Carl FranklinBritish Army Uniforms from 1751 to 1783: Including the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence

This review is on the Kindle edition.This book would have merited five stars if not for dreadful proof-reading. To see this, and very clearly, look in the Glossary. Multiple entries, even on the first page, are run together. There are numerous examples of unclear language as well.The illustrations are plentiful. They could be larger, but that is what two-finger pinching is for. As seen on the cover, uniforms are shown in schematic form, as in the Funckens' <i>The Lace Wars</i>. They are excellent.The book seems to be a simple facsimile of the printed one. This leads to another irritation, in that the uniform and service details are often twenty of more pages from the plate to which they refer. This is because the details are provided in a block, with the main illustrations in another one. Not a great inconvenience in a printed book, where one can fold pages and compare one with the other. <b>VERY</b> inconvenient with a tablet, or even a PC.The illustrations in the body of the text are exceedingly small indeed. Printed across single pages, they do not transfer well to the ebook. I have no choice but to pinch on my 10 inch Fire. This produces a blurred, but intelligible, image.I have, despite my complaints here, no hesitation in recommending this book, But I would urge you to buy the print version. It will be much more useful.

I have many books covering uniforms for this period. This is the best single volume reference that I have found. It includes descriptive text and detail drawing for specific equipment and clothing items, then goes regiment by regiment through the horse and foot units. Great color plates, including a pantone color guide for the facing/trim colors. A must-have for serious period modelers and historians.

Very accurate and extensive information may make it the best source available on the subject. However, if you can find the hardback edition, it will present the uniform illustrations in a more visible format so that details are more recognizable.

The kindle version contains so many bells and whistles rendering a sheer pleasure to read. The research, detail, and thoroughness of the topic are of the highest quality.

This is the most precise book on British uniforms I have seen.The in depth breakdown of unit by unit uniforms is very detailed.If you are looking for historical reference or modeling infantry as I amof this time period. This is the book.

The book has illustrations on each page. Get the book.

I purchased this book and found it money well spent. I think the negative evaluations say more about the reviewers than the book they are reviewing. We like to think of military history in absolutes -- it was this way. And yet frequently, the best we can do is provide a good representation of what may have been accurate on a given day. Have not found a book, any book, where I did not find a technical error. On the other hand, this book provides good information that is very useful. Do I really think it is a5-star production, maybe not. On the other hand the negatives reviews do not do it justice either. Like I said, have been very satisfied and am glad I purchased it.

Great details on uniforms, facing colorss and unit titles. Only wish it went back a few more years. Overall, great!

As some other reviewers have pointed out, the kindle version isn't as good as it should be. I'm using the kindle windows app and have read the book on large screens. Despite this, it is not really possible to see the detail in the diagrams. The regimental lineage tables at the back of the book are also very difficult to see - to say they are unreadable is going too far, but they are not far off!Overall there are quite a few format problems in the kindle version. I have no idea if the text matches the book version precisely, but there are some strange editing failures in the kindle version. For example the section on the 62nd Regiment during the American War of Independence contains the sentence:"It was interned for most of the war at Cambridge in November 1777, Rutland in November 1778, Charlottesville to June 1781 and Lancaster until April 1783 over a difference between cartridge pouches and boxes."What???As another reviewer has pointed out the book doesn't seem to quite know what it is covering as its subject - the cover title is "British Army Uniforms from 1751 to 1783 : including the Seven Years' War and the American War of Independence" - and yet the kindle version gives its electronic title as "British Army Uniforms of the American Revolution 1751 - 1783". Despite the reference to the Seven Years' War on the cover, that war barely gets a mention in the text.So all-in-all a mixed bag. I'm quite willing to believe the physical book is worth four or even five stars, but I can't give the kindle version any more than three.

Bought this because needed the information on uniforms of the period, I already have another book by the same author on British Napoleonic uniforms, this book is nearly as good as the Napoleonic book, cant really fault it, though it would benefit from having a few examples of a figure fully dressed with all equipment because otherwise there is a little jumping about to get everything together and some things like the way that soldiers hair was styled and the fact that the vast majority of soldiers wore the tricorn, minor thing though, also a guess of a drummers dress would be good along with the drum itself. I also bought the Digby Smith book and wouldnt personally bother with that at all, information there with regard to uniforms is very sketchy hence buying this book.

This book when in print is a large book, so why who ever converted it to Kindle made it so that all the text is in columns I don't know. As also pointed out, there are a lot of images in the book and they are just about useable on an iPad but so great on a full size screen and why are they scanned at the lowest usable resolution and then made bigger? However for just under £5 it is not bad, but it could be so much better.Because of this I am only giving it 3 stars.

Amazing amount of information for the price. This book could sell for 2 or 3 times the amount and still be good value. One of the best reference books I have on the British army.

A very comprehensive guide to the British uniforms of that era, loads of detail.