The next ship or boat is ready to go into the silicone. I will do the mould today.
I am really a bit frightened about how the air vents will show up on the resin cast. We will see tomorrow.
If all works out well “Das Boot” will be available next week.
Here are the latest pictures of the MS Louisa. i added three different loads for the hold of the ship. Coal, wood and assorted boxes .
This will add a little diversity to my feet of coastal frighters.
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.
Here are the pictures of the finished Hunt Typ II DE for Cruel Seas. The only thing missing is the anchors and anchor chain. Then a coat of PVA and mouldmaking can start.
It will take until next week to do the moulds and the first casts as i will be at Salute next weekend so no more modeling for a wile. I will post pictures of  Salute next week!
Here are a few pictures of the work I did lately on the Hunt class destroyer escort. The superstructure is nearly completed now. But there are enough things to do like putting on all the detail wich is printed on the card but will be lost when casting. So all the dogs and vents have to be glued on again etc. furthermore the main armament has to be build the AA armament will be from Warlord.
More to come….
I painted up some more boats for cruel seas. First up a trawler:
And two Dog Boats ( Fairmile D):
The first one is a standard Warlord one .
The second is changed by reducing the torpedo armament and increasing the gun armament:
Haven’t used them in a game yet . So can’t say if the increased guns are worth it. The models are all from Warlord . Some of the weapons on the second Dog boat are scratch build.
The Royal Navy had identified the need for two types of destroyer: larger vessels with heavy gun and torpedo armaments for fleet work and another type for escort duties. Although old fleet destroyers could be allocated to escort work, they were unsuitable for the task and new construction replaced them. Fleet destroyers were designed for speed and their machinery was inefficient at convoy speeds, reducing their range. Their shape made them poor sea boats at low speed, also exacerbated by additional equipment on the superstructure. Modifications were needed to ease these problems.
The escort vessels forsook the heavy armament and some of the speed of the fleet type to reduce unit cost and better suit mass production and the conditions. This new “fast escort vessel” was later classified as an “escort destroyer”.
Eighty-six Hunts were completed, of which 72 were commissioned into the Royal Navy and the remaining 14 were transferred to allied navies;
| General characteristics Type II | |
|---|---|
| Displacement: |
|
| Length: | 85.3Â m (279Â ft 10Â in |
| Beam: | 9.6Â m (31Â ft 6Â in) |
| Draught: | 2.51Â m (8Â ft 3Â in) |
| Propulsion: |
|
| Speed: |
|
| Range: | 3,600 nmi (6,700Â km) at 14Â kn (26Â km/h) |
| Complement: | 164 |
| Armament: |
|
Eighteen were ordered on 4 September 1940 and two more (Lauderdale and Ledbury) on the following day. Three of these were completed to the Type I specification – Blankney, Blencathra and Brocklesby. A final batch of sixteen were ordered on 20 December 1939. ( from Wikipedia)
This time I wanted to try a , may be easier, different way. I got a paper craft model of the Hunt Typ II (ORP Slazak) from JSCÂ in 1/400
The model also comprises an English G class Destroyer and a small coaster/fishing vessel
As the model is in 1/400 I had to increase the size of the parts by about 30%. After doing that with a photocopying machine I started building the model like explained in the assembly instructions. The only difference being to fill all the hollow spaces with extruded polystyrene to make it sturdy enough for casting.
The next step was filling and sanding to get a rough hull, the hull of the Warlord vosper is for size comparison, The Hunt is rather large in 1/300 ( about 28 cm)
Next the paper hull sides were glued in , before that I punched out all the bulleyes to get them 3d for casting.
That is how far I got up to today. What do you think?
I added the last little details to the steamer Rheinland. She will be prepared for casting today and I think I might manage doing the molds tomorrow then. I took pictures of her alongside the tanker from warlord for size comparison .
So as this build nears completion I am open for suggestions what should be next. I am thinking about doing a generic cargo vessel size will be in-between the tanker from warlord and a liberty ship. So length would be around 24 cm. Any more suggestions? What is missing for cruel Seas?
As I started with cruel Seas ( see last post) , I decided that I would need more costal steamers for convoys. One tanker is not enough. Therefore i started to look for old plans of coastal steamers in the WWW.
As i often travel to the north sea island Borkum I started to look for plans of old steam ships with brought the tourists over to the island during the 1930-1940. These ships were called “Bäderschiffe” in German. I found plans for the steamship Rheinland with was build in 1926.
The Rhineland was build at the Vulcan ship builders at Hamburg. She was 57m long and 8,7 m wide. She could carry 613 passengers and had overnight accommodation for the crew. She had two engines reaching 12,5 knt. She was coal fired.
This postcard shows the Rheinland after 1933 as she shows the banner ” Kraft durch Freude” in front of the bridge.
The Rheinland serviced the line between Emden and Borkum and Borkum-Helgoland as well as Helgoland-Hamburg. During the second world war she serviced this line and was used to ferry refugees through the baltic sea. She was used until 1968 . In 1960 she was rebuild and looked very differently from what you see above.
Above are some old postcard pictures of the steamer. the color picture shows her sometime after 1933 as the bridge looks different after 1933.
I will build her as she looked when brand new in 1929.
As usual I use cardboard and extruded polystyrene for my model building. Here are some pictures of the building process so far . Oh, I forgot to tell, the model is in 1/300 or 6mm , the scale of Cruel seas. The model could be used as a Sperrbrecher or similar war time use in the games.
And a picture with a Vosper from Warlord for size comparison:
For a x mas present to myself I got the cruel seas starter box. I just finished painting the first miniatures for the game. The miniatures are made from plastic ( S-boats and Vospers) the bigger ships like the coastal tanker are made from resin and metal. Included in the starter box are the torpedo markers and everything else you need to play. The rules are quite nice and give a very fast paced game. Alas in the first edition there were many mistakes in the rulebook so that warlord published grata 14 days after release of the game. Despite these problems at the start the game is really good. I like it and will play it a lot. There are some issues with torpedo shooting but nothing wich can’t be tweaked if not liked as written.
I will write a run through the rules later.
Here are the miniatures. I got the starter and the tanker model. As said above the tanker is resin and metal the other boats are plastic as are the torpedo markers.
Here is the tanker model:
I built it strait out of the box. If I built it again I would replace the metal masts with brass wire ones for sturdiness. It is a nice little coastal tanker so don’t expect a ocean going ship it is a smallish coastal steamer. But that is the kind of ship you would expect to find as prey by the S boats or vospers in the channel.
Next up the two Vospers. There are two different Vosper versions in the basic game. A later war version with 4 torpedo tubes and an early version with 2 torpedo tubes.
The masts are quite thick , but I think these is to keep them from braking when gaming with them. at least these are wargaming models so have to be more sturdy then scale models. I think that I will replace the plastic masts with brass wire ones when I build my other boats. If you look closely at the bridge of the two tube Vosper boat you can see some crew in the bridge area. They are from the tanker model.
Next up is the S 38 Schnellboot.
Again the boat is build strait out of the box with the addition of brass fotoetched railings and some Tamya crew figures. The railing is 1/350 scale ( the boats are 1/300 scale) but i think it fits quite nicely. The crew figures instead are only 2 dimensional ones I wouldn’t use them again. I will wait for the warlord metal figures and replace them.
Here is the S100 Schnellboot with armored bridge.
Again with fotoetched railing and to be exchanged Tamya crew figures. The Splash markers are resin casts done by myself. I didn’t like the ones in the starter box. By the way the gaming mat is by Deepcut studio.
Here are some shots of a test game of the scenario which will be played at this years Kiepencon in Münster Germany .
Torpedo hit on the Tanker:
Marker done by me in resin.
Altogether a wonderful game and nice miniatures will definitely do more here. The only thing missing is more coastal cargo vessels . I will probably scratch and cast some in the near future to have convoys with more ships.
First up will be a former northsea island steamer . The Rheinland build in the 1920. So stay tuned!
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