Small Arms of the Sea Services: Firearms & Edged Weapons of the US Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Revolution - Present by Robert Rankin

Table of Contents

Long awaited and much needed is this pioneer work in the field of Naval weapons. Surprising as it seems, literally hundreds of books dealing with weapons of the U. S. Army have appeared while, over the same period, virtually nothing has been published in book form on Naval weapons.

Sponsored by the Company of Military Historians and honored with their highest endorsement-Standard Reference Work-the book also carries forewords by the Chiefs of each of the Sea Services-the Navy, the Marines, and the Coast Guard-a unique distinction. Lavishly illustrated with over three hundred and fifty fine, detailed photographs, the book fills a reference need long felt by professionals of the three services themselves, by scholars, and by collectors of weapons. Besides an encyclopedic reference to the small arms (both regulation and non-regulation types) of the three branches of the Sea Services, the author provides as well, for the first time, an authoritative history and guide.

The twelve chapters cover, in detail, the broad range of handguns and longarms used from pre-revolutionary years of the eighteenth century to modern-day Vietnam. Included also are sections (each superbly illustrated) on the use and wearing of the great variety of swords and cutlasses of both officers and enlisted men, midshipmen's and officer's dirks, fighting and utility knives, boarding axes and pikes, signal guns, blunderbusses, and shotguns. The book undoubtedly carries the largest selection and variety of such weapons ever shown. The substantial number of variants included are virtually unknown to any but the most advanced collectors.

The research behind the work has been carried on over a long period by an author with an impressive list of other published military works to his credit.