By Cdr K.K. Varma
While browsing the Web, I came across the pdf version of this coffee table book. At first glace, the book looks impressive with a lot of ‘rare to get’ photographs, but on closer perusal it is more of style and less of substance. The Corp of Constructors should have employed the services of a professional editor rather than depend on the writing skills of a Naval Officer.
The first few pages talk about the history of shipbuilding in India. The contents are interesting and informative if not a bit jingoistic. After all, the world has not heard of any remarkable shipbuilders / ships from Ancient India.
The book then goes on to detail the progress of Naval Construction from its inception stages during the post independence era to the present days. It had started as a purely Civilian Corp akin to the Royal Corp of Constructors, but then to make it attractive to draw better talent, the brainwave decision was taken to make it a part of Uniformed Services, which in hindsight comes out as a very bad decision.
The book then speaks of the ‘so called achievements’ of the Constructor corp which are laughable and pale into insignificance when compared to the actual achievements in the field of Naval Architecture, the World over. The Indian Naval Constructors talk highly of a variant of the Leander Class which they were able to design. I had mentioned this in my previous blog on “The Autobiography of an Indian Naval Architect” about this, wherein the author had found that large ships of Similar Geometry could have lesser power requirements than a Slightly smaller ship, because of the cancellation of opposing wave fields generated by the forward and aft parts of the ship. This the author had stated as his “Eureka” moment. The other achievements of the Corp of Constructors are not worth mentioning in this review. The last few pages list out a list of achievements of officers from the Constructor Corp in local sporting and literary events of their local colleges which are hardly of any interest to anyone outside of their fraternity.
To summarize, the book gives a good background history of Shipbuilding in India in the days of yore and also the beginnings of the Corp of Naval Construction as an offshoot of RCNC. But the rest of the book is pure jingoism and not worth a read.
This book might not be of much interest to the Indian Naval Architects, but since it is freely available for download from the Net , one can peruse it , if one has the time and bandwidth.
Aspiring Naval Architects from India can go through the book to find out the “Challenging Environment” that Indian Navy offers for them to hone their skill and then to take the call whether to join the Indian Navy or hone their Naval Architecture skills elsewhere.
You can read it here.
The first few pages talk about the history of shipbuilding in India. The contents are interesting and informative if not a bit jingoistic. After all, the world has not heard of any remarkable shipbuilders / ships from Ancient India.
The book then goes on to detail the progress of Naval Construction from its inception stages during the post independence era to the present days. It had started as a purely Civilian Corp akin to the Royal Corp of Constructors, but then to make it attractive to draw better talent, the brainwave decision was taken to make it a part of Uniformed Services, which in hindsight comes out as a very bad decision.
The book then speaks of the ‘so called achievements’ of the Constructor corp which are laughable and pale into insignificance when compared to the actual achievements in the field of Naval Architecture, the World over. The Indian Naval Constructors talk highly of a variant of the Leander Class which they were able to design. I had mentioned this in my previous blog on “The Autobiography of an Indian Naval Architect” about this, wherein the author had found that large ships of Similar Geometry could have lesser power requirements than a Slightly smaller ship, because of the cancellation of opposing wave fields generated by the forward and aft parts of the ship. This the author had stated as his “Eureka” moment. The other achievements of the Corp of Constructors are not worth mentioning in this review. The last few pages list out a list of achievements of officers from the Constructor Corp in local sporting and literary events of their local colleges which are hardly of any interest to anyone outside of their fraternity.
To summarize, the book gives a good background history of Shipbuilding in India in the days of yore and also the beginnings of the Corp of Naval Construction as an offshoot of RCNC. But the rest of the book is pure jingoism and not worth a read.
This book might not be of much interest to the Indian Naval Architects, but since it is freely available for download from the Net , one can peruse it , if one has the time and bandwidth.
Aspiring Naval Architects from India can go through the book to find out the “Challenging Environment” that Indian Navy offers for them to hone their skill and then to take the call whether to join the Indian Navy or hone their Naval Architecture skills elsewhere.
You can read it here.
2 comments:
Reading the article it seems that this book is pretty interesting and I would like to have the link from where you got this book to review on it.
Thanks,
Portable Storage,
http://www.moveablecubicle.com
I have provided it in the article. Pse go thru it. The Last paragraph.
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