Thursday 28 March 2013

Taking the (Garibaldi) Biscuit....


A Garibaldi class biscuit....


....and a Garibaldi class armoured cruiser in her WW1 finish - they are both tasty but in different ways....(Note the single 10" gun forward and the twin 8" turret aft in the bottom picture, and the currants in the top....)

The Italian designed and built Garibaldi class of armoured cruisers is a study all of its own in terms of what guns went where. As designed she had a single 10" and a twin 8" for the main armament but this varied depending on whoever purchased them. For the navies of Fezia and Rusland I am using four Viking Forge 1:2400th scale models - two of the Japanese Nisshin, Guiseppe Garibaldi herself and the Spanish Cristibal Colon. With the exception of the latter, each model comes with two twin turrets (these are separate from the hull by the way); the Cristobal has a pair of single mount 10" weapons. For each model the hull is identical.

I happily assembled these (at least the first three) but hit a snag with the Cristobal. The hull features two large holes for the turrets to be dropped in - and these are far too large for the single 10" guns provided. I gave this some thought and decided on the following solution. I took the sole Rusland Wien class coastal defence battleship (armed with two twin 9.4" gun turrets) and replaced the turrets with the single 10" guns. So the Wien now looks different from those purchased by Fezia and the Rusland navy now has a poweful cruiser squadron of four Garibaldi class - each with two twin turrets carrying 8" guns except for the ex Cristobal mounting 9.4" weapons.

This should give Fezia something to think about - despite the fact that she is getting some powerful cruisers of her own.

6 comments:

Peter Douglas said...

David

Interesting twist on the Colon. The original went to Santiago without her 10" guns because the Armada rejected them (or was too broke to pay for them). I'm also unsure of what guns she was supposed to mount - I've seen specs with the 2 single 10" turrets and other specs with a single 10" and a twin 8"turret.

I like your solution to the armament problem.

FYI the lower picture appears to have currents if not currants!

Cheers
PD

David Crook said...

Hi Peter,

Twisted Colon? My daughter suffers from that! Seriously though, as far as I have been able to see it was going to be a brace of 10" guns.

A pair of turrets with two 9.4" in each seems like a good fit.

All the best,

DC

Unknown said...

Good looking model and water effects!
Nice to see. Have a Blessed Easter David ... Jeff

David Crook said...

Hi Jeff,

Sadly not mine but she certainly looks good! Have a great Easter!

All the best,

DC

Geordie an Exiled FoG said...

Those 1/2400 ships are cool
In 1/3000 the gun barrels are merged with the decks

Careful you don't bend and break anything

David Crook said...

Hi Geordie,

The model is a 1/1200th scale German manufactured item - sadly not mine! The 1/2400th models from Stonewall have cast on gun barrels (like 1/3000th) but the Viking Forger/C in C/GHQ feature them seperately. All the pre-dreadnoughts I have to tackle (16 in total) are from Viking Forge and I reckon of the three manufacturers named they are the least detailed. They are very nice models though, al the same and knock 1/3000th into a cocked hat - with the possible exception of the WTG range.

All the best,

DC