"In the 25th century humans have conquered space. The advent of faster-than-light travel has opened up hundreds of habitable planets for colonization, and humans have exploited the virtually limitless space and resources for hundreds of years with impunity. So complacent have they become with the overabundance that armed conflict is a thing of the past, and their machines of war are obsolete and decrepit. What would happen if they were suddenly threatened by a terrifying new enemy? Would humanity fold and surrender, or would they return to their evolutionary roots and meet force with force? One ship--and one captain--will soon be faced with this very choice"--Back cover.

The dangers of ancient technology loom over the Polity in the sequel to The Soldier, Neal Asher’s latest action-packed space opera series. The haiman Orlandine, charged with safeguarding lethal Jain tech swirling inside an accretion disc located in the distant reaches of space, has weaponized a black hole to eliminate the threat. But others are suspicious of her motives, and both the Polity AIs and the leaders of the alien prador kingdom dispatch fleets of warships in anticipation of conflict. As the black hole continues to eat its way through the planets in the accretion disc, making its way towards a dead sun, it becomes clear the disc has been hiding a larger secret. Nefarious forces with ulterior motives have manipulated Orlandine into deploying the black hole, triggering a series of larger events that will uncover a danger far older than even the Polity itself. From British science fiction writer Neal Asher, The War Ship picks up right where its predecessor, The Soldier, left off, showcasing Asher’s unique take on cutting-edge and fast-paced science fiction.

This new paperback edition brings the history of Henry VIII's famous warship right up to date with new chapters on the stunning presentation of the hull and the 19,000 salvaged artefacts in the new museum in Portsmouth.Mary Rose has, along with HMS Victory, become an instantly recognisable symbol of Britain's maritime past, while the extraordinary richness of the massive collection of artefacts gleaned from the wreck has meant that the ship has acquired the status of some sort of 'time capsule', as if it were a Tudor burial site. But she is much more than an archaeological relic; she was a warship, and a revolutionary one, that served in the King's navy for thirty-four years, almost the entire length of his reign.This book tells the story of her eventful career, placing it firmly within the colourful context of Tudor politics, court life and the developing administration of a permanent navy. And though the author also brings the story right down to the present day, with chapters on the recovery, the fresh ideas and information thrown up by the massive programme of archaeological work since undertaken, and the new display just recently opened at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, it is at heart a vivid retelling of her career and, at the end, her dramatic sinking.With this fine narrative and the beautiful illustrations the book will appeal to the historian and enthusiast, and also to the general reader and museum visitor.

From the moment when the launching of HMS Dreadnought made every capital ship in the world obsolete overnight, we have been fascinated with these powerful surface combatants. Here Robert M. Farley looks at the history and folklore that makes these ships enduring symbols of national power—and sometimes national futility. From Arizona to Yamato, here are more than sixty lavishly illustrated accounts of battleships from the most well-known to the most unusual, including at least one ship from every nation that ever owned a modern battleship. Separate essays and sidebars look at events and lore that greatly affected battleships.

Warship Builders is the first scholarly study of the U.S. naval shipbuilding industry from the early 1920s to the end of World War II, when American shipyards produced the world's largest fleet that helped defeat the Axis powers in all corners of the globe. A colossal endeavor that absorbed billions and employed virtual armies of skilled workers, naval construction mobilized the nation's leading industrial enterprises in the shipbuilding, engineering, and steel industries to deliver warships whose technical complexity dwarfed that of any other weapons platform. Based on systematic comparisons with British, Japanese, and German naval construction, Thomas Heinrich pinpoints the distinct features of American shipbuilding methods, technology development, and management practices that enabled U.S. yards to vastly outproduce their foreign counterparts. Throughout the book, comparative analyses reveal differences and similarities in American, British, Japanese, and German naval construction. Heinrich shows that U.S. and German shipyards introduced electric arc welding and prefabrication methods to a far greater extent than their British and Japanese counterparts between the wars, laying the groundwork for their impressive production records in World War II. While the American and Japanese navies relied heavily on government-owned navy yards, the British and German navies had most of their combatants built in corporately-owned yards, contradicting the widespread notion that only U.S. industrial mobilization depended on private enterprise. Lastly, the U.S. government's investments into shipbuilding facilities in both private and government-owned shipyards dwarfed the sums British, Japanese, and German counterparts expended. This enabled American builders to deliver a vast fleet that played a pivotal role in global naval combat.

In the sailing era First Rates were the largest, most powerful and most costly ships to construct, maintain and operate. Built to the highest standards, they were lavishly decorated and given carefully considered names that reflected the pride and prestige of their country. They were the very embodiment of national power, and as such drew the attention of artists, engravers and printmakers. This means that virtually every British First Rate from the Prince Royal of 1610 to the end of sail is represented by an array of paintings, drawings, models or plans.This book is a celebration of these magnificent ships, combining an authoritative history of their development with reproductions of many of the best (and least familiar) images of the ships, chosen for their accuracy, detail and sheer visual power in an extra-large format that does full justice to the images themselves. It also includes comparative data on similar vessels in other navies, so it is a book that everyone with an interest in wooden warships will find both enlightening and a pleasure to peruse.

The launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 ushered in one of the most rapid periods of warship development in history; and only ten years after this all-big-gun, turbine-powered battleship was completed, two entire fleets of Dreadnoughts would meet at Jutland and put the work of the prewar designers to the ultimate test. The renowned warship author, D K Brown, examines the development of these vessels and looks at how wartime experience affected warship design. As well as battleships and battlecruisers, for the first time the developmental history of smaller vessels such as minesweepers, monitors and escort vessels, built in direct response to wartime needs, is described, as is that of the submarine and aircraft carrier. A detailed study is made of battle damage, including the role played by ammunition explosions in the loss of three British battlecruisers at Jutland. Also described are the postwar capital ship designs, killed off by the Washington Treaty, which are among the most fascinating might-have-beens of naval history. A classic work again available for historians and enthusiasts, detailing the development of all those ships that enabled the Royal Navy to rule the waves supreme and defend country and empire.