Links Index

Here's a partial list of useful and interesting places to go for more information on the stuff I talk about here, in no particular order.

• Gene Slover's Navy Page: A tremendous amount of information on naval ordnance and gunnery, but very poorly organized. Also a fair bit of interesting slice-of-life stuff about being in the Navy.
• NavWeps: An encyclopedic catalog of naval weaponry from ~1890 to the present. The essays on naval history and technology are truly amazing, and there are a few other hidden gems, too.
• Historic Naval Ships Association (HNSA): HNSA is the museum ship trade group. By far the most useful part of their website is the collection of manuals and documents, including a collection of remarkably detailed ship plans. The collection is largely mirrored at maritime.org, with a few minor differences.
• Hyperwar: Hyperwar is a collection of online documents from WWII, covering a tremendous range of topics. The best coverage is of the US military, but there's quite a bit on other countries as well.
• Naval History & Heritage Command: A lot of the pictures I use come from NHHC. There's also an online reading room of period documents from the whole history of the USN and quite a few official histories scattered about the site. Unfortunately, the USN is bad at using the internet, so it might take some digging to find what you want.
• Thin Pinstriped Line: A blog by a British Civil Servant inside the Ministry of Defense. An excellent look under the hood of running a modern military, and why the MoD does what it does. The lessons drawn are applicable to the US and other countries, too.
• NavSource: A collection of photographs of USN warships. Has provided a few here, and great if you want to look at pretty pictures of warships.
• SpringSharp: A program intended to let you design your own battleship. Limited to the gun era, but still a lot of fun. Sadly unmaintained.
• The Imperial War Museum: One of the better sources for British pictures, although the collection is spotty and their system is often infuriating to deal with.
• US National Archives: A lot of pictures that you can't find anywhere else, and general plans books that aren't available through HNSA, although the search function is often wonky. Best bet is to just search "booklet of general plans" plus an identifier for the type of ship you're looking for.
• WWII after WWII: A blog that discusses the use of WWII systems after WWII, ranging from rifles to nets to battleships. Well-researched and always interesting.
• Combined Fleet: Site focused on the IJN, but also has general references and the notable competition for the world's best battleship.
• Wikipedia: The wiki articles on most naval-related things are quite good, with a couple of caveats. First, they're somewhat bland, as you'd expect from a collaborative document. Second, they tend to be very strongly in line with conventional wisdom, even when the leading edge of scholarship has moved on. I'd put their quality as being generally in line with the sort of reference books you're likely to find in a typical bookstore or library.

A few other places of some relevance here:

• Pacific Battleship Center: Custodians of the greatest ship ever built. Pay them a visit if you're in LA, or go to LA to visit.
• Slate Star Codex: Naval Gazing is ultimately a spinoff of Scott Alexander's amazing blog. Not naval-related at all, but a good read.