Provides descriptions, specifications, and histories for a wide range of warships including destroyers, cruisers, torpedo-boats, and submarines

Product Description: Every maritime historian, naval buff, and serious modeler will find Warship a comprehensive source of information about warships, their weapons and their operations. Each volume contains essays and articles covering a wide range of subjects.

Describes how improvements in all types of naval vessels, armaments, and equipment in the early twentieth century led to the decline in importance of the big gun surface ship in naval warfare

Product Description: Although purpose built fighting ships had existed earlier, the principal characteristics of the classic sailing warship were defined in the mid-seventeenth century, and the line of battle ship became ever more distinct. Alongside came the greater specialisation of the fleets and the evolution of the frigate and the adaptation of myriad types of craft for naval use...read more

Product Description: THE SHIPPING REVOLUTION: THE MODERN MERCHANT SHIP Since the end of the Second World War the pattern of international trade - and the ships in which it is carried-has changed dramatically. Competition from air travel gradually displaced the liner, but with increased leisure passenger ships staged a comeback in the form of cruise ships...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Between 1840 and 1905, sail was replaced by steam, wooden hull construction with iron and then steel, and the shell-firing gun encouraged the adoption of armor plate. For this first time, this volume - the fourth in an ambitious series - offers a proper understanding of this neglected, misunderstood but fascinating period in shipbuilding.

Product Description: Follow the evolution of the steamship from the paddle steamer, to the screw-propelled vessel, to the introduction of the marine compound engine that cut fuel consumption and required less room on the ship. Also explained is the introduction of iron construction...read more

For thousands of years organized naval warfare was the exclusive preserve of the galley. Oars provided a level of control and maneuverabilty beyond the capabilities of the contemporary sailing ship, and not experienced again until the era of the screw propeller. Precise control allowed squadrons and fleets to operate together, as a unit, which promoted the evolution of earlier fighting tactics. However, for fleets to be more effective than collections of individual vessels, they needed training and organization, from which the first state-funded navies were to develop. THE AGE OF THE GALLEY charts this development from the earliest paleolitic crafts, some of which were paddled rather than rowed, to the classical trireme and its Roman and Byzantine successors. However, as a warship, the galley survived the coming of the three-masted sailing ship and even adapted itself to gunpowder artillery, so later chapters are devoted to the medieval and Renaissance fleets that served the later maritime powers in the Mediterranean. The principal historical chapters are backed by more general sections on the design and oar system of galleys, on the organization and infrastructure of galley fleets, and on non-military applications of the galley. With the recent trials of the Greek Navy's reconstructed trireme, this volume has been able to take advantage of much new research; the upsurge in interest in these crafts makes the publication of this work particularly welcome. Lavishly illustrated, THE AGE OF THE GALLEY includes over 65 black-and-white photos, over 200 illustrations and 15 tables.

Organized by country, includes information on the world's fighting ships and navies since the Second World War

Product Description: Researching back into prehistory and into the earliest evidence provided by archaeology, this volume explores the varied lines of development from the most primitive watercraft to the first real seagoing ships, from Northern Europe, through the Mediterranean to the Near and Far Easts...read more

By the middle of the 17th century, a division was evident between the trade ship and the war ship. The Heyday of Sail documents the history of the merchant sailing ship during a revolutionary era in ship design. This volume includes merchant shipping in the British Empire, seagoing ships of the Netherlands, ships of Scandinavia, the Baltic, and the Mediterranean, European inland sailing craft, yachts and pleasure craft. (view table of contents)

Product Description: Forgetting the set backs of the American Revolutionary War, in 1793 the Royal Navy embarked on an almost unprecedented era of victories at sea, producing a considerable appetite for pictures of every incident, great or small. A thriving trade in prints and engravings grew up, supplemented by watercolors and oils by celebrated artists...read more

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Book by Lyon, David

Product Description: Trafalgar, the most famous and most strategically significant victory in the age of sail, was not an isolated event. Rather it was the culmination of a campaign that began as soon as war was resumed in May 1803 and aimed ultimately at the invasion of Great Britain...read more

Product Description: Regarded by many at the time as an unnecessary conflict, the War of 1812 was provoked by mutual misunderstandings and prosecuted without conviction on either side. It was also a war of surprises: the hitherto omnipotent Royal Navy suffered a series of humiliating losses at sea, while the American invasion of Canada, regarded as merely 'a matter of marching', was defeated by a makeshift force of colonial militia, native Indians and a handful of regulars...read more

COGS, CARAVELS AND GALLEONS traces the development of seagoing vessels from the traditions of late antiquity to the all-important emergence of the three-masted ship, undoubtedly the most significant innovation in the history of shipping before the steam engine. Without the three-masted ship the European age of exploration and expansion is almost inconceivable and there is no doubt that the subsequent evolution of the world would have been markedly different. In recent years much original research has been done in this field, based on both documentary sources and archeology, but this is the first overall synthesis of the new material now available. The main chapters are devoted to the principal ship types, explaining the latest thinking on the characteristics of cogs, caravels, and hulks that have caused scholarly debate for decades. There are also more general sections on essential background subjects like construction and guns and gunnery, as well as pertinent essays on the evidence -- from documentary sources, contemporary illustrations and archeology. All the contributors are foremost experts in their fields, but in presenting the fruits of their research at an approachable level, COGS, CARAVELS AND GALLEONS is a pioneering work in this area of maritime history. Lavishly illustrated, this informative volume - the eighth in an ambitious series - includes over 50 black-and-white photos, 145 illustrations, and five tables.

Product Description: The wars of 1793-1815 are widely regarded as the apogee of the sailing man-of-war. Many seapowers became involved in the conflict, and at some point virtually all aligned themselves against Great Britain. Thanks to its superiority, the Royal Navy took many of its enemy ships in battle and developed the habit of drawing plans of the ones they captured...read more