From PeterD: Sino-Japanese War and Skulls (26 Points)

A few more ships for my ongoing Sino-Japanese war project.  No long history rants this week, as these mostly repeats as I finish off the two starter packs that I got from Tumbling Dice.  The smaller vessels were packaged in twos and in a few cases threes, so I did one of each pack to start with.  Now I am coming back to pick off the second and third models.

First up four Chinese ships - the cruisers Jingyuen, Jiyuan, and Yangwei, plus the torpedo gunboat Kwangyi.  These are all sisters of ships in my last week's posts, so there's not much to add.  Torpedo gunboats (TGBs) were built by most navies in the early 1890s to counter the emerging menace of enemy torpedo boats.  Basically they were a top down approach, small cruisers armed with guns and torpedoes.  They proved too slow to catch a torpedo boat so navies developed the torpedo boat destroyer, soon shortened to destroyer, built as larger torpedo boats and with enough speed to do the job.

Next some Japanese ships, the ironclad Kongo (sister of the Hiei) and the gunboats Yamato (no not that one), Atago and Chokai again sisters of ships posted last week.   Note that I've tried to vary the rigs or flag position of sister ships to provide visual differences.  In the Chokai's case, lost or banjaxed masts meant that she hers were repurposed to other ships and she got wire masts instead.  Also a torpedo boat flotilla to run away from the Chinese TGBs. 

And finally two merchantmen.  The Kowshing was a British flagged vessel sunk in the Battle of Pungdo, initiated by the Japanese before the formal declaration of war (sense a pattern?).   The Cassius (having been born on the Ides of March,  am partial to Big Julie themed names) was repurposed from the second ship in the pack of Guangia class corvettes.   Info on the ships of the Guandong fleet is sparse, but the Guangjia appears to not have had any sister ships.  However, her generally lines were similar to older merchants of the age.

Finally because Barks asked, here's some photos from a recent Skull Tour put on by a colleague's Bio class at our University.

These are various cats.  The big one is a lion with a bullet hole in the forehead.  There wasn't much difference between the bobcat and house cat skulls.

Moose, top and bottom

Beavers.  As any Canadian 5 year old will tell you, those teeth never stop growing and they need to keep chewing wood.

Grizzly, Black and Polar bears.  Note the responsible emphasis on safe boning.

Various weasels and the like (not the ones holding public office).

Back to the ships, there's a total of 12 hulls in 1/2400 scale for a total of 24 points.   

I'm going claim two squirrels points here.  I have completed 13 Chinese hulls (9 posted last week and 4 this week) for 26 points.  I have also completed 16 Japanese hulls (10 last week and 6 this week for 32 points).

My squirrel total now stands at 6:

• Badass Female Pulp Heroines
• Badass Female Nordic Resistance Fighters
• US Navy 1898 (including transports)
• European Intervention squadrons 1898
• Japanese navy 1894-5
• Chinese navy 1894-5 

 ============================

SylvainR: With bright yellow to identify the Chinese fleet, there is no risk of friendly fire. As usual, very fine paint job on your ships and I hope we can try them out on Friday. I will add 2 points for the flags, as per Minion's right. Your display of "Canadian" skulls was very amusing.  Extraordinaire!