Britain, could no longer afford, a situation that, for this once powerful military might, continues.

When it did come time to build new ships, one of the considerations was for an anti-aircraft vessel using what was then a state-of-the-art missile system. In the case of the UK, it was the Sea Slug. This system was fairly effective for the time, but took up a considerable amount of space below decks. Envisioning a need for fleet protection, the County Class of missile destroyer was developed, first entering service in the early 1960s. This was followed by the type 82, which differed in size and in carrying a newer missile system, the Sea Dart. However, defense reductions meant that only a single ship of this class was built.

The next class was the Type 42, this eventually being built in three major versions consisting of a total of 14 ships, all entering service between the mid 1970s and the mid-1980s. These also had Sea Darts as the primary system, but as with everything, this system and others on the ships were continually improved and upgraded. These are the ships that saw the greatest amount of action during the Falkland Islands campaign of 1982 and the ones that suffered the only combat losses of this type so far. As a ship's useful life is only about 25-30 years, the type 42s were replaced with the much more modern type 45 that uses a vertical launch system. Between 2009 and 2013, six of these ships entered service and are currently the only missle destroyers in the Royal Navy, the others having been withdrawn and either sold or scrapped.

The author provides a full account of the development of these ship classes as well as the reason for the development and the cancelling of some versions. In addition, we are provided with information on the various batch builds as well as all the systems used on each of the classes and sub-classes of ship. The photos are well chosen and the art work is superb. The book also has a large section that provides quite a few specification tables that I think you'll find useful. There is also a nice section on the use of these ships in various combat situations, with a rather large portion on their use in the Falklands. It may also be interesting to note that one of these ships performed the first interception and destruction of an in-coming enemy missile by a ship of this type during the first Gulf War. Though the fleet has always been small, these ships have performed well and this most welcome edition is a must have for any ship enthusiast.

April 2016

Copyright ModelingMadness.com

For more on the complete line of Osprey books, visit http://www.ospreypublishing.com

If you would like your product reviewed fairly and fairly quickly, please contact the editor or see other details in the Note to Contributors.