This meticulously researched and illustrated book is split into two sections, the first focusing on the history of the battleship, and the second of the cruiser. Each section includes a comprehensive history and three chronological directories featuring the major vessels of that era. Containing a huge volume of information, together with a unique collection of more than 1200 colour and black and white archive photographs, this book provides both enthusiasts and historians with everything they will want to know about battleships and cruisers through history.

About the Author

Captain Peter Hore served worldwide in the Royal Navy from 1962 to 2000. During the Falklands war he was joint logistics controller on Ascension Island, and he has headed both the Royal Navy's applied research programme and its non-technical research programmes. Peter is now associate editor of Warships International Fleet Review, op-ed writer for Newsday in New York and obituarist for The Daily Telegraph in London. Bernard Ireland spent 30 years in ship research for the Admiralty in the Royal Naval Scientific Service. He has worked as an illustrator for the shipping industry, producing impressions and technical cutaways for companies such as Canadian Pacific and Blue Star Lines, and has produced illustrations for the Port of London Monthly and technical posters for the Science Museum, Kensington. He is the author of over 25 specialist naval books.