When viewing ships in the shipyard.. right click the ship in the list, it will show you a UI of the ship and it's specs.
When flying a few missions.. you can use the Save option to the right of the map and save your game manually.. or exiting the campaign normally (no alt F4 or esc key) will auto save the campaign.
as for getting specs on enemy ships.. you can only see what your UI and launching a probe will give you.. you can not check enemy ship specs in campaign...
How if you want to check each ship's specs, you can start a Skirmish mission and choose Hostile Skirmish and click Custom.. you can change your race and go in and select a specific ship you want to fly and adjust the AI properties..
When selecting a ship.. this is where you can visit each race and the ships and specs that they have.. to learn the weapon arcs.. pick a ship and fly it.. the re is a little cone button in your weapons panel that will impose your weapon arcs over your hard points... this is the easiest way to learn them.
Also I suggest going through the Tutorial missions a few times to get familiar with the controls.