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by Angus Konstam.
Softcover (7.25×9.75 inches). 48 pages. 2025.
Subtitle: Britain’s Battleship-Calibre Gunboats
Every once in a while, you read about British monitors firing shells in support of D-Day and subsequent operations.
Monitors were not battleships, but carried battleship-worthy main guns and were specifically designed for shore bombardment.
Some started construction in WWI and were modernized for WWII. Britain didn’t field many, so the collective impact was not a war-winning design, but they did their part and successfully intervened in land combats.
The booklet includes the design, development, specs, and some combat operations. Forward Observer Bombardment teams went ashore and called in the shells. Typically, a monitor could deliver 20 rounds in seven minutes, with each round creating a 30-yard-wide crater and a blast effect of up to 1,400 yards (p34).
A small section include monitors designed to go in rivers — one survivor, HMS M-33, which originally saw service in Gallipoli and was a floating office in WWII, is in the naval museum in Portsmouth (UK).
The booklet contains 30 black and white photos, eight color illustrations, three color one-page action illustrations, one color two-page cutaway illustration of the HMS Abercrombie, and four color ship profiles.
Enjoyed it.
— Reviewed by Russ Lockwood
