Description
WARSHIPS OF THE WORLD
Antonr Preston
Surface ships and submarines, hydrofoils and
hovercraft, helicopters and Mach 2 fighters:
the world’s navies are equipped to fight their
wars above, below and on the surface of the
ocean. And as the warship’s area of operations
has expanded from the depths of the ocean to
high in the stratosphere, so too has the variety
of weapons available to commanders, the
volume of information from radar, sonar and
other sensors, and the complexity Cif the high-
speed decisions that must be made in the heat
of battle.
Describing and analysing the most significant
naval vessels now in service worldwide, naval
author, editor and historian Antony Preston
traces the evolution of the major types of
warship and explains how they have been
developed in response to the ever-
growing demands of war at sea. But it is not
only operational requirements that have
transformed the warship. Politics and
technology have played their part. This is best
exemplified by Britain’s Invincible class of
VIStol aircraft carriers, which came about
because a Whitehall decision that the Royal
Navy could do without fixed-wing air power
was happily offset by the emergence of two
brilliant but essentially simple inventions: the
Harrier vertical take-off combat aircraft and the
Ski-jump ramp.
Revealing a broad understanding of all the
factors that influence warship design,
Warships of the Worldwill be invaluable to
expert and layman alike. Each category of ship
is dealt with in a concise operational and
development history, and each class is
described with photographs, text and data
tables. A general introduction places the ships
and their operators in the world strategic
context, and a glossary and list of acronyms
help the reader to make sense of the high-
technology jargon of modern naval warfare.
Antony Preston was bom in England in 1938
and educated in South Africa (King Edward VII
School and University of Witwatersrand,
Johannesburg). He was a research assistant at
the National Maritime Museum working on
Admiralty technical records, and is an authority
on the design history of the warship. His books
include Send a Gunboat (with John Major).
V & W Destroyers, Battleships of World War
One, Submarines, Navies of the American
Revolution (with David Lyon). Navies of World
War 1/, Battleships 1856-1977, Destroyers and
Aircraft Carriers. He is a regular contributor to
naval journals and has been editor of Warship,
Navy International and the Warship Profile
series, and is currently the naval editor of the
monthly magazine Defence.
Front cover: Type A 69 anti-submarine frigate of the
French Navy.
Back cover: HMS Renown and Sea King helicopter.
224 pages
Hardcover
In very good condition with the exception of some wear and fading to paper cover. A fascinating book.
