Several titles from Naval & Military Press

by Dean Roxby

I first learned of the Naval & Military Press while searching online for books about the Nordenfelt hand cranked machine gun. I’m glad I stumbled across this company and their collection of military titles.

The Naval & Military Press Ltd (N&MP), based in England, was started in 1991. The company has established itself as a great source of books for the military enthusiast. Their website describes themselves as “Britain’s leading independent military bookseller”.

Upon learning of them, and the above mentioned Nordenfelt manual machine gun book, I looked over their website to see what other books they offer. Their catalog is logically arranged by time periods, starting with Ancient & Medieval, and progressing through 16^th to 18^th Century, Napoleonic, 19^th-20^th Century, The Great War, and ending with WW II. The last three mentioned contain the most individual titles, as expected. There are a few modern Cold War era titles, but not a lot. They even carry a decent selection of British railway and steam locomotive books, if that appeals to you.

Naval & Military Press’s catalog features their own line of titles, as well as books from other publishers. There are a number of books from the well-known Images of War series, for example.

For this review I will focus on the N&MP titles. These tend to be reprints of long out-of-print military manuals, and battle reports, etc. Currently, there are over 2100 N&MP titles listed. From these, I ordered:

• The Nordenfelt Machine Guns Described in Detail
• Textbook of Small Arms, 1929
• The Complete Lewis Gunner

The Nordenfelt Machine Guns Described in Detail is a reprint of a book originally published in 1882 by Thorsten Nordenfelt himself. As such, it is rather biased, as might be expected. However, it does contain many technical details on his many variants of manually-cranked machine guns. These ranged from single-barrel to ten-barrel designs, and from one-inch bore to 2.2-inch bore. These were primarily deck guns for naval vessels.

It’s divided into four parts and further divided into 17 chapters. The four parts are: Descriptive, Comparative, Naval, and Military (Referring to land-based use.) In part II, Comparative, there are the results of several tests between the Nordenfelt 1-inch gun and the Hotchkiss 37mm (Approx 1.5-inch) gun.

The book measures 8 x 11.5 inches, is 206 pages, and contains 57 engraving type full page illustrations & diagrams. Soft cover. £28.00 (approx. $37)

The Textbook of Small Arms 1929 has its origins in a publication dating back to 1863. Reprinted or revised every few years, it served the British Army for many years. In 1929, it was almost completely rewritten. As the editor’s preface explains, this was due to the great strides in small arms technology that occurred during WWI.

Part I covers small arms ranging from service rifles to machine guns. Chapters are titled The Rifle, The Sword, Lance and Bayonet, Revolvers and Self-Loading Pistols, Grenades, and Machine Guns & Light Machine Guns. There are a surprising number of hand and rifle grenades described. Fortunately, clear section view drawings accompany the text. Likewise, the various machine guns covered also have section view drawings showing the internals of each. There are also photographs of the various machine guns as well. (No photographs of grenades were included.)

Part II covers ammunition in detail. It explains the manufacture of smokeless powder, and the different shapes it can be supplied in, such as flake, extruded, and Cordite strands. It even mentions shapes I was not familiar with such as cube, strip (Axite brand), disc, and perforated disc. It also shows the multiple step drawing process to make a cartridge case, and discusses the need to anneal, or soften, the mouth of the case to prevent cracks forming. There is even a bit of metallurgy covered in relation to the alloying of copper and zinc to create a suitable blend of brass.

Part III, Ballistics, contains a HUGE amount of complex mathematics and charts. One day, when I have much more time on my hands, I am going to revisit this portion. So far, I have only scanned over it. It has chapters on Internal, External, and Terminal (Wound) Ballistics. Between part III Ballistics, and part II, Ammunition, this book is university-level course material.

Part IV, Appendices is a collection of charts, range tables, and tables, etc.

This book is definitely not a lovely coffee table book, nor is it light reading. It is a serious study of the science of small arms during the inter-war years, prepared by the British War Office (Equivalent to the U.S Department of Defense.), and originally printed by His Majesty’s Stationary Office. The N&MP edition is an accurate reproduction of the original, so it contains the same older style font, and small type. As the original textbook contained relatively few photographs (and certainly no color photos.), neither does this edition.

With that in mind, if you are interested in older reference books that go well beyond the usual level of detail, consider this one.

Measures 8 x 11.5 inches, 427 pages. Soft cover. £22.00 (approx. $29)

The Complete Lewis Gunner is a small, pocket size (5×8-inch, 80 pages) manual that gives a concise introduction to the U.S.-designed, British-made light machine gun. This booklet is a 1941 re-issue of an instruction manual first published in 1918. While the Lewis MG is thought of as primarily a WW I weapon, it certainly did see service in WW II as well. The booklet covers the parts in an interesting fashion. It first describes the stationary parts, and then covers the moving parts in a following chapter. Odd, but effective… Next is a very basic look at Stripping and Assembling, then an explanation of how the mechanism works, followed by Stoppages. Other chapters are Elementary Drill, Care and Cleaning, Points before, During and After Firing, and Additional Notes… The Appendix explains the differences between the British version in .303 and the U.S. version in 30-06 (called .300 American in the U.K.).

This is a fun little book, especially if you collect military manuals. Or Lewis MGs! Soft cover, £4.95 (approx. $6.60)

The Naval & Military Press website is well worth a look. As noted above, N&MP also carries books from other publishers. These are often bought in large quantities at good discounts, allowing them to pass these savings onto their customers. Shipping from the U.K. to the USA can be a deal-breaker, so getting some nice discounts, and bundling several books together can be a deal saver.

Website: naval-military-press.com