The period 1860 to 1905 was one of remarkable technical development in ship design, and this book brings the knowledge and experience of a long career as a naval constructor to the story of the transformation of capital ships from the fully-rigged broadside ironclads of the mid-19th century to the turbine-powered Dreadnought battleships and battlecruisers of World War I. The author shows the effects upon ship design of over half a century of the revolution in engine technology, armament and armour protection, and how all of these different factors were combined by the ship designers in attempts to produce the best possible fighting ships.