AdamC Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad Flawed Napoleonic "Death Star" 45 points (Ready)

 Some ships are truly legendary and the Nuestra Señora de la Santísima Trinidad usually called just the "Santisima Trinidad." 

Originally built as a 112 gun 3 deck ship of the line (First rate in English reckoning) in 1769. At some (possibly 1795) point she was increased to 130 or 136 or 140 guns.    The best information I can find on her armament is 3decks.org which says she had 136 guns and 4 swivel guns which no one would count as part of her rating. 

Her 4th Deck was actually just her spar-deck blanked over so it was flush allowing her to carry extra guns.  This gave her a few extra guns but also made her top-heavy and ponderous indeed one of her nicknames was: "El Ponderoso"  (another nick name was El Escorial de los mares royal palace of the sea... not a name that say "Battle Ready") 

She fought in the American helping capture 55 ships out of a 63 ship convoy defended by the Royal Navy.  

She faced the Royal Navy again in the Battle of Saint Vincent where she was forced strike but the English fail to take possession of her and two Spanish ships managed to rescue her.  She was not so lucky at Trafalgar where just ahead of the French Flagship she was a high priority target.  She was again dismasted and this time captured and then sank in the Trafalgar storm.   Her reputation as one of the "most powerful warships" is probably over blown.  

The French Ocean class was larger and with "only 120 guns" had  a broad side only slightly lighter than the Santisima Trinidad.  Her lack of Carronades meant that smaller British Ships of Line where much closer in strength than a simple count of guns would indicate. Still her massive size must must have made her an intimidating sight.  1st Rate ships of the line are 25 Points (or where last year) and the "no moon" add an extra 20 points. 

Great work on this gin palace Adam.  The Spanish navy had some fine ships and also some fine officers, but were sadly let down by their ministers and their choice of allies.  However if you do things early in the Revolutionary period you can ally the Brits and Spanish as they blockade Toulon.

AdamC: Caprica CSS Arkansas (28 Points)

My first entry of this challenger is the "Doomed" Ironclad CSS Arkansas.  

She was started in Memphis but was incomplete at the time of Naval Battle of Memphis she was moved to the Yazoo River where she was completed in makeshift naval facilities. She was painted brown to help her hide along the Yazoo and Mississippi river banks.  

From the start her engine gave her trouble, though this didn't seem to hold her back at first.   She successfully defended herself in her first battle against 2 Union Gun Boats and the Ram Queen of the West Causing damage damage to all three, and taking some hits herself.   She then managed to slip through Admiral Farragut and the ships north of Vicksburg firing at all points. She did considerable damage to Farragut's fleet and the Admirals pride.  She took some damager her self including some engine damage. 

She attempted to attack union motors ships bombarding Vicksburg but her engines failed and she had to fight off a counter attack by Farragut Fleet.  Farragut withdrew from Vicksburg. Captain Brown of the Arkansas tried to repair his ships engines. She then attempted to assist the Confederate counter attack on Baton Rouge but she ran aground, and her engine broke as she got her self off and she ran aground again doomed in the face of the Union advance, she was scuttled and her final resting place a is under a Mississippi levy.  She had a short but eventful career, one ship against two Union fleets, she was doomed from the start much like the Confederacy itself. 

The miniature is 3D print done by my friend Arofan (3D printers are like dogs the best ones are owned by friends), I believe East Coast Ironclads did the file.  The intention was for her to be about 10mm scale to work (with some forced perspective) with 15mm troops she is 10 inches long, a shade under 2.25 inches in the beam and a smidge over 1 inch high (not counting her stack).  

I will call her a 15mm Vehicle for 8 points. 

Points 20 for Caprica. 

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Welcome back to the Challenge Adam!

What a great mini and an apropos continuation of your work last year. I worked at an ACW museum in Mississippi in my salad days, and remember doing research on the CSS Arkansas for a larger project. What a colourful yet brutal history. May she have better luck in your upcoming games!

- Curt

From PeterD Italian Cruiser Trieste (2 points)

 

Second last day of the challenge and second last post fro me, the Italian cruiser Trieste from GHQ in 1/2400.  I had the model primed in one of the first batches of work for this year's challenge but she's been kicking around the work table semi finished since December. 

Trieste and her sisters were armed with 8" guns but only lightly armoured.  Her sparse superstructure are typical of e 1920s era designs,  The float plane on the foc'sle seems precariously perched and required that she steam into the wind to launch it.

I've painted her in a camouflage scheme that she wore in 1942 even though it comes from a later date than the era that I'm focusing on. She had a busy war attacking and escorting convoys.  She was torpedoed and damaged by HMS/M Utmost in late 1941 and sunk by US bombers in port in 1943.

There's some interesting history in the naming of Italian 8" gunned cruisers of this era, all seven were na med for former Habsburg territories taken over by Italy after WW1.  The three name sake territories for the  Trento class (Trento, Trieste and half sister Bolzano) all remain Italian.  But three of the four Zara class (Zara, Pola and Fiume) were named for territories that are now Croatian (and renamed) with Gorizia being the sole exception.   None of the seven ships survived the war.

As Trieste sails off so do my entries in the Naval Side Duel.  That's another hull and another two points and a tip of my hat to Adam and the other participants in that challenge.

Adamc: Gunboats and Brig (40 Points)

 

Some more vessels to hopefully bring me across the line. A small brig made from the leftover parts used to build my sloop and six large gunboats.

The Gunboats are more 3D prints courtousy provided by my friend Arofan. I added masts and a sort of lug sail. They will make good gunboats or even French lugers privateers.

Here we have a 14 gun brig (the standard Black Seas brig is an 18 gun brig) I've flagged her as English and named her the HMS Sophie of Master and Commander fame. 

I did her hull in red brown with yellow not the colors described in Master and Commander but it looks good.  She could also work as USS Enterprise in her War of 1812 configuration as a brig.  For points I'll suggest 5 points per gunboat and 10 for the brig. That should give me 40 points carrying me pasty goal for the year (this is the latest I have ever hit my goal and I wasn't sure it was going to happen). All this is subject to review of course. 

From AdamC: two Xebecs (30 points)

I'm sailing into the wind hopping I will not miss stays and fall short of my target this year.

Fortunately Barbary Xebecs are quite good at sailing close to the wind and they should help move my a bit closer to that goal. 

These are 3D prints provided by my friend Arofan. They are one of Henry Turners designs. The masts and sails were constructed by me and the sails cut from a paper bag are hand painted.

 

Xebecs are one of my favorite ship designs and I look forward getting these on the table. These should add another 30 points (15 points per three masted ships) to my total unless the minions determine they have greater (or lesser) value.  

Nice little ships, Adam.

Tamsin

AdamC: Ships and Brigs (60 points)

 

Here we have two ships, an English Frigate and an American Sloop of War in company with 3 Brigs.

The Frigate is a 3D print given to me by my friend Arofan who has provided me with many hulls form his ship yard. 

I have christened her the HMS Lydia Hornblower's 36 gun frigate from "Beat to Quarters" (or Happy Return) 

The sloop is an American ship built form a pair of Warlord brigs as you have seen me do before. 

She can work for USS Wasp or USS Peacock or any other  US sloop of war of that period. 

The Three Brigs are standard builds from Warlord.  Two of them have no flags currently but carry barktan sails (red) a system used to preserve sails.  They will make excellent merchants or pirates as the red sails do seem a bit piratical.

I don't believe it was common on Warships but merchants certainly used it (especially in the far east). 

The final Brig has British Merchant colors.

Point the Brigs are worth 10 points apiece and the Frigate and Sloop are both good for 15 each for a total of 60 points, pluse and additions the minions should see fit to add. 

Naval Arms Race up date

 

Miles finaly unleaded the boadside we've all been expecting he now leads  in number of hulls and is 3rd in points behind Noel and myself.  Don't miss stays as you tack into harbor here at the end. 

From MilesR: Russo-Japanese War Fleets for Graveyard Beach (216 Points)

 

Last year I embarked on another large project - the Russo-Japanese War in 6mm but never got around to finishing the naval portion of the conflict.  One really can't game the RJW without doing the naval side and Graveyard Beach seemed to be a great reason to finish up this project.  I present to you the Imperial Russian Fleet - every capital ship and destroyer or torpedo boat flotilla that participated in the war.  Sadly for the Russians, only a handful of these ships survived the war.

First up is the Port Arthur Fleet.  This fleet had more Battleships than the Japanese Navy and posed a very serious threat.  The fleet attempted to sortie against the Japanese several times but were unsuccessful.  Interestingly - hostilities commenced in the RJW by a torpedo boat sneak attack on the harbor that severely damaged 2 ships.   

In addition to the Port Arthur Squadron, the Russian had 4 Cruisers based in Vladivostok.  While much smaller than the Port Arthur force these 4 ships proved to be very successful commerce raiders.  They sortied 5 times and were responsible for sinking 15 transports including one that carried the only steam engines Japan had that would fit the Russian rail gauge, which severely impacted the ability for Japan to move supplies up to the front.

This small fleet was eventually brought to battle off Ulsan in August of 1904.  3 Russian Cruisers faced off against 6 Japanese.  The result was limited damage to the Japanese and 1 Russian Cruiser sunk (Rurik) while the other two were heavily damaged.

With Port Arthur under siege, The Russian Imperial command decided to send the Baltic fleet to reinforce there Pacific fleet counter parts.  These reinforcements were organized into 2 fleets - the 2nd and 3rd Pacific fleets.  First up is the second fleet which rivaled the entire Japanese fleet in terms of fire power 

The 3rd Pacific Fleet consisted of an older battleship and some armored cruisers.  These fleets joined up right before the battle of Tsushima.  Well, we all know had that turned out....

In addition to Capital ships (cruisers and battleships) the Russians had 8 Destroyer Flotillas and 2 Torpedo Boats flotillas involved in the conflict.

All of these models are 1/2400 resin 3D prints from War Times Journal.  Fantastic models but a bit on the delicate side.

Well, if one is going to do the Russian fleet from the RJW, one should also do the Japanese equivalent also, so please meet the Imperial Japanese Fleet.

The heart of the fleet are its 8 battleships - 6 first class ships and 2 smaller obsolete ones.  Both of the obsolete battleships would be lost to mines while on blockade duty at Port Arthur.

The Japanese Cruiser force did most of the work during the war

The Japanese employed 4 Destroyer and 7 Torpedo Boat Flotillas.

The Russians were terrified of the Japanese Torpedo Boats and often fired on neutral party fishing boats after mistaking them for the enemy.   This included one infamous incident of the Russians sinking one and damaging 5 other British fishing boats in the North Sea.  This little escapade became known as the "Dodger Bank Incident" and almost lead to War between Britain and Russia.  During the same incident, the Russians fired upon themselves and heavily damaged the cruiser Aurora.

Just for fun, 8 transports were added to serve as objective markers for escort types of engagements.

So there you have it - all of the capital ships that were involved in the RJW in glorious 1/2400 scale.  There are 98 total ship bases and I think the going rate for 1/2400 ships is 2 point per so that nets me a 196 points.  Add on top of that the 20 for the room and this little entry will yield me 216 points 

The Battle of Liaoyang.

These fleets along with my 6mm armies will allow me to game just about any aspect of the RJW there is. 

PeterD "L" Class Destroyers (8 points)

Another four Royal Navy destroyers from my WW2 med theatre project, these representing the four L class destroyers armed with 4" AA guns as main armament.  All four ships served in the Med and were lost there between January and May 1942.  HMS Lance and HMS Lively were part of force K with HMS Aurora and HMS Penelope, which had some notable successes in its brief history.

The design history of the L/M class destroyers had a number of bumps that were unfortunately matched by my attempt to proceed models for the ships.  Fresh not the heels of the highly successful J/K class of destroyers, the naval design team decided to do what all designers do and improve a good thing by changing to a new main armament.  The new 4.7" gun fired a bigger shell, had some high angle capability and had an improved gun house.  But it never worked as an effective AA gun and and the director was overweight giving structural issues.  Simulatenoulsy the RN had an internal bun fight over the best light AA guns for destroyers, and the class was initially designed without any light AA while this was sorted out.  As a result four of the "L" class were given 8 4" AA guns in stead of the 6 4.7" of the other 12 L&M classes. 

HMSs Lively, Lance, Legion and Gurkha.  I need to redo the label on HMS Legion as it badly smudged.

So onto the model issues.  GHQ does not do either an L or M class destroyer but CinC does three different ones!  One is clearly an M class with the 4.7" mounts - these were big enough that the Italians thought the ships were cruisers on first meeting- but there are two labeled L class AA.  I ordered a pack of 5 based on what I could see on the website  and had these prepped and primed for the start of the challenge.  However, when I opened Mal Wright's excellent book on Naval Camouflage I noted that the rear guns mounts on the models didn't match the pictures in the book.  This likely wouldn't bother anyone else but having researched and ordered models to fit particular ships it bothered me.  So I went bak to the CinC webstore and ordered the other pack of L class AA destroyers which do look like the pictures i the book and those are what I've shown above.  I can't figure out what the other casting is supposed to represent but it sure as heck ain't an L class destroyer.  These casts became some of my greyscale unidentified sightings along with the extra correctly modelled L class, since CinC sells these in a pack of 5 and there were only 4 ships.

 

Challengers who paid attention while watching Sesame Street will note that Gurkha does not start with an L.  The ships was originally to be named HMS Larne but this was changed in honour of the tribal class destroyer lost in 1941.  The Gurkha regiments did a crowd fund to pay for the ship and command was given to the brother of an officer in the Gurkhas.

Excuse the ramblings, but to sum up that is 8 points for 4 hulls in 1/2400 which also count towards my Naval Side duel efforts.

From PeterD Freccia Class DDs (10 points)

AdamC noted that my shipyards seemed quiet of late, but there has been some work going on.  Here are four more WW2 destroyers in 1/2400 scale.  All  models are CinC.

The three ships with the candy stripe foredecks are Italian Freccia class destroyers.  There were four of this class and four more in the similar Folgore class plus modified ships sold for export to Greece and Turkey.  The Italian ships fought hard and all of them were lost during the war.  The stripes were for aircraft recognition, added after the Regia Aeronautica bombed the Regia Marina early in the war.

The final ship is another Paynes' Greyscale unidentified bogey for for of war purposes.  She is sold by CinC as a British L class destroyer (but isn't... that story with my next post).

That is 4 hulls at 2 points each for a grand total of 8 points.  These points count against my total in the Naval Side duel, but I'm long since left in the other's wake on that front.