The late 1930s saw a rapid development and modernization of the Royal Navy. His Majesty's government decided to build new classes ofbattleships, aircraft carriers, light cruisers which were distinctly better suited for fighting surface combatants than escorting merchants or hunting down and sinking submarines. The destroyers were no exception and by the outbreak of the war in 1939, the British navy had commissioned subsequent medium and large-size destroyers of: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J and K classes, as well as those of the Tribal class. Sloops of the Grimsby, Bittern, Egret and Black Swan classes had also been built.The British needed a large number of universal destroyers of a smaller displacement, but versatile enough to perform various wartime duties. A new type of destroyer, according to its design’s creators would perform the “fleet work” duties, which included escorting task forces of larger ships and offensive gunnery and torpedo missions. However, that concept soon became obsolete.

Suzutsuki was the third ship from the series of the most powerful Akizuka destroyers, designed specifically as anti-aircraft defenseships, whose main armament consisted of 8 universal 100 mm caliber guns with excellent ballistic characteristics. The Akizuki destroyers were designed before the beginning of World War II as anti-aircraft ships for fast Japanese groups of aircraft carriers. They were completely different from the previous Japanese destroyers, in which the emphasis was put on strong artillery (127 mm guns) and torpedo armament. They were inspired by the British Dido class light anti-aircraft cruisers, however, in contrast with them, the Akizuki destroyers were medium size ships intended for anti-aircraft defense of groups of fleet.

The rocket missile ORP Gen. T. Kosciuszko is currently one of the more valuable Polish Navy ships. Belonging to the American type Oliver Hazard Perry, together with the twin ship ORP Gen. K. Pulaski, he went under the white-and-red flag under an agreement between the governments of the United States and the Republic of Poland. The ship was built as USS Wadsworth with a tactical number FFG 9 at the Todd Pacific Shipyards in San Pedro, California.

The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 was an advanced fighter developed by Germany to be the successor to the Mersserschmitt. Adapted to a wide variety of combat situations, Focke-Wulf soon began to dominate the skies, allowing Germany to take back their air superiority from Britain and her fearsome Spitfire Mk V. Some of the Luftwaffe’s most successful fighter aces few the Fw 190 and was soon preferred over its older counterpart. Filled with rich drawings that provide an unparalleled display of the fighter, this book is an ideal choice for any modeller which a penchant for recreating Germany’s most acclaimed aircraft.

In 1939 the Japanese Navy General Staff demanded to develop a project of a destroyer with a speed of 40 knots. The project was called "Project F52" and was included in the plan called Maru Yon. In connection with this, a project was prepared and the construction of the Japanese destroyer with number 125 (later named Shimakaze) began.

The destroyer Spravedlivyy was constructed in the Severniy Sudostroitelniy Zavod imeni A.A. Zhdanova (Shipyard No. 190) in 1954–1956 as one of 27 Project 56 destroyers, also known as the Spokoinyy class (designated Kotlin by NATO). They were destroyers in the old fashion, created in the early 1950s by designers of the 53rd Central Design Bureau (CKB-53) led by head designer

The idea of creating such an album dedicated to the battleships of World War Two had been born in the last dozen or so years. During this period, various concepts appeared in print, which were meant to present those beautiful ships in the form of a "condensed pill.” Most of the contributions have been made by foreign authors who had had greater access to photographic references. It was not easy, because it was difficult to choose several photos illustrating the entire history of the battleship, starting from the moment of the keel laying and ending with its sinking. Then, in some cases it has a further history as a wreck resting on the seabed until today.Initially, we selected over 1,000 photos, which we had to give up because of the size of such an album. In the end, it was divided into two volumes, thanks to which the number of photos remained only slightly reduced. In the case of vessels with a large or interesting combat history, we tried to put more photos illustrating their operational activities.Some ships have a very limited number of photos included. The best example of this is the Japanese battleship "Musashi", of which only few photographs exist. Most of them come from private collections and it was very difficult to get permission to publish them. Despite these difficulties, it was possible to gather unique photographic material enriched with the brief combat records of individual battleships, which will hopefully allow the reader to trace their story. In the first volume, the author describes all the most important battleships from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Greece, Spain, Japan, France, and Germany.

Progression in development of Osa-class missile boats revolutionized naval warfare. Even though those ships were considered very small marine vessels, they constituted one of the most numerous boat types in the history of shipbuilding. There were more than 400 units built in total.

The SMS Blücher was the last armored cruiser built by the German Empire. She was constructed to counter the new armored cruisers rumored as being built by the British. Blücher was larger than preceding armored cruisers and carried heavier guns but was unable to match the size and armament of the battlecruisers which replaced armored cruisers in the British Royal Navy and – later - the Imperial German Navy (Kaiserliche Marine). When the Germans learned of the true details of these new British ships, called Invincible class, and that they were to be armoured with 12" battleship guns, they realized that the Invincible class was a completely new type of warship, soon to be known as battlecruisers. By the time the Germans learned of this it was too late to turn back and construction of the Blücher took place as scheduled. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher, the commander of the Prussian forces at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.

A plane of Polish construction and medium-sized production, a twin-engined bomber built in a low-wing system with a completely metal structure.The plane was characterized by many innovative solutions that made it a true legend in Poland.

The USS Lexington (CV-2) was the second aircraft carrier of Lexington class built by the United States, but the first used operationally; in fact the first was the USS Langley, but as an aircraft carrier she served only as an experimental ship. The history of the USS Lexington was troubled. In fact, it was designed in 1916 to be an atypical battle cruiser; as lightly armored as possible but armed with heavy cannons. Because of the Washington Treaty of 1922 that concerned the reduction of naval armaments, she was reclassified and converted into an aircraft carrier, capable of carrying a flight of 85 aircraft.

The “H” version of He 111 was the most popular variant of the described bomber. The first model of this version – the H-0 – was based on the serial He 111P-2 but was equipped with Junkers 211A-1 engines, which later were used as a standard propulsion of He 111H variants, eventually replacing lighter, but weaker and difficult to acquire Daimler Benz engines DB 601 units (they were prioritized to fighters).

USS Astoria was a cruiser of the New Orleansclass, built at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Bremerton, Washington.Her keel was laid down on September 1, 1930. She was launched on December 16, 1933, and commissioned in the US Navy on April 28, 1934.

As late as the first half of the 1930s, the innovations which led the shift from the biplane to the monoplane airplane designs reached the aeronautical industry in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, traditionally considered secondrate compared to those of the major European powers. By then, the Vazduhoplovstvo vojske Kraljevine Jugoslavije (VVKJ Royal Yugoslav Air Force) was hopelessly outdated. The core of its arsenal consisted of obsolete biplanes, including the Breguet 19 light bombers, Potez 25 trainers, Avia BH 33 fighters, as well as Dewoitine D1 high wing monoplanes fighters. Due to the reluctance of the long term allies to supply modern equipment to renew the aging Air Force, the Yugoslav government lost precious time by failing to commit immediately to the industrial cooperation with the only other available source at the time, Germany.

Georgios Averof (Θ/Κ Γεώργιος Αβέρωφ) is a Pisa class armored cruiser of the predreadnought era. The ship was the third from the series of Pisa class ships after Pisa and Amalfi. The ship initially (1907) was ordered for Marinha do Brasil, but one year later the Brazilian government abandoned the order. As a result of this decision, the construction works for the armored cruiser halted. However in 1909 the ship was acquired by the Royal Hellenic Navy and named Georgios Averof.

The Albatros D.III, often called „De-drei”, is a neat single-seat biplane fighter armed with two guns firing through the propeller. It goes up like a balloon and at full throttle it reaches 170 kilometers per hour.