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USS Iowa (BB-61) during her shakedown period on April 4th, 1943. Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill on the verandah of the Soviet Embassy in Tehran during the Tehran Conference. A potentially catastrophic blue-on-blue was the launch of a live torpedo by the US Navy destroyer Willam D Porter aimed directly at the […]

Two of the French Navy’s early treaty cruisers at Toulon during the early 1930s. The ship on the left is either Duquesne or Tourville; the cruiser on the right is Suffren. The two early ships were virtually unprotected, whereas the later Suffren had a narrow 50mm waterline belt over her machinery. She can be identified […]

 The CSS Alabama in Singapore harbour The Alabama under sail  Captain Semmes and First Lieutenant Kell on the Alabama, 1863 Vegetius, writing in the fourth century AD, describes how Roman skiffs used for reconnaissance had their sails and rigging dyed Venetian blue which resembles the ocean waves; the wax used to pay ships’ sides is […]

‘dazzle’ camouflage The development of the ironclad increased the size and cost of ships. At the same time, improved armaments increased the range at which actions were fought and reduced the scope for capture, making sinking a more likely outcome of an action and thus making it increasingly difficult and expensive to replace losses. But […]