French Warships in the Age of Sail

Attachment 56775

I received both books as presents and I have to say, while being great references, I was a bit disappointed. The cover title includes "Design, Construction, Careers and Fates", so I was hoping for just that. But the book contains just the list of all vessels buit by France, with almost no plans or illustrations useful to me. There is very little to no information about the careers of any of the ships other than their construction date and breakup or destruction date. These books are quite expensive. I will not be perchasing the rest of the series as I can get ship lists from the web.

Their real value is in Winfield's design commentary, drawing engineering relationships. It does not help that the French were rather less diligent in archival recordkeeping...

Thanks for that insight, I've got both books "bookmarked" and been holding off because of the cost. I was particularly interested in the ships careers, but if there's not much of that I'll stick with Wikipedia information, even though it's not always correct.
Cheers

Don't pay full price, hold out for a sale.