This new hardbound volume from UK military history publisher Pen & Sword is a companion to author Wragg's earlier World Air Power Guide (Wragg, 2010). Wragg is the author of over 30 books on naval and aviation history and has also contributed numerous articles to newspapers and magazines. As the title implies, this book is concerned with the naval component of armed forces worldwide. Its primary aim is to provide an overview of the composition and capabilities of the navies of as many countries as possible.
A total of 137 naval forces are covered in essay style sections arranged alphabetically A‐Z by country name. Each country section is headed by data on population, land area, gross domestic product (total and per capita), defence expenditure (all financial data in US dollars) and service personnel. No date is given for the data provided and the expenditure and service personnel figures appear to be for all armed forces rather than the naval element alone. Before describing the current naval strength of a country Wragg offers a summary of its naval history, usually focussing on the twentieth century. This provides helpful context, but is necessarily brief and not clearly delineated from the description of current naval forces that comprise the bulk of each country section. These descriptions continue the discursive format of the historical overview, often with long blocks of unbroken text and with little to separate the various types and classes of vessels described. This style of presentation, not helped by the extensive use of abbreviations which have to be clarified through recourse to the glossary if one is not familiar with naval terminology, does not make for easy understanding of the book's core data. The use of tables or charts would surely have been preferable here, either to present all the information or at least to provide a summary of the main types of ships. This is particularly the case with the entries for the major naval powers. The entry for the People's Republic of China, for example, perhaps that of most interest to many readers given the country's aspiration to build a major “blue water” navy, has two pages of long paragraphs running through the various types and classes of vessels and their main armaments. This provides a confusing raft of information and only by careful reading is it possible to determine that China can currently muster, amongst other craft, 13 destroyers, 65 frigates and more than 70 submarines. Although there is reference to future naval construction and planning, for China and most other countries there is little detail on projected naval developments. This is a book that provides, as Wragg makes plain in his introduction, a “snapshot” of the navies worldwide – it is not a volume for those seeking information on naval policies, developments and strategies.
Glancing through the country sections one cannot but be impressed by Wragg's efforts to comprehensively cover the world's naval forces. Country entries range in length from 16 pages for the massive fleet of the US to a few lines for some smaller countries. Antigua and Barbuda, for example, has only 45 naval personnel and two patrol craft named Dauntless and Swift, while landlocked Uganda (although it does have a large portion of Lake Victoria within its territory) has a defence force “Water Wing” of about 400 personnel with eight riverine craft. Scattered through the text and breaking up what would otherwise be a rather dense mass of print are a fair number of black and white photographs illustrating some of the major vessel types described. Other than this however, there is little supportive matter. As already mentioned, there is a glossary, but this amounts to only one and a half pages and, frustratingly, omits some of the abbreviations used in the country descriptions (e.g. EESM). A very short NATO Definitions for Soviet‐Era Shipboard Missile is provided, but there is no other general information such as comparative tables or charts. Wragg does offer a three and a half page introduction, but this reads more as a disputatious lament on the current state of the Royal Navy than as an overview of the book's content and purpose.
At £25 this book is not unreasonably priced and it may appeal to some libraries, mainly in the public sector, that do not hold much material relating to contemporary naval forces. However, basic data on the naval capabilities of major states can be obtained from a variety of standard reference sources so Wragg's book would add value only where there is substantial interest in matters naval. Very large libraries or those specialising in international and military affairs will want the latest edition of the Naval Institute's Guide to the Combat Fleets of the World (Wertheim, 2013), by far the most comprehensive and authoritative reference to national naval strength available but commanding a price tag of $295. Another source more widely held is the annual Military Balance (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2013). Small libraries should also be aware that there are a number of websites offering data on the world's naval forces: an example is Combat Fleets of the World (http://combatfleetoftheworld.blogspot.co.uk/2012_03_01_archive.html). However, the accuracy, currency and authority of these are questionable; Wragg's book has far more depth than those visited for comparative purposes during the course of compiling this review and must be considered superior in reliability. Overall then, World Sea Power Guide is not a mainstream reference for most libraries and, while having appeal to the naval enthusiast, could have been improved for a wider audience if the presentation had been better structured and the supporting detail more extensive.
