A Gunboat Distraction

Where I am at so far. The ‘sandwich filling’ is a piece of 1mm thick card - the hull is not glued yet and is posed solely for the picture - which will painted prior to assembly for the black line around the hull you see below. The end result will bear a passing resemblance to the model in the picture but as usual there will be shortcuts taken and detail fudged!

A rather lovely model of the USS San Pablo

I know, I know - I should be building ironclads, models for Lake Tanganyika, designing models for the ‘Afrabia’ or writing Developing The Portable Ironclads Wargame! So what am I doing then?

Well it is still something Steamer Wars related - but it is something of a minor diversion all the same.

I offer no apologies, I am as weak as the next wargamer!

It was only a couple of years ago that I first watched the film The Sand Pebbles starring Steve McQueen, Richard Crenna and Richard Attenborough. The film tells the story of the fictional US gunboat - the San Pablo - serving in China in the early 1920s. She is there to protect US interests in the area set against a backdrop of increasing anti-foreign sentiment. 

I decided to build a model of the San Pablo and obviously I will need to build some opposition in the shape of some armed Sampans and Junks. Thinking about it, China gunboats could make for a cracking mini campaign or Steamer Wars supplement - all the Great Powers had a presence of sorts following the Boxer Uprising and the revolution of 1911 that ultimately led to civil war.

The model I am building is 4” long with a beam of 1 1/4”. The hull consists of two pieces of 3mm thick MDF and the 1mm card ‘filling’ making it 7mm from the main deck to the waterline. I will not be adding the awnings and the ventilators amidships will be missing. As you can see from the picture above I have fashioned what will be the main deck superstructure so next will be the upper deckhouses etc. I will be painting as much as possible prior to assembly so this build will have incorporated several lessons learned from the Lake Tanganyika collection.

I also need to think about the aforementioned sampans and junks, not to mention a rope barrier…. ;-)