Just finished reading the book “Coastal Convoys 1939-1945 – The Indestructible Highway”
Very recommended if you are into Cruel Seas. It has dozens of scenario ideas and tells a lot about the colliers and the coasters used in the coastal convoys. abundant information about the escort vessels and the tactics they used and how they changed in the course of the war.
Very recommended . I read the kindle version. You can get the book here.
The ship is finally painted and ready for gaming.
Here you see SS Bellota as part of a little convoy , for size comparison :
The other ships are by warlord games.
More pictures about the build 1 2 3 4 5 If you start looking at the links from No 5 downwards you can see the complete build of the Steamer from plan to finish.
So this weekend saw the Bellota finished in both versions. I added the missing live boats and davids and the masts and rigging. Only thing to add now is some crew and paint .
Here is the ballast version of the ship:
and the loaded version:
as you can see by adding different vent layouts you can create slightly different versions of the ship.
And both together in one picture. The Warlord trawler for size comparison. Next will be different funnels, the tanker and liner versions.
I started with the deckhouses and superstructure:
As you can see I always did a sandwich of extruded polystyrene and card to make it as sturdy as possible. The bridge superstructure and the gun platforms will be done as separate pieces to get rid of the rather large undercuts which would be impossible to cast.
More to follow shortly.
Here is a little quiz! Can you tell which class of ship the next model for Cruel Seas will be?
One more clue: They were used extensively with the east coast / north sea convoys.
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