The Arrival of the Panzerschiffe Order

WW1 warships straight out of the box. The front four are the Germans (with the Seydlitz cast in very light grey epoxy resin) whilst he RN bring up the rear - battle cruisers on the left and battleships on the right - the largest of which being H.M.S. Agincourt

Hurrah! After a mere 17 days my order from Panzerschiffe has arrived. Overall the style and quality is as I expected with a basic level of detail but certainly more than adequate for my needs. They actually fit in very nicely with the Stonewall models so the collection can be completed in my chosen scale of 1/2400th without having to resort to GHQ and C in C for the extra models. This is just as well as they would work out rather more expensive!

S.M.S. Seydlitz - complete with, ahem, battle damage....The bow has not come out in the mould and the gun barrels on the rear turrets have broken on the left hand side. Replacements have been requested although I could, at a pinch, fix them myself.

A couple of the models have some mould issues so I will be acquiring replacements - I could probably fix the issues myself but is pressed but to be honest I would rather have the casting replaced. They are pretty good for gaming pieces and I will happily add to the collection in due course. Sharp eyed readers will have noticed that I have purchased two Moltke class battle cruisers - well I will need to rebadge one for the Turks!

H.M.S. Agincourt (left) and Erin - both of which were being built for the Turkish navy but requisitioned under Churchill's orders in 1914.

I now have everything I need for the first phase of this collection and have some 69 models left to paint over the next three weeks.

Best get a move on then!

Doing exactly what it says on the tin....

I managed to sneak in an hour or so with a paintbrush yesterday but it was fraught with peril! My trusty tin of Humbrol 'Mast Oak' has finally expired. This tin of enamel paint was probably around 30 years old and had been rescued with the application of some thinners on several occasions but when I opened it the mass of paint had finally turned into liquefied mess of granules with little covering capacity.

I had seen this coming and indeed, had discussed the same with Mr Fox who very kindly acquired some Vallejo paints in the appropriate shade to be collected in due course.

This did not resolve the immediate problem so I decided to have a rummage in my paint storage (the 'Old Tins home' if you like....) to see if I had another tin. As suspected, the search drew a blank BUT, I did manage to find another Humbrol Authenticolour that could feasibly be used - certainly the shade was close enough. The new tin (actually it had been opened which could have spelled disaster as I have no idea when I last used it!) is yet another Humbrol Authenticolour, this time from the Ancients set - 'Unbleached Linen'.

This is absolutely close enough to the original shade as not to present any problems and the paint merely needed a good stir to be ready for action. Panic over and so I was able to tackle the wooden decking for the next 7 ships for the Royal Navy with a view to finishing this bunch by the weekend.

A Funny and Thoughtful Old Weekend

Funny as in I was not able to get anything done that I planned to but I did manage to get some things tackled that I was not expecting to...

We had nothing specific planned for the weekend (with the exception of tomorrow so I was hoping to get some more work done on the 1/2400th scale ships. Sadly this was not to be but by way of compensation SWMBO and I were able to get to our local boot sale where the two titles above were acquired - each of which costed the paltry sum of 50p making my expenditure the princely amount of £1!

One for sheer inspiration value!

Redcoats and Richard Holmes need no introduction from me and so his overview of the period of the Red-coated British Soldier is a welcome addition to the library. The much maligned, usually despised but incomparable British 'other rank' forms the subject matter of the title - from the taking of the King's shilling, barrack life, active service, punishment and life under the colours. This is one I shall savour.

Something for a possible project in due course - I have always fancied using an Arab Conquest army ever since WRG 6th edition. As I recall you could field the entire army as Irregular A fanatics with the morale advantage of a sacred banner!

In the Shadow of the Sword by Tom Holland is another kettle of fish entirely. The book provides an overview of the 'end of the ancient world' - more specifically the years following the withering of the Roman Empire (in the West) and the aftermath of the early Arab conquests. It is not a military history as such although naturally this features during those turbulent years. I have long been interested in the Arab Conquest so this will provide a welcome backdrop to the period.

The only other things of note this weekend is that I have decided to paint my 6 ft by 4 ft folding gaming table in the same shade as that which I am using for my 1/2400 th models - cobalt turquoise. It will not be gridded though. I have also come to a decision about the rules I shall be using as well....;-)

Whoops! I did it again....

Now here's the thing. I have been looking long and hard at the Jutland rules produced in the old Avalon Hill boardgame of the same name and have been pondering accordingly. I have also been revisiting Paul Hague's outstanding Sea Battles in Miniature and sure enough - a light bulb moment occurred and so I think that a fusion of the two may be viable option for my WW1 naval project.

Great idea I thought.

But wait a second - this idea was ringing some long distance bells - I wonder why?

Then it came to me -  Jutland Sea Battles in Miniature - was a blog post from way back in 2012 that I had forgotten about. Not only had I forgotten about but I had also forgotten about the great pile of notes I had made to go with it - notes that were quite close to being ready to turn into a draft set of rules!

No prizes then for guessing what is coming next....

Next on the painting tray is....

I have just based, undercoated and applied the first dry brush coat to the next eight models for the 1/2400th scale WW1 collection. There are two each of the Queen Elizabeth, Revenge and Orion classes for the Royal Navy, together with a further Lion and finally an additional Kaiser class as the sole reinforcement for the Germans. Whilst I have been in a capital ship painting frenzy I thought that maintaining the enthusiasm with this latest batch would be a good idea so I will tackle them before the destroyers and the Panzerschiffe models. I am planning on having this latest batch of models completed over the following weekend.

I have discovered that one of the advantages of using enamels for this project is that I have to paint 'little and often' as the paint needs to dry properly before moving on to the next coat - which is not usually a problem with acrylics so I am led to believe. Given the limited time I have available during the week due to work this means grabbing the odd half an hour to paint some models is not overly taxing and it fits in quite well with the domestic routine. Probably just as well really as I suspect that SWMBO would take a dim view of me disappearing straight from work into the man cave for hours at a time every night of the week....;-)

You may recall that I mentioned that I had hit a minor problem in respect of the destroyers for the Germans. the only model that Stonewall produce in this category is described as a T class destroyer. To say that this is not helpful is something of an understatement....

After careful studying of Conway's, Jane's and the recently acquired Ian Allen title it appears that the model available actually represents the final dozen ships of the series - T 186 to T 197 (to be accurate the last 11 of the 12 as one was modified to look rather differently from her sisters). The dozen prior to these looked sufficiently close enough in general layout (the main difference with the fifty odd vessels prior to these was that they carried 3 torpedo tubes rather than 4) so will feature in the German fleet but it does raise the problem of acquiring some post 1911 models. Luckily Panzerschiffe cover a number of types and even C in C and GHQ could be used - I reckon I will only need a couple of dozen in any event so we will have to see what we can find in due course.

In the meantime though, the order into Panzerschiffe for the gap filling of the battleships and battle cruisers has been placed and I will posting the pictures and review once they arrive in a couple of weeks.

The First of the Royal Navy Dreadnoughts

The First of the Royal Navy Dreadnoughts

To start the Royal Navy off in the dreadnought battleship department I opted to tackle a selection of the first 12" gun armed types with some of the later 13.5" classes. For the former this meant the Bellerophons and the follow on St. Vincents whilst the latter were the King George V and Iron Duke classes. In time I will add some of the other 12" types as well as the missing Orions from the 13.5" range. There are some odd ships to be considered - Agincourt, Erin and Canada for example - and I will also want to add some of the 15" types just to round off the collection but whilst the former are some way off the latter is in hand.

The models use my black undercoat with successive dry brushing with grey and with details blocked in. The key difference between the two fleets is that the Royal Navy start with a darker grey as the base (Humbrol Medium Gull Grey). I have used the same colour for the decks for both sides (Humbrol Mast Oak - and I need to find out what the modern equivalent is pretty darned quickly!) and my usual convention of the ships boats being white. Once again the models are from Stonewall Miniatures and are from the former Micro Matrix range.

The Bellerophon class - these followed on from the original H.M.S. Dreadnought and were virtually identical to look at.  

The St.Vincent class carried a more powerful 12" gun than the earlier class and had narrower funnels but I have used the earlier Bellerophon casting as it is close enough looking - thereby ensuring eternal damnation at the hands of the rivet counters!

The King George V class were the second of the 13.5" types - the first of which were the Orions. I have a couple of these to paint which will feature in the next batch.

The final class of 13.5" armed battleships were the Iron Dukes which also featured the 6" gun for the secondary weapons, with the previous classes mounting 4" weapons.

The fleet flagship under Sir John Jellicoe

The next batch of capital ships to paint are the last of the Stonewall metal models and feature some 7 for the Royal Navy and a single Kaiser class battleship for the Germans. The disparity will get even larger when I get the Panzerschiffe models in as the Royal Navy will be gaining a further 6 ships whilst the Germans will gain only 4.

Some of the metal models will need some preparation before painting (removing the tripods from the Orion class to start with!) so the next batch of models will be the 56 destroyers - of which the 24 I have for the Germans have hit a minor snag - more of which later.

Timely Arrivals and a Milestone

I arrived home yesterday evening (at my usual time of 7:35pm) to a welcome package from Stonewall Miniatures. Contained therein were the missing ships from mt 1/2400th WW1 collection including some Orion and Revenge class battleships, a Lion class battle cruiser and, to make up the minimum order required, a Hipper class cruiser from WW2. The castings need a little attention - specifically the Orion class as I will have to remove the rather awkward tripod foremast. I have removed the masts from all of my models for a couple of reasons. Firstly, they never seem to come out cleanly (to be fair the moulds are getting on a little) and secondly for gaming purposes they tend to get in the way. I realise that for C in C and GHQ these are included but they make for a fragile model - at least for me they do - and anyway, the Panzerschiffe types do not seem to have any and the Stonewall models will need to fit in with them from an aesthetic perspective.

Mention of the Hipper will probably give a small clue as to where the collection will be heading once the WW1 models are completed - and for the record the casting is very nice indeed. She will be accompanying my previously painted model of the Bismarck on a foray into the North Atlantic at some point in the future.

I managed to make a start on the bases for the British battleships but did not get very far before tiredness kicked in so I opted to stop for fear of messing something vital up!

I noticed as well that I have managed to pass 250,000 page views - this is a quite astonishing achievement and so my humble thanks go out to everybody that follows my ramblings or that just drops by from time to time. I am coming up to the fifth anniversary of the blog so an average of 50K per year is pretty good going. I am conscious though that my blogging has slowed down somewhat due to work over the last year but many thanks to all for your continued support - it is, as ever, hugely appreciated.