My Ancre.fr wish list

[uss frolick]

Here are a couple French naval subjects that I hope Ancre one day creates monographs for:

 

1. L'Unite/ La Tourterelle, 28 guns: The most beautiful class of eight-pounder frigate/corvette built for the French Navy. L'Unite could be captured and would, of course, become HMS Surprise of Patrick O'Brien fame. Detailed plans of both survive at the NMM.

 

2. La Renommee of 1806. A late Sane-designed 18-pounder frigate that would be captured in 1811, and become the famous HMS Java of Constitution fame. There is a large rigged model of Renommee that survives in the Musee de la Marine, so the specific unique details of the ship would not have to be reconstructed. It has been four decades since Ancre last visited the 18-pounder class with the lovely La Venus, but then there were no frame drawings. There are enough differences between the two to warrant a new look at the class.

 

3. The beautiful 24-pounder Romaine-Class Bomb-Frigate L'Immortalite. Her detailed drawings survive in the NMM, with carvings, and she had a rollicking career in both the French and British navies. From Wiki:

 

"The Romaine class was a class of nine frigates of the French Navy, designed in 1794 by Pierre-Alexandre Forfait. They were originally designated as "bomb-frigates" (Fr. frégate-bombarde) and were intended to carry a main armament of twenty 24-pounder guns and a 12-inch mortar mounted on a turntable in front of the mizzen mast. Experience quickly led to the mortars being removed (in most vessels they were never fitted), and the 24-pounders were replaced by 18-pounder guns. The ships also featured a shot furnace, but they proved impractical, dangerous to the ships themselves, and were later discarded.^[4] A further eleven ships ordered to this design in 1794 were not built, or were completed to altered designs. Two vessels of the class became breakwaters in less than 15 years after their construction. The British Royal Navy captured three. One was lost at sea. None had long active duty careers. All-in-all, these ships do not appear to have been successful with the initially intended armament, but proved of adequate performance once their heavy mortar was removed and their 24-pounders replaced with 18-pounder long guns."

 

Please add your longed-for French vessel to this list!

 

 

 

 

Edited September 16 by uss frolick

[dvm27]

I'd be happy with any of the above. The French vessels have a certain elegance that, in my opinion, is lacking in the British ships of the period. M. Delacroix is a member here. perhaps he has some insight into future Ancre publications.

[G. Delacroix]

Hello,

 

I cannot tell you about the current projects at Editions ANCRE because the few authors (we are only three...) rarely communicate with each other. I have no idea what monograph JC Lemineur is working on and even if he has a project in progress. Since F. Fissore has specialized in small Italian ships, I doubt that he will propose a substantial monograph on a ship in the French Navy. On the other hand, Didier Berti, the boss of ANCRE, does not "request" a monograph on this or that ship but is content to publish and ensure the distribution of the books. It is therefore the authors, and they alone, who determine their future studies.
On the three wishes that you have expressed, (and without coming out of Aladdin's lamp), I can give you the following details.
- L' Unité, La Tourterelle: it so happens that I had started the study of this corvette in parallel with my current project. It is the latter that currently occupies me and probably for several more years. This corvette could indeed make the connection between the two other corvettes of the collection, i.e. between L' Amarante of 1744 and La Créole of 1838 and I have long noticed this "gap" between the two periods. For a future project perhaps.
- La Renommée/La Romaine: these two frigates are structurally very similar since they were built about ten years apart and their framework, since that is what interests you, is not really very far apart. The problem lies rather in the fact that these two 18/24 frigates are of the same generation as L' Egyptienne whose monograph was published less than five years ago. Frankly, I dont see myself doing a study on a ship almost similar to the one studied so recently.
The time needed to study a ship is significant, of the order of three to four years. This is why it is necessary to make a judicious choice in the projects and I try to produce unpublished monographs on little-studied subjects.
My current occupations apply to a ship few represented in the French Navy, it is an artillery pram otherwise called floating battery. The construction is very atypical as I like them but on the other hand, it is a very complicated frame both to study it and to build it for the (I hope) future models.
This ship dates from 1760 but you can see one of its "sister-ships" a little later here:
https://mnm.webmuseo.com/ws/musee-national-marine/app/collection/record/9024

 

GD

 

[GrandpaPhil]

That will be a neat addition!