by Cliffy B » Fri Mar 09, 2012 12:49 pm
I personally love all 3 of his books and find them to be great photo references. The line drawings are also very good but are bit more simplified than the ones you'd find in say, Friedman's books. That's mainly due to space and the fact that they are all drawn to a common 1/1200 scale in each book but they are still very detailed. He has photos for EVERY ship listed in each book and many are very good showing nice angles and close-ups. Many are from his personal collection so you won't find them anywhere else. Others are official USN photos that are only found in crappy low-res versions online. The charts in each of them are very informative and make for an easy quick reference. Task Force/Group assignments for the entirety of the war, Carrier Air Groups/Wings from 1920's to 1980's for EVERY carrier. Things like that make them golden for me. Yeah you may or may not be bale to find that info digging around the net, but I prefer to have it easy accessible on the bookshelf instead.
If you want to see what you'll be getting see if your local library has any copies or can order them for through an inter-library loan.
I'd highly recommend you get all 3; Cruisers, Battleships, and Carriers if for nothing else than the photos and drawings. The BB books covers the Montanas and the Lexington-Class Battlecruisers. The cruiser book covers the Omahas through to Long Beach with several of the obscure ones in between (like the Norfolk and the Atlanta conversion to a shock trials ship). The Carrier book covers CV-1 through CV-71.
I personally love all 3 of his books and find them to be great photo references. The line drawings are also very good but are bit more simplified than the ones you'd find in say, Friedman's books. That's mainly due to space and the fact that they are all drawn to a common 1/1200 scale in each book but they are still very detailed. He has photos for EVERY ship listed in each book and many are very good showing nice angles and close-ups. Many are from his personal collection so you won't find them anywhere else. Others are official USN photos that are only found in crappy low-res versions online. The charts in each of them are very informative and make for an easy quick reference. Task Force/Group assignments for the entirety of the war, Carrier Air Groups/Wings from 1920's to 1980's for EVERY carrier. Things like that make them golden for me. Yeah you may or may not be bale to find that info digging around the net, but I prefer to have it easy accessible on the bookshelf instead.
If you want to see what you'll be getting see if your local library has any copies or can order them for through an inter-library loan.
I'd highly recommend you get all 3; Cruisers, Battleships, and Carriers if for nothing else than the photos and drawings. The BB books covers the [i]Montanas[/i] and the [i]Lexington-Class[/i] Battlecruisers. The cruiser book covers the [i]Omahas[/i] through to [i]Long Beach[/i] with several of the obscure ones in between (like the [i]Norfolk[/i] and the [i]Atlanta[/i] conversion to a shock trials ship). The Carrier book covers CV-1 through CV-71.