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Warships magazine

This World Ship Society publication first appeared in February 1966 as a naval supplement to Marine News. Originally named Warships Supplement, the journal arose because there was not enough space available each month in Marine News to meet the demand for naval historical articles. The magazine originally had a 10-inch by 8-inch format, and was edited by the late Jim Colledge while Peter Herriott was responsible for production and despatch. This team remained in place until August 1977 (volume 47) which appeared in an A5 format with Ian Grant being responsible for production and despatch from then until June 1979 (volume 57) after which Doug Kinghorn assumed this role. Jim Colledge finally retired as Editor with volume 92 and Tom Adams assumed the editor’s role for the summer 1988 (volume number 93). The magazine was renamed Warships in Spring 1992 (volume 108) with Brian Hargreaves becoming Business Manager in Autumn 1996 (volume 126) following the death of Doug Kinghorn.            

Tom’s on-going service as Editor of this successful quarterly coincided with the rapid development of computers and IT. He has taken full advantage of these still-developing technologies to improve the quality of the magazine’s appearance and photographic content. All this has been achieved without diluting the quality and range of articles generated mainly from primary research sources.   

Content. Articles featured in recent issues of Warships include: “HM Submarine GRAPH”, “All change: the Tiger class names saga”, “The battleships NELSON and RODNEY”, “HMS ROYAL ALBERT”, “The Spanish Navy at the end of the 19th Century”, “War class Admiralty Fleet oilers: Z type”, “Type 22 (Batch 2) Broadsword class frigates”, “Chronology of the US Submarine Force 1900 – 2000”, “US submarine losses in war”, “US submarines lost owing to marine causes and accidents”, “A to Z of Royal Navy submarines 1901 – 2001”, “ICEWHALE hits the headlines”, “Former Royal Navy trawlers in Belgium Naval service”, “Defensively equipped merchant ships”, “The Phalanx CIWS”, “The Royal Naval Division 1914-1919”, “Landing Craft Gun (Tower)”, “Colonial cruisers 1912”, “The Palestine Patrol 1946-1948”, “Proposed small monitors of 1942/43”, “Decoys and Dummies of World War 2”, “The Republic of Vietnam ship – HQ LINH KIEM”. In addition, there were also a number of photo features with deep captions as well as some brief (450 words or less) notes and comments.            

Submission of articles. Warships seeks articles, photographs and analysis concerning warships, navies, coastguards, auxiliary services, their aviation, their organisations, their developments - historical, current and technical. This material should be submitted to the Editor warshipsedit@tiscali.co.uk who can also supply detailed guidelines to those wanting to submit articles for the first time. However, some key rules are given below: 

Language. The language of Warships is English. 

Spelling. English and American spelling and dates are both accepted. 

Abbreviations. When used for the first time, an abbreviation must be spelt out in full with the abbreviation in brackets, eg, Close In Weapons System (CIWS). We do not use full stops in abbreviations and acronyms that should be written as, eg, HMS, HMAS, RCN, USS, WSS, etc.   Convoy numbers, eg, HX10 and Pennant numbers, eg, A109 are written without a space between the words and the numbers. 

Ship names. Ship names are always written in CAPITALS and where appropriate should be prefixed, eg, USS, HMS, ORP, SS, MV, RMS. The convention for U-boat numbers is U 47 – we put a word space between the prefix U and the number – not a full stop. Ship names should never be underlined.  

Numbers. Numbers are written as digits unless they are under ten. A sentence must not begin with digits. Digits should be used for measurements and weight. We use the English style for numbers greater than one thousand, eg, 1,750 tons. We avoid the use of Roman numerals -- however, U-boat types ONLY appear as Roman numerals, eg, type VIIC/41, type IX.             

Computer disk. If you have written your article on a PC please submit your hard copy with 3.5-inch PC disk containing a your article written in MS Word (Word 7 or less), MS Works, “WordPad”, PDF, Rich Text Format or ASCII. Please use only Courier, Arial or Times typefaces. If you are submitting material produced from an Apple Macintosh please use “Simple Text” and save for PC use. Do not forget to include details of the application that you have used together with your file names. Written material can also be submitted as an attachment to an e-mail.  

Size of submitted article. As a broad guide – one page of Warships contains approximately 450 words. 

Subscriptions and back numbers. Warships is available on subscription only. Subscriptions, address changes, faulty copies and back number inquiries should be addressed to the Business Manager brian@bhargreaves.freeserve.co.uk. Three annual issues at £12 + £1 postage if mailed to a UK address or + £2 postage if mailed to other than a UK address, cheques payable to “World Ship Society” (no Eurocheques please). (rates as of July 2008.)