Brandenburg-class battleships ~ record cards

And so on to the Brandenburg class, Germany's first sea-going battleships. Comprising SMS Brandenburg, Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, Weissenburg, and Wörth, the class came into service in 1893, and had an unusual arrangement of three main gun turrets that foreshadowed the armament layout of the Dreadnoughts. The centre pair of guns were of shorter calibre than the others in order to avoid fouling the deck houses. With a respectable broadside of six 11 inch guns, 15 inch average thickness of armour belt and 16.5 knots speed, they could about hold their own against a Royal Navy battleship of the same period. 

Against the wishes of Admiral Tirpitz in 1900 the class was sent in its entirety to reinforce the German East Asia Squadron during the Chinese Boxer Rebellion. Commanded by Konteradmiral Richard von Geißler, they arrived too late to do more than contribute to mopping up operations. They served with the fleet until the increasing numbers of Dreadnought class battleships made them obsolete. 

Ottoman Odyessey

When Kaiser Wilhelm II began to make diplomatic overtures to the Ottoman Empire, Weissenburg and Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm were sold to the Turks in September-October 1910. Renamed Torgud Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin, respectively, after famous Ottoman admirals, they saw service against the Italians (then nominal German allies) and again in the series of Balkan Wars, providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces in Thrace and engaging Greek ships during the ineffective naval skirmishes at Battle of Elli and Lemnos. A lack of suitably trained crew led to a steady degrading of the ships' sailing and fighting capacity, and they suffered badly in two encounters with the Greek navy armored cruiser Georgios Averof, leaving them in poor shape just two years after delivery.

Even so, both Torgud Reis and Barbaros Hayreddin managed to give a good account of themselves in the Dardanelles Campaign, shelling ANZAC troops along Gallipoli. Barbaros Hayreddin/Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was dispatched by a single torpedo from Royal Navy HMS E11, which had penetrated the Sea of Marmara, in August 1915, sinking with half her crew.

After the war the two ships were in poor shape. Torgud Reis was repaired and remained on active duty until at least 1933 and endured as an accommodations hulk for another two decades, only being broken in the late 1950s. With that, I believe she was one of the final 19th Century pre-Dreadnoughts left. Two turrets were removed from her in 1925 and repurposed into coastal artillery to cover the Dardanelles, where they remain to this day

 

A Trio of Steamboats

Wet and windy weather has curtailed any gardening today, so I pressed on and completed the three Nile steamboats for the Sudan.

Steamboats pass a house by the Nile. They're steaming dangerously close to each other, so they must be in a hurry!

The bases are made of sections cut from clear plastic food packaging. It helps if this stuff is as thick as possible, because the hot glue used to form the bow waves and wakes tends to pull on the plastic, causing it to warp. I had a few issues with this during the basing, but on the whole they came out alright. Use the glue gun to create streaks of raised material to represent waves and troughs. It pays to wait until the glue sets before going over it again around the bows and the wheel boxes to build up the rush of water. Once the last application of glue set I highlighted it using white craft paint. This tends to dry flat, so I shined it up with gloss varnish.

As you can see from the photo the blue material under the steamboat bases shows through, giving the whole a sense of depth.With hindsight I would've made the tail end of the bases a little longer, as the wakes look a bit too truncated for my taste. The final touches will be to put flags on the boats. I'm thinking of using pins and cartridge paper so they can be swapped out to represent different owners.

Palms, Steamboats and Forts

It's been a while since I posted here, but I 've made some progress in making terrain specific to the Nile theatre in 1885.

The steamboats are a little over halfway towards completion. They're a bit rough and ready, but functional. I need to add the wooden planks to armour them, and do something to represent the paddle wheels.

Reports from British officers and observers at the time of the Nile campaign mention Mahdist forts along the course of the river. Circular in shape with one entrance, they housed one or two Krupp artillery pieces captured from ill-fated Egyptian expeditions. I'd call them redoubts myself, but those on the spot called them forts, so forts they are. Being well protected they posed quite a challenge to the British/Egyptian steamboats passing upriver, so I needed to add those to the Mahdist arsenal. One is complete, the other half-built as was mentioned in some accounts.

And finally, what Nile scene would be complete without a few palm trees? These scratch-built versions are fresh off the painting board.

I may tweak their appearance a little to get a more feathery look, but they'll do for now. I'm not sure whether to leave them on the wooden splints and base them up likewise, or make a more random pattern on circular bases.

Steamboats, Launches and Dhows, and how to sink them.

So, the Ozark-class Monitor is now part of my small squadron of steamboats, launches and dhows. The question now is:- what rules do I use when they come into violent conflict?

Back in the day my club in England had the occasional game of ACW Ironclad encounters using the very nice 15mm models from Old Glory. I think the 'beer & pretzels' style rules were called 'Hammerin' Iron,' but may be mistaken.

The rules work well for ACW actions but I wanted something more in keeping with warfare on the vast rivers and lakes of my Colonial-era Hidden Continent. A search of the internet came up with a set of rules by Anton Ryzbak which looked the business. A few tweaks here and there has given me a set to try out - although I've yet to decide whether to include options for early Whitehead-type torpedoes.

For ship-to-shore naval support actions I'll use the TFL Sharpe Practice rules with my home-brew modifications. In SP, artillery divides into small or large guns, which will need a bit of tweaking when it comes to the heavy hitters aboard the Monitor. One or two shots from those mighty 9.2" pieces would flatten most Colonial forces in the field. A restriction on line of sight, and the amount of ammunition fired would do the trick, with so many shots allowed per game as the careful captain would need to husband his supply. After all, 9.2" HE shells aren't usually available off the shelf at that flyblown trading station on the river...

National Museum of the Great Lakes

My wife and I took time off Friday to visit the National Museum of the Great Lakes in Toledo, Ohio. We can thoroughly recommend the experience! Allow plenty of time to look around both the museum and the retired Great Lakes freighter Col. James M. Schoonmaker. Built in 1911, the ship plied the waters of the Lakes up until some twenty-five years ago when she was retired and laid up. It took some time for the city of Toledo to acquire funds to buy her and begin the work of refurbishing and restoration, but today she's a wonderful example of a dying breed of ship.

The museum has plenty of exhibits, including a life-raft and other relics of the ill-fated Edmund Fitzgerald. It's quite poignant to look at these items on this anniversary year and remember just how dangerous the inland waters can be.

There are a number of great models, most in 1/8th scale on display. This one of the steamer R N Rice caught my eye.

One of these days I'll refurbish my own steamship model. I've an idea or two for her gaming use. In the meantime, I'm drawing near to finishing the painting of my gaming room. With luck and a following wind I'll be done in a couple of days.

Back in Colonial mode

Now the dust and debris of moving house is dissipating, I've had the chance to make a few shelves for the Man Cave and get some of my much-traveled figures out of their carrying boxes. 

Thankfully the move/transatlantic flight doesn't seem to have done much damage. The worst was to the upper deck of the civilian version of the Colonial steamboat, which lost its funnel and railings. I'd like to extend the upper deck in any case, so it's an ill wind that blows some good. Here's the same vessel in gunboat mode, with the Reviresco crew figures manning her. 

My Zanzibar slavers suffered chips and dings to their paintwork. It'll take a while to address the damage, but I'll get there. 

As you can see, I have quite a force now, ready to pose trouble for Belgian and British Colonial aspirations. I also have a number of white adventurer types to get into trouble on the Imperial frontiers.

I'm busy building a shed at the moment, but once it's done I hope to buy a sheet of fiberboard or similar to make a gaming table.
  

Someone's rockin' my steamboat - 3

Onwards and upwards with the steamboat project. While everything else dried or set, I began work on the upper deck. At this point I decided to deviate from the prototype which had a fixed upper deck configuration. As I want to place figures on the upper deck I opted instead for a removable canopy idea.

First off I cut the deck from basswood, making it five inches long by three wide. The underside edges were lined with basswood strip to form a shallow tray, open at what will be the bows end. Half-inch sections cut from plastic tube coffee stirrers served to make the receptacles for the canopy posts, and these I glued at set intervals of just over an inch apart. Since the middle post at the stern end isn't going to have an upright fitted I used a plain section of mini-dowel. While the glued dried I made up the basic frame for the canopy, again from mini-dowel with crossbars made from split bamboo kebob skewers. The photos below show the general idea, with a 25mm figure to scale.

Once the main deck was dry I returned to the paddlewheel. As mentioned earlier I only constructed a segment of the wheel itself as most of it would be hidden inside the paddle box. The next photo shows the wheel finished and painted.

I made the paddle box using two side sections of 3/16th" foamcore with a card back nearest the deckhouse and a basswood roof. Once this is done I'll panel the sides and part of the open rear with strips of wood. The photo below shows the general state of construction at this stage, with the upper deck held in place by the basswood sides.

Someone's rockin' my steamboat - 2

On to the next stage, assembling the paddle wheel. The Roi des Belges and other steamboats of this era often had large rectangular paddle-boxes over the stern wheels, which simplifies things from a modelling perspective. Everything within the box doesn't have to be constructed; only the pertinent parts that show.

The picture below shows the deckhouses in place and the start of the paddle wheel assembly. I took a thick card spool that once held carton sealing tape, cut a half inch piece from it then divided it into two half-inch segments. Two short lengths of wooden strip form the main spokes with a length of dowel between them as the axle.

The whole was glued between the two lengths of basswood projecting from the main deck. Note the upward bias of the wheel segments to the stern.

Short lengths of wood strip made the paddles themselves. I used a strong impact adhesive to glue these in place.

The shot below shows the general effect, with District Commissioner Carstairs providing a sense of scale.

Tomorrow should see me onto the next stage - constructing the paddle box and the upper deck.

Someone's rockin' my steamboat - 1

On now to a model of a quintessential feature of most Colonial-era gaming - the steamboat. I've long had plans in mind for a vessel based on the Roi des Belges, a Congo River steamer of the 1880's-early 1900's. Typical of her type, she was a stern-wheeler and had a main deck, upper deck and a pilot house. In the early 1890's she was commanded by Joseph Conrad, who used his experiences aboard to write the novel Heart of Darkness, a book which later served as the basis for the movie Apocalypse Now.

I began by making a template from cereal box card, which served to get consistent shapes for the hull and main deck. The hull is 7" long by 3" wide, and cut from .5" foamcore, giving the model a good freeboard. The deck is cut from 1/16th inch basswood which gives a durable playing surface for figures to stand upon. Planning ahead always helps. In this case the overall length of the basswood deck is 9", but I cut out a 2" rectangle from the stern portion as shown, leaving a .5" wide strip on either side. This is where the paddlewheel will sit.


I wanted a smooth finish to the sides of the hull, as well as a slight lip above deck level. For this I used more cereal box card, since it's thin and flexible, gluing it to the bows and sides and wrapping it around the stern. Ordinary pins served to keep it in place while the glue dried.

In the next stage I added two narrow strips of card along the sides, since the Roi des Belges featured something very similar. Holes were then drilled through the card, basswood and foamcore, giving a good solid foundation for mini-dowels which will support the upper deck. Five each side is quite enough for this job, and allows room to stand five or so 25-28mm figures on 2 pence piece bases.

Once all was dry I painted the deck a basic tan color and built two small deckhouses from foamcore. Thin card cut to shape and painted form the doors and windows. I cut louvers in the windows since these were a feature of steamboats of this time. The deckhouses will be glued onto the areas of bare basswood.

Although the Roi des Belges seems to be painted quite a dark color (indeterminate in black and white photos of course), I chose a spinach and cream color scheme, as it was one fairly typical of Victorian times.

Next up, constructing the paddlewheel and on to the upper deck.