The Fleet Continues to Grow

 I had my spring break. As in the past, I had plans to accomplish many things, but probably a fourth were accomplished. This included building a lot more ships. Like everything else in my hobby endeavors, I jump from one thing to another. I probably have ten ships at various stages of completion. That being said, I think I have enough built to finally have a sea battle. Of course I say that about a bunch of things. My previous post showed the work-in-progress of the protected cruiser and gunboat below.

Protected Cruiser

This ship is loosely based on the Russian protected cruiser Boyarin.

The differences are the greatly reduced ship's boats, and the secondary guns are peeking out of the bulwarks on the superstructure rather than sticking out on small sponsons. 

Gunboat

This is the second gunboat made. This one is based on the imperial Russian gunboat Khrabri. 

There were some rearrangements such as repositioning of the bridge from the forecastle to behind the mast, and the number of secondary guns due to size constraints. 

Latest ships on patrol

Destroyers

Destroyers of the time period are pretty generic looking. This is a plus because, barring color scheme, they can fit in with any navy. I guess since they are technically torpedo boat destroyers, their initial emphasis was on destroying torpedo boats and the carrying of torpedoes was secondary. I wanted one that took its torpedo duties seriously. So, I made one patterned after a British WWI destroyer that had twin torpedo tubes. 

I wasn't in the mood to mess with gun shields, so I just added blobs of thick UV resin on the middle part of them and quickly cured. This represents the wider part of the gun. It doesn't even have a flying bridge....lazy builder!

Older model on the left.

Several things I have noticed as I build these ships. Not surprisingly, old photos are a hit or miss, often a miss. Ship plans are far more useful but you are only getting a top view and a profile view. Sometimes, I cannot really tell what is going on, especially with the superstructure and bridge. In a lot of ways, photographs of models are the most useful, especially when paired with plans. I've had a lot of "oh, so that is what this structure looks like" moments. They really helped a lot and my increasing level of detail on these ship is due to using ship models as a source.

Game Board

I did manage to spend a day expanding my hex board. I needed to make new sections and paint the underside of the sea hexes a green. This way, I can flip over the sections to make land. 

Sea

Land

The sea side is more unified in color than the land side of the sections. I experimented a lot with different colored alcohol markers. I avoided acrylic markers except to highlight the edges of the hexes. The hex tiles are a thin wood and I was afraid that the acrylic paint would potentially warp the tiles. I tried different glues to put together the sections and the best seems to be contact cement. Super glue works but the tiles snap off too easily, and the glue from a hot glue gun dries way too fast. I have been doing my gluing in my garage with the door open. It helps with the fumes, though Gorilla Glue makes it in a tube form, so I cap it as soon as I put the bead of glue on the edge of the hex tile. 

I think I have enough hexes to a least get a 3' x 5' board done. I will use any extras to build islands, some of which will have forts on them. 

Gun Shields

 Gun shields are the most ubiquitous means of defense for small caliber guns. They should not be that complicated to model them, and yet I find that they are. My previous posts show examples of how I've tried to make them. I have yet to be happy with the results.  Materials used for the gun shield is one factor. Wood splits and thin cardboard bends in ways that I don't want to. Consistency is another issue. It is difficult to make them all the same size. Once you make them, I find it very difficult to try to shape them to look like something more than a tiny cube. Additionally, it is difficult to drill tiny holes that run true from one end of the material to the other.  

Styrene rods to make shields

The gun shields for the above light cruiser uses 2mm x 2mm styrene rods. First, I drill a hole and then glue the wire in for the gun, then I cut the whole thing off. The result is the gun and its shield ready to go. I mark off the length of the gun using an acrylic paint pen, but once I make several, I line them up to make sure the lengths are reasonably consistent. I would like to have the front of the shield to slope a little, but I have yet to figure out how while keeping them consistent. I discovered I had a package of 2.5mm x 2.5mm rods that I will use for a larger caliber gun. That 0.5mm increase might be just enough to modify the shields.

Experiments in unusual materials

Many years ago, before the widespread use of blogs, there was a web site of a fellow that focused on modern microarmor gaming. I wish I could remember who it was because I attribute my interest in modern armored warfare (pretty much anything post-WWII) to the after action reports on his website. In addition to the time period itself, he also showed that it was possible to modify microarmor. One of the materials that he used was erasers (!?!). He used it because it was a material that was easier to carve than plastic, and it had no grain to deal with. 

I tried using the white vinyl erasers but those are too soft and tear easily. Next up the pink erasures. They are soft, but firmer than the white ones. It is easy to cut into them but they don't tear up, especially when you poke a hole in them to push in a metal wire for the gun. 

As a test, I grabbed some old pencil erasures that have been sitting around at home from my kids' elementary school days. 

You can see on the picture above where I cut out the gun shields. Below the end result before painting:

The lip of the eraser had was curved and beveled at the edge. This gave the shield a more realistic design. It also didn't tear like the white erasure did when I poked a hole in to put the gun in. It was more difficult to be consistent in dimensions when I cut out the shields. Also, I glued them down with superglue gel. I hope it holds. Maybe contact cement will work better.  

I will show the painted results in a later post.

 

Knight with Banner

 This weekend, we got dumped on with snow. Of my 25 years living in southeast Tennessee, I have never encountered so much snow. About 10" of snow. The temperature in approaching zero degrees F didn't help. Houses around here are not build for this sort of weather. 

The wife and I watched a lot of TV, but you can only watch so much. So, I retreated to the "soldier room" as it is called by my kids. I did start working on some more ships, but I ended up painting some fantasy figures

My fantasy world is occupied by a number of holy orders. One of which is the Knights of the Holy Chalice. I wanted to make a pseudo-religious, icon-ish banner to lead the faithful into battle. Gemini AI to the rescue! 

Banner depicting Saints Kimberly and 
Angela receiving the holy chalice from on high

I played around with different poses and styles and settled on a sort of Bayeux tapestry look. I thought about giving the ladies halos, but I thought it might be too sacrilegious. I printed them off in various sizes on my school's color laser printer and later did a little touch up with paint to bring out some of the features like the cup and the faces. If I could do it again, I'd make the bottom a little longer below the feet.  I have to say that its not too shabby.

Ironclad Ram

 This is one of the fastest ships I've built so far. Normally, Friday nights are binge in front of the tv, but  because my wife is having to work late evenings for her company's annual "go live," I have free time.  At least this year, she gets to work at home. Last year, she had to go to the office and there were two nights where she was there until about 2 am! 

The ship is based loosely on the French ironclad barbette ship Marceau. 

Source: William Frederick Mitchell (1845–1914) - (1892).
 "France". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co..

Before:

After painting:

I unintentionally exaggerated the size and length of the ram. It looks like the front of Greek trireme. I made it out of Green Stuff epoxy putty.  The funnel is taller than Marceau, but that was because it originally was very short on my model and was below that of the ship's boat platform. The reason being was that I was worried that the boat platform would be too low and bump into the side guns, so I over compensated and made them higher than need be. The Marceau lacks a crane, but I was not sure how it retrieved its boats. Also, the ship's boats on the Marceau stick way out over the side of the ship, past the port and starboard guns. I didn't want to hide the guns, so I reigned them in. 

I learned my lesson from the previous ships that had guns mounted in barbettes and used a thinner wire. The Marceau was armed with 17 138mm secondary guns! My ship is armed with 12 secondaries. I didn't want it to look like a pin cushion. 

The other major difference between my model and the actual ship is that like most, if not all, French warships of the time, it had a pronounced tumblehome shape. My ship does not. Archduke Piccolo has a good tutorial on how to build tumblehome hulls, but I punted. Maybe the next time, I will give tumblehomes a try. 

Once again, I got carried away with detail. 

New Ships for the New Year

 Two more battleships ready to be painted.