Table of contents : 1. Alfred the Great to William the Conqueror 1 2. The Normans to the Tudors 3 3. The Tudor Navy and the Gun 8 4. The Elizabethan Galleon 15 5. Enlargements and Improvements Under James I and Charles I 20 6. The Rates 25 7. The Restoration 27 8. The Fighting Ship in the Eighteenth Century 33 9. The Nineteenth-century Wooden Battle Fleet 65 10. The Nineteenth-century Frigates and Other Cruising Vessels 80 11. The Coming of the Great Iron Frigate 93 12. Turret Versus Broadside 105 13. The Early Mastless Battleships 117 14. Iron- and Steel-built Masted Cruisers 131 15. The Torpedo 139 16. The Naval Defence Act of 1889 and the Navies of Foreign Powers 146 17. Screw-Steam Propulsion in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century 149 18. William White's Battleships 152 19. Watts and the Dreadnoughts 160 20. The Post-Dreadnought Battleships 175 21. The Battle-cruiser 179 22. The Mastless Steel Cruiser 191 23. The Return of the Armoured Cruiser 197 24. The Light-Cruisers 205 25. The Washington Treaty Cruiser 213 26. The Return of the 6-inch Cruiser 217 27. Torpedo-Gunboats and Destroyers 225 28. Sloops, Corvettes and Frigates 242 29. Post-Second World War Frigates and Destroyers 252 30. The Air Arm of the Navy 261 31. Submarines 277 32. Coastal Craft 293
Appendices 1. A Summary of British Naval Events from A.D. 897—1983 300 2. British and Enemy Losses (ships of over 50 guns) 1688—1855 321 3. Some Establishments of the Ships, Guns and Men 1517—1805. from Memoirs of the Rise and Progress of the Royal Navy, by Charles Derrick, 1806 324 4. Further Abstracts of the Strength of the Royal Navy to 1983 367 5. The Naval Surveyors from 1544 380 6. Two Gun Establishments from A Sea-man's Grammar by Captain John Smith, 1627 381 7. Flags and Pendants of Command and Distinction 383 8. Types of Shot and Shell 390