This book, as the title suggests, covers the capital ships of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) from cruisers up to aircraft carriers. Covering their history and ship's badges and written by a man who was himself involved with the designs of each current badge (in some cases redesigning the badges), the thoroughness of the research is immediately apparent.
Listing as it does the ships in alphabetical order from HMAS Adelaide to HMAS Vengeance, each ship entry gives a brief description of the origin of the name, service history (varying length depending on the ship), casualty lists where applicable, commanding officers and previous ships of the same name. It also has chapters devoted to heraldic terms, the origin of ship badges and colour profiles of ship badges along with plenty of photos throughout, some of which will appeal to the ship modeller.
Where this books excels however, is in the badges and battle honours as the author goes through the history of each badge in heraldic terms and how the badges evolved to their current format . Mr Cassells explains the significance of the badges in layman's terms yet doesn't "dumb down" the heraldic terms.

I found the book to be very enjoyable and as such I would recommend it to anyone interested in the RAN's capital ships and or ship badges.