Konstam, Angus

In November 1859, the French warship La Gloire was launched. She was the world's first seagoing ironclad - a warship built from wood, but whose hull was clad in a protective layer of iron plate. Britain, not to be outdone, launched her own ironclad the following year - HMS Warrior - which, when she (...)

Hunt the Bismarck tells the story of Operation Rheinubung, the Atlantic sortie of the Nazi Germany's largest battleship in May 1941.Bismarck entered service in the summer of 1940. She was well-armed, with eight 15-inch guns as well as a powerful array of lighter weapons, while her armoured (...)

During the American War of Independence (1775-83), Congress issued almost 800 letters of marque, as a way of combating Britain's overwhelming naval and mercantile superiority. At first, it was only fishermen and the skippers of small merchant ships who turned to privateering, with mixed results. (...)

The Royal Navy's battleships at the turn of the 20th century were the most powerful battlefleet in the world, and embodied one of the key periods in warship development--the development of the dreadnought battleship.The term "pre-dreadnought" was applied in retrospect to describe the capital ships (...)