Friday, March 20, 2015

Napoleonic Ships - British

I saved the biggest and easily most powerful fleet of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars for last - the British, of course. These are the ships of the naval heroes of fiction - Horatio Hornblower, Jack Aubrey, Richard Bolitho and the like, as well as the real life heroes of the Royal Navy - Nelson, Cochrane, Cockburn, Pellew, Jervis and many others.


A pair of British brigs.


20 Gun Champion and the 16 gun Swift.


and a pair of British Frigates.


44 gun  Gladiator and the 38 gun Undaunted.


Posts as captains of Frigates were highly sought after, as they offered more opportunity for independent action... and especially, prize money!


A pair of British Ships of the line - the rather outmoded 64 gun Vigilant and the 74 gun Defiance,


British Admirals were said to be "of the Blue, of the White, or of the Red"; the colors of the pennons flown by the ships under their command were taken from these "squadron" designations. 

Three more British Ships of the Line. 

The 74 gun Terrible, the 74 gun Zealous, and the 74 gun Audacious.


Once a British naval officer attained the exalted rank of Post Captain, promotion to Admiral was strictly by seniority - merit played no role at all! If a Captain lived long enough, promotion to Admiral was virtually guaranteed.  This lead to quite a surplus of Admirals in the fleet. However, the choice of which Admirals to employ and when was entirely up to the Admiralty; thus incompetent (or highly unpopular) Admirals might languish ashore on half pay for years.


Three more British SOL; the lead ship is an immense triple decker. 


The 98 gun Formidable, the 74 gun Invincible, and the 74 gun Conqueror.


Top down view.


Promotion pathway for British Admirals during the Napoleonic Wars (from Wikipedia)



My entire Fleet of 12 British Warships.


Sailing in the column abreast, the fleet seems to be deployed according to "the Nelson Touch", prepared to break the line of the Frenchmen in the distance. 



Top down view of the whole Fleet. 


Finally, a shot of all four fleets, with some shoreline "terrain" pieces.
"Beat to Quarters!"



"Rule, Britannia!" from the last night of the Proms, 2009
I seriously want a costume like that :-)!

16 comments:

  1. Great group of ships, now you need to blood them

    Ian

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    Replies
    1. A few of them were in action this Fall. Contemplating running the Battle of the Nile again, which is an interesting scenario.

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  2. Refreshing to see more of your Age of Sail collection, Peter. While I have dabbled in a model here and there, not a period I have jumped into yet. Age of Sail reminds me of one of our failed group projects. Sigh.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, Jon. It is always sad when a group project doesn't work out as planned, isn't it?

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  3. Very nice Peter, I am presuming 1:1200. Like the flag work.

    John

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    Replies
    1. Thanks, John. Yes, 1; 1200. At least some of the ships were by Santos, not sure about the others.

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  4. An impressive fleet Peter, and I too was wondering what make they were and had never heard of Santos before.

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    Replies
    1. Most of these ships were painted 15 -20 years ago, so I am fuzzy on the manufacturer(s)!

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  5. Looking good Gonsalvo. What length are the 74's? 2 inches?

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    Replies
    1. They are 1: 1200, so the 74's are about 2.5" long.

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    2. Nice. The larger size would look more majestic!

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    3. For really big there are the 1:900 Portsmouth Miniatures ships!

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    4. Ha ha that size is for when your old enough to sit in the bath with a Nelson hat on and no body cares. :)

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