Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1947 1995

This is the last (in chronological order) of a famous serie of four books dealing with the history of the steam and iron navies from the beginning (1861) to the present days. It's a very exhaustive book, which covers almost every nations that ever manned a naval ship, from the huge US Navy down to the smallest African or Pacific ones. In this way a reader can have a very good idea of the power and evolution of the world's navies through the desing of their ships, built or not (the book contains the description of a lot of projected ship classes that were never built, but that are interesting in order to better understand the evolution of some navies). As usual, for all the ships built before the period covered by the book, the reader is referred to the other similar books of this serie (mainly the third one, covering the 1922-1946 period). Every ship or class is described quite in detail (overall the main types, like battleships, carriers, cruisers, destroyers and submarines), with a description of the project evolution, a brief account on the modifications occurred during the ship's life and the final fate of each one. A lot of photographs and some drawings complete what can be considered one of the best purchase a naval enthusiast can ever do!

This is the fourth fully revised edition of a book first published in 1970. This longevity is testimony to its enduring value as a reference work-indeed, 'Colledge' (as the book is universally known) is still the first stop for anyone wanting more information on any British warship from the 15th century to the present day when only the name is known. Each entry gives concise details of dimensions, armament, and service dates, and its alphabetical and chronological arrangement makes it easy to track down the right ship (otherwise the Royal Navy's tradition of re-using the same names can be misleading).