DON’T PANIC! The reason this guide is on a domain named after the author is not because he is a narcissistic twat. He bought this domain years ago when he had things like dreams, hope, or desire for career visibility. These are gone, so he’s doing something else with it.

Let us begin again: Do you HATE dirty, messy, soul-crashing infantry work? Do you look at these puny metal boxes called tanks and think – instead of a 120-mm smoothbore cannon throwing darts, why can’t I have nine 460mm cannons in three-gun turrets throwing over a ton of metal and explosives at enemies 40,000-yd away? Do you see the great flying machines and immediately realise that instead of falling from the sky, you much prefer dying in cold, treacherous waters feeding fishes? You may like a little thing called Naval History!

But it can be so daunting to start! Maybe you are interested in the great battles from the last two horrible wars we fought last century, but find out that there are so many secondary sources giving different accounts. So which one should you trust? Maybe, you are interested in the technological history of the steel behemoths. Calibres, tonnage, engine power, shell shape, armour forging and protection schemes. But which one is better under what circumstances? What is ‘K.C.’ and what is an ‘a-tube’? Maybe you are interested in the earlier tales of galleys and galleons, Armada, Drake, the Dutch Wars, or Nelson, but do not understand the strange terms used. What is a ‘demy slyng’? What is a ‘long-nine’ and why do people say ‘ship-shape and Bristol fashion’? Where can I find primary, first-hand material?

The author cannot help you with these all. Better people have tried and failed. He can, however, skip you some work by telling you what he had learned, at the moment mostly on Interwar British naval history. So if this is your thing, let us proceed.