Witold Koszela – författare

This book is a compilation in which we will find in one place the technical description of of all the British Rodney and Nelson battleships. The author describes their technical aspects, precisely describing the differences among others. All the ships are described and illustrated with full technical specifications.

The rocket missile ORP Gen. T. Kosciuszko is currently one of the more valuable Polish Navy ships.Belonging to the American type Oliver Hazard Perry, together with the twin ship ORP Gen. K. Pulaski, he went under the white-and-red flag under an agreement between the governments of the United States and the Republic of Poland. The ship was built as USS Wadsworth with a tactical number FFG 9 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in San Pedro, California.

The American battleship USS “California” has almost thirty years of extraordinary history. Built in 1921, it was one of the most powerful battleships of the US Navy in the interwar period. It was characterised by an interesting and harmonious silhouette, which changed significantly several times. During the war, despite its age, the ship was still modern and heavily armed. The USS “California”, known among naval enthusiasts and often chosen by modellers, became the subject of another study by Witold Koszela, who in a series of precise drawings recreated the silhouette of this battleship from the Second World War. On 24 A4 pages and 2 folded sheets we can find a historical description, technical data and professional drawings showing the ship in the years 1944–1945, as well as drawings of superstructures, armaments and details, together with sectional views and color charts.

The French aircraft carrier "Clemenceau" is one of the largest and most powerful ships that served the Marine Nationale. Her keel was laid in November 1955 at the Brest Arsenal Ch. Atlantique in St. Nazaire, and she was launched two years later - on December 21st, 1957. Together with the twin "Foch", it was built on the basis of a project developed from the beginning of the 1950s, which included almost all of then novelties that were introduced in the construction of this type of ships. Therefore, she received, among others: a sloped flight deck with two lifts, mirror systems facilitating the approach to landing, means of observation enabling early detection of surface units and means of air attack, and modern catapults adapted to work with jet aircrafts with a large take-off mass. The length of the flight deck was 257 meters, the main runway was 165.5 meters long and 29.5 meters wide, with a deviation from the centre of the ship by 8 degrees. The hangar below it was 180 meters long and 22 meters wide. In more than forty years of service, which began on November 22, 1961, the "Clemenceau" performed countless tasks in both European and Pacific waters. She supported the activities of the land forces, incl. in former French colonies and during nuclear tests. Together with "Foch", she formed one of the strongest task force in the Mediterranean region and the waters of Western Europe.

The British Airship Carrier HMS Furious is one of the most unusual units of the Second World War.  The ship was designed during the previous conflict as a „great light cruiser” with 457mm guns, but far-reaching changes were made during construction. Furious entered service in June 1917 as aircraft cruiser with a large aircraft deck in the bow and a single turret with a gun of the mentioned caliber in the stern. Thus, Furious made history as one of the precursors of British on-board aviation, becoming a floating platform for various types of trials and tests with airplanes. It quickly turned out that aircraft deck took up the entire bow part and is insufficient to meet the needs of the day-to-day expanding on-board aviation. Therefore, after carrying out only a few patrols on the waters of the North Sea, the ship was returned to the shipyard in the same year, where it underwent further reconstruction. This time, the aft tower and mast were removed and in their place was built another hangar with an aircraft deck, which was connected to the bow with special platforms running on the sides of the preserved superstructures. Since then, Furious was already a powerful aircraft, unfortunately not very successful considering the superstructure with a chimney that occupies the entire amidships, which apart from obviously taking up space, caused air turbulences induced by the huge dimensions and warm exhaust gases coming from the chimney. However, this did not prevent Furious from becoming the hero of the historical event, which was on-board aviation first strike on land targets, which took place on July 19, 1918. The target of the attack was the German Zeppelin base in Tondern, and it was carried out using Sopwith Camel planes taking off from the deck of Furious.

The British battleship HMS “Vanguard” was built in the years 1941–1946 at the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank. It was quite an unusual ship due to the fact that it was built as the largest and also the last of the British battleships, and armed with artillery towers stored since 1925, taken from the cruisers HMS “Courageous” and HMS “Glorious”. It is widely regarded as Britain's best designed battleship, well-armed but also least needed. Design work began before World War II and was completed a year after its end, making it one of the longest-built ships in history. Her service, however, was quite short and lacking of interesting events. The unit was launched in 1944, and it entered service only two years later, so it did not have the opportunity to take part in World War II. The first major event in the history of the ship was the three-month journey to the British dominion of the Union of South Africa with George VI, Queen Mary and both daughters, Princess Elizabeth and Anne, on board between February and May 1947.