After having finally completed the USS Indianola I have been able to apply myself to the previously mentioned task of refurbishing the casemate ironclads. If you recall I was originally intending to merely replace the gun ports and the pilot houses. Needless to say, events have moved on from this idea and so I am now finding myself changing the hulls on four out of the five models as well!
As built I had opted for small, medium and large sizes of ship and these were very generic looking. That is fine up to a point but further research has meant that I needed a rethink. The actual casemate on the Confederate vessels as a rule grew smaller as the war progressed - mainly due to shortages of iron for the cladding. Another consideration tied in with this was the development of the lozenge shaped casemate - which I had not built. The net result was that my my small conventionally shaped casemate would not really be usable as the smaller ironclads seemed to make more use of the lozenge shape. having sweat blood making the things I was not about to sacrifice them so I have decided that the smallest casemates (1" long across the top with a footprint of 1 1/4") will be given the longest hulls and used as the CSS Texas and the CSS Columbia - both of which were over 200ft long so will be around the 3 1/4" length. The two medium sized casemates (measuring 1 1/4" with a footprint of 1 1/2") will be placed on hulls of around 2 1/2" and commissioned as the CSS Raleigh and CSS North Carolina. The final casemate I have which is a whopping 2" long will now go on a hull around 2 3/4" long and will appear as the CSS Missouri - one of three centre wheel ironclads used by the Confederacy. If this seems hugely complex then don't worry - the pictures when they are ready will make everything clear! This does mean of course that I will also be making a pair of lozenge type casemates ironclads in due course....
Finally, my order from Peter Pig arrived for the large and medium deck guns and they are absolutely brilliant! This means I can give some teeth to the Confederate rams/gunboats and the two versions of the General Price. I hope to get all this work completed over the weekend as well as the CSS Baltic and possibly the USS Essex.
Busy times indeed - but it will be worth it!
No comments:
Post a Comment