Profiling some 150 vessels—including color illustrations, brief operational histories, and specifications like overall dimensions, crew size, propulsion, displacement, speed, range, and armament—this book chronicles nearly two centuries of submarine development leading up to the maturation of the submarine as a major weapon of war in World War II. The variety and ingenuity of early submarine design is remarkable, and the book depicts such significant vessels as the Civil War–era Hunley and Intelligent Whale, Germany's World War I U-boats, and forward-looking designs of the 1930s like Nautilus and Swordfish.