Friday, November 28, 2014

Napoleonic Sailing Ships - French

One component of my collection that hasn't gotten any time on the blog as yet is my 1:1200 Napoleonic sailing ships. James and Mark in Australia have been posting their adventures at sea, trying out rules for the Age of Sail, and my opponent at Ellis Con, Andy, was talking about the Close Action rules.  That made me haul out my ships and decide that I need to use them for a game some time in 2015!I am going to start with my French fleet today. For the way they got gobbled up by their British opposition, they might perhaps be termed the Fruits de Mer!



First up are 2 small ships - sloops/Brigs or what have you. The designs for the flags ensigns, and pennons come from a great article in the old Courier more than 20 years ago.


The 20 gun Senarmont is in the lead, with the 16 gun Sabre following behind.


Next up is a pair of  French frigates - "the eyes of the Fleet"


.Here the 38 gun Saphire is first,


 followed by the smaller 32 gun Xanthus.


Now we come to the Ships of the Line. For my French fleet, I have used yellow for the hull stripes that form the checkerboard pattern when the gun ports are opened. Different colors will be used for these in my other fleets to help differentiate them better. Not entirely historical, but a useful device, and I'm the Admiral so what I say goes!


This time the 74 gun Imperial leads off, while the smaller 64 gun Trident follows in her wake. 


The 64;s were really an outmoded design by the Napoleonic Wars, and were weak for participation in the Line of Battle, but still saw use regardless.  The British especially later converted some of their 64's to 44 gun frigates by cutting of the top decks, called Razees, in part in an effort to counter the large, excellent American frigates. It was an experiment that was less than entirely successful!


Next are a pair of 74 gun Ships of the Line. I made the ratlines (pronounced "rattlin's, which is probably what they did a lot of when they were climbed to access the masts and rigging) out of the nylon grid like material used for wool hooking craft projects, spay painted black. Not the most elegant, but quick, easy, and sturdy. I think it enhances the look of the ships considerably.


The 74 gun Aquilon is to the fore


and her sister ship, the 74 gun Mercure, is aft.


Another pair of French SOL. I did the minimum rigging on my ships, using my trusty spool of black thread and some Duco cement. Even that was a pain in the butt to do, honestly, so no way am I ever going to try to replicate the complex rigging of a tall ship in any more detail. 
 Still, even this little bit enhances the look, I think.


In the lead this time we have the 80 gun Couronne. The 80 gun ships were a French design, and one much admired by the British - they were always happy to capture one! Ironically, on average French ship designs were probably better than the British ones. It was in the experience of the men and officers at handling their complex ships and their guns where the French generally fell short. The broad pennant flying from the main mast indicates that a Commodore is aboard her. 


The second ship of this duo is the 74 gun Orion. I have long been a fan of the constellation Orion, probably the easiest constellation by far to pick out in Northern skies on cold winter nights - note the famous "under the heel of Orion" reference in the Thanksgiving proclamation of Gov. Wilbur Cross in my previous post! Orion is the great Hunter of Greek mythology so a fitting name for a ship. For many years, we had an (excellent) oncologist on our Medical staff with the first name of Orion - very cool name!


Here are my last two French SOL. The bases are artist's matting board. After the ships are glued down, I then uses plaster of Paris, which is applied to the bases, and shaped using a popsicle stick. Once the plaster dries, it is painted with a diluted aqua color, with deeper blues in the stiller areas. The "wave crests" are then dry  brushed with a slightly off white color. The whole ship and base is then sprayed pretty heavily with varnish.


The lead ship is the massive 112 gun triple decker, the Pierre. Needless to say, this is a bit of petty egotism on my part, there having been no first rate of that name in the French navy! The French ensign flying from the mizzen mast of the Pierre indicates that she is the Flagship.


The following ship is another 74-gun ship, the Etoile ("star"). 


I'll conclude this post on my version of la marine Francais with some group photos. First this one from the starboard.


An albatross eye's view of the Fleet. (I know the pennons wouldn't generally stream to towards the bow due to the wind directions need for the ship to make way, so call some of them artistic license!)


The French fleet as seen from the fore!


A final view of the 12 ships of my French fleet from aft.

23 comments:

  1. Nice looking ships, a beautiful fleet!

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  2. I think I'd probably have the flags flying forward rather than aft, but slightly off to starboard, say. This could present a little bit of a problem for the flag flying at the stern (was this pole a jack-staff?). In my very small windjammer navies, i like to have the sails rigged as if the vessel were on a broad reach, starboard tack, say. Admittedly it would look a little odd of the wind were coming from the wrong quarter, but no more strange than a vessel rigged for running having to beat close-hauled to windward.

    I think your 20-gun ship-rigged sloop, Senarmont, would have been called a corvette in French terminology. or a 'jackass frigate' in the Royal Navy's colourful parlance.

    This is a very fine fleet, Gonsalvo, and I agree: the added rigging and 'rattlins' add just that little extra 'something' to their appearance. The yellow and black looks pretty effective, though I understand that the French often painted their vessels other colours as well. How do you plan to paint the Royal Navy - black-and-yellow again, black-and-white (equally elegant) or some other scheme?

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  3. All navies used a variety of paint schemes; my RN ships will have white stripes on the strakes. Then there are my Spanish and Du itch ships...

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  4. Another "secret" project! Great stuff and looking for more. Do you have any BatReps from past actions?

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  5. Wonderful looking ships! My wife - who loves age of sail gaming - is incredibly jealous!

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  6. My ships are an underutilized part of the Collection. I have a battle report for the Battle of the Nile, played in 2001 ([published in MWAN)., which I may post eventually. We did the battle of the Saintes maybe 5 years before that. We did a LOT of battles from our campaign with older ship models back in the 1970's.

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  7. Good looking fleet. The rigging makes them much more "finished," IMHO.

    I'd like to see the AAR from the Nile.

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    1. I have the Text of the AAR; have to see if I can find the actual scenario and OOB. Could take me a while!

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  8. They look fabulous Peter. Look forward to seeing them in action in '15.
    At our end Julian has a copy of the 4th edition of Signal Close Action, so we'll be using them or one of the other sets he has for us to try in our next game, also next year.
    So, it will be all water in 2015, of the loo kind AND sea water—haha!

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    1. Thanks, James. We'll have to see what we can do to get then seaward! I look forward to your explorations of additional Age of Sail rules sets!

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  9. Great looking ships indeed! I really envy that rigging. Maybe someone will do rigging on the aftermarket for Ares ships one day. How long have you had them, what rule sets have you used in the past and which are your favourite set?!

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    1. Thanks, Julian. The very minimal rigging I did wasn't that hard to do. Anything approaching a full job would drive me insane, though! I'm sure there are people who will do rigging out there, for a price, of course!

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    2. The ships go back over 20 years, probably 25+ I have used Ship of the Line (the miniatures set that "wooden Ships, Iron Men", "Don't Give up the Ship", and Tough Men, Iron Balls", an unofficial Piquet variant for the age of Sail. I rather liked the later, as it plays quickly and not too fiddly.

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  10. A mighty fine fleet. The bases are superb and the flags are great and bold. It will be great to see them in action.

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    1. Thanks; they do need to get into "close action".

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  11. Excellent work! Even minimal, the rigging looks great.

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    1. Thanks, Iannick. I think it works to "suggest": the rigging sufficiently for mkst of us, if not a true age of Sail fanatic! :-)

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  12. Great collection of ships! One day when I'm richer I'll get someone to do all the rigging on a couple of fleets for me. :)

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    1. Don't think II'll ever we rich enough for that, LOL, but I'm pretty happy with them as they are!

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