With the exception of the brush varnishing and adding the newly arrived flags where possible, the last of the models for this phase of the ACW project are finished. The C.S.S. Georgia has been added to the Confederate strength in two versions - as a pure floating battery or as a very slow (max speed 2 knots!) ironclad. I have yet to christen her/them although needless to say I have a few ideas....They are deliberately different sizes because I wanted whichever version was being used in a game to have some table ‘presence’. This means that the pure floating battery variant - essentially the armoured casemate - is larger than that on the full ‘ship’ variant. As none of the models I have built so far are even remotely close to being in scale it does not really matter.
I plan to run a game with the models later in the week which will of course feature on the blog when fought. I have also been thinking long and hard about rules to use with the models and have come to the conclusion that for naval games it you are going to use a grid then a square version may be better - mainly due to the eight ‘natural’ compass points you can use. I have a couple of ideas around this that I shall be looking further into over the coming weeks. For now though I shall persevere with the hexed set I have been experimenting with.
The next building programme will be for Madasahatta so I have been closely at various gunboat designs and the potential use of armed merchant cruiser types. The only problem is that I have a real urge to build some pre dreadnought battleships!
I will post some pictures of the fleets in their entirety once they have their flags. This may not be until after Christmas though as a number of the ships will need to have flagstaffs added which will require careful drilling as I had forgotten to allow for these. Rumour has it that there may be Dremel kit arriving for Christmas - just the thing for the budding naval architect!
Looking good Dave, looking good!
ReplyDeleteNice work David and good to have both options for the ship. Looking forward to reading the AAR fromt he game.
ReplyDeleteHello there Ray,
ReplyDeleteThank you old chap! I am looking to get them in action later this week.
All the best,
DC
Hi there Steve J,
ReplyDeleteI don’t know why but I seem to have no end of problems with these two! By my reckoning I think have three more casemate style ironclads to build in the next batc for the Union but other than that it will be easier overall. I need to design some templates for the paddle steamers which will be going to Warbases but other than that all is well.
The game should in the next couple of days - I have a modest sized scenario in mind which will fit in well with the gradually evolving back story.
All the best,
DC
Hi David -
ReplyDeleteDo you know - I never actually knew that was what they did with CSS Georgia. I cut the bow and stern from a casemate ironclad I made, leaving just the fighting box, then didn't know what to do with it! Not sure whether I've still get it, come to that.
You expressed some interest in my OBC ACW riverine naval rule set. It is actually a slight adaptation of a OBC set published in some magazine or other about 30 years ago. I'll see if I can't fetch it out from dark recess and write it up in one of my postings.
Cheers,
Ion
Hello there Archduke.
ReplyDeleteApparently the C.S.S. Georgia was designed so that at speed (?) only the casemate would be visible above water and most of the illustrations I have seen just show her as a box. Clearly if she was intended as a ram she would have had something at the pointed end! Some of the original plans show her as I have built the ‘ship’ version (with a little artistic license) but to be honest both are conjectural. No matter, they are what they are!
Many thanks re the rules - I am at that happy stage of looking through numerous sets, adopting and adapting mechanisms and then giving it all up and going back to the set I first thought of!
All the best,
DC