Warships: International Fleet Review

November 2016, £4.60

A cousin to the perhaps more glamorous and numerous aviation magazines, Warships: IFR is a fairly slick and lavishly illustrated journal of naval goings on. I might have been lucky to get my hands on this copy, because I don't recall seeing it much (I believe there was a relatively recent retrenchment in the variety of magazines sent out to UK publishers). Warships: IFR covers military naval matters (drawing on Navy press releases), minutiae, and defence and geopolitics; the interest of the general reader may at times be strained by technicalities. 

Charles De Gaulle on patrol... Asia-Pacific Pivot... UK developing shipborne laser... What do we want a Royal Yacht for when the Senior Service barely exists anymore... Danish Fleet removes chemicals from Libya... SEA Taskforce against Terror... Could hybrid warfare lead to all out conflict? "It was after all a situation in which people died in a Trade Union building in Odessa that finally provided the flash point for Russia's intervention in the Ukraine." ... UK Task Force deployed to Med (including the late HMS Ocean)... Gibraltar: British to the Core... Air Warfare Destroyers... Royal Norwegian Navy support ships... drones in a 'tactically relevant environment'... Exercise Kakadu 2016... Trident (is it the equivalent of keeping the Orangery paned, heated and stocked while the house and gardens fall to ruin?)... "Prime Minister David Cameron (2010-2016) presided over catastrophic damage to UK defence capabilities"... Little Shops flotilla... Letters to the Editor. "Russian surface warships are often detected within just a few miles of our ports and naval bases" (disconcerting if true)... Book Reviews: 'The Seasick Admiral: Nelson and the Health of the Navy' (yes, Nelson was seasick, not only that but "sickly, maybe even hypochondriac"). 

While Navy ins and outs and large pictures of big ships might not be everyone's cup of tea, I found Warships: IFR has a decent amount of depth and variety making it an interesting and worthwhile change of pace, with content extending beyond a trade journal remit to decently argued opinion pieces, letters to the editor, and book reviews.

© Bryn Roberts 2023

Published 2 July 2023