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WAR MACHINES
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M PERLMUTTER
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MiM'iS Octopus Books
Top: The Royal Navy's battleship Thunderer.
Below: The German U-35 with its fluttering pennants
Introduction
proclaiming
book, a formidable war machine is a machine (or even a technique) that gives its possessor an edge over the enemy. At
Within the terms of
this
sea, for example, the introduction of the stern rudder was a major breakthrough which trans-
formed the oared longship into the sailing man-o'-war. The development of broadside fire power by England's Henry VIM was another
momentous breakthrough. The
introduction of
the 19th Century, the replacement of wood by iron plates, the major milestone of the revolving gun turret - all these adaptations of inventive technology gave the nations that first them a technical supremacy in practised
steam
in
weaponry. The rise and fall of civilisation and of power groupings is very largely a reflection of a nation's prowess in technology and of its skill in adapting that technology to the needs of war.
This book is a selection of the most memorable development points in the machinery or 'mechanics' of sea warfare. It begins with the Pharaohs and ends with Polaris - although the story, like human inventiveness, really has no end.
sense this book is a pictorial catalogue which - with its companion volumes on machines of land and air warfare - helps the reader to build up a 'time-scale' picture of the ebb and flow of civilisations and of the gradual growth of that background technology which now dominates every aspect of our lives. In a
its
victims.
Contents THE EARLY SEAFARERS
11
STEAM TAKES TO SEA
THE TRIREME RULES THE SEA 16
A Tug-of-war for Progress HIGH EXPLOSIVE SHELLS RIFLING INCREASES RANGE SHELLS AND SHRAPNEL
THE FORMIDABLE FIRE-SHIP
THE MIGHTY IRONCLAD
THE PENTEKONTER & THE
RAM The
14
Battle of Alalia
Marc Antony's Defeat
THE COASTAL The
Battle of
GREEK
at
22
24
of Constantinople
THE VIKING LONGSHIP
26
THE STURDY MEDIEVAL COG
28
Crossbows
at
Sluys
GUNPOWDER
32
THE GALEASS AND THE GUN
32
Don John -
the Victor of Lepanto
The
38 Blast of the Broadside
THE GALLEON The Spanish Armada
46 48
The Purpose-built Bomb Ketch
SHIPS-OF-THE-LINE Copper-sheathing
The
52
Battle of the Saints
THE FRIGATE- LIGHT & FAST A
50
for Protection
THE CARRONADE SMASHER'
NEW FORM OF POWER
64
BIRTH OF THE BATTLESHIP
74
TORPEDO AND MINE 78 TORPEDO BOAT DESTROYERS 84 WARFARE BENEATH THE WAVES - THE SUBMARINE 88 How Submarines Operate The Total Underwater Weapon 1940: Happy Time' for U-Boats
The
Crucial Factors at
100
Tsushima
106
BATTLECRUISERS AT SPEED
108 Speed and Firepower Battle of Coronel and Falkland Islands Jutland: The Clash of the Leviathans
THE A THE A
WASHINGTON TREATY: TO POWER
LIMIT
116
AIRCRAFT CARRIER:
NEW DIMENSION
Dive-bombers
at
published in 1975 by Octopus Books Limited 59 Grosvenor Street First
London Wl under licence from Lynx Press Ltd 601 Union House
Hong Kong Created and devised by Berkeley Publishers Ltd
ISBN
THE REVOLVING GUN TURRET 70
DREADNOUGHT? DINOSAUR? 40
THE DUTCH THREAT THE