This book is a study of an important but previously ignored aspect of naval history, me specialist coastal defence ship. From its origin in the monitors of the American Civil War the type grew into miniature battleships, intended to give countries wim no overseas ambitions a credible naval defence. Because of the constraints of size and draught, these ships used very sophisticated concepts, and their design philosophy is fully explored here for the first time. The ships were only one aspect of an integrated strategy that included mines, coastal fortifications and other vessels. Indeed, in the late nineteenm century, the torpedo-boat was added to the mix, and so this book analyses the changing ideas of coastal defence as well as its technology. The Second World War battles around Scandinavia and in the Far East seemed to mark the extìnction of the traditional type, but the concept has been revived since 1945 in the farm of the missile boat, both the direct descendant of the torpedo craft of the previous century and the inheritor of the coast defence ship's mantle. Some countries are even retuÌning to versions of fixed defences, albeit in a new high-tech form, and the book concludes with a Iook at possibie future deveIopments in this fieid.