The Evolution of Naval Armament

Transcriber’s Note
Cover created by Transcriber and placed in the Public Domain.
A SIXTY-GUN SHIP OF LATE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
From John Smith’s Sea-Man’s Grammar (1694 edition)
Frontispiece
THE EVOLUTION OF NAVAL ARMAMENT
BY FREDERICK LESLIE ROBERTSON ENGINEER COMMANDER, ROYAL NAVY
WITH EIGHT HALF-TONE PLATES AND OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD 10 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE WC 1921
The notes on which these essays are based were collected in the course of two commissions spent under the lee of the Admiralty library, close to the Royal United Service Institution, and in touch with the Reading Room of the British Museum and other public sources of information.
The lack of a book describing in popular language the materialistic side of naval history is, I think, generally admitted. Historians as a rule have devoted small space to consideration of material; in particular, the story of the revolutionary changes in naval material which took place during the nineteenth century has never been placed before the public in convenient form. In the attempt to supply such a description I have taken the liberty, as an engineer, of treating of naval material as a whole; tracing, as well as my technical knowledge permits, the progress of all the three principal elements—ship, gun, engine—and their interdependence. The result, faulty and incomplete as it is, may nevertheless be of considerable service, it is hoped, in clarifying the work of the historians and bridging the gap which divides the classic histories from our modern text-books.
I have considered our modern navy to begin with the “Admiral” class of battleship, about the year 1880.