Recently there seems to be a bit of a surge, or at least a simmering, of interest in the period, and I've been struggling with a mammoth Dutch Wars project, so perhaps it's time to take a break from that and take another run at la Guerra del Pacifico.
I've gone round and round in circles, and have about 30 tabs open in my browser, mostly in Spanish, and there are still bits I'm none the wiser about! Lot's of fudging, guessing and handwaving here, so don't take any of this as gospel, and particularly don't count on my paint schemes - many of these are generic placeholders till I work out what I'm doing.
Chile
Blanco Encalada & Almirante Cochrane
O'Higgins & Chacabuco
These are wooden hulled screw corvettes. Don't be fooled by TD's descriptions - "ASV15 Screw Corvette x2" are actually smaller ships with a schooner rig. "ASV11 Screw Sloop x1" is more what I'd consider a corvette.
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| ASV11 "Screw Sloop" |
Abtao
Another corvette, built about the same time.
Code: ASV11
Esmeralda
Tricky one this. Just over half the displacement of the Abtao, but only a few feet shorter. I think the least bad fit would be another ASV11, but could also be ASV15 maybe?
Magallanes
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| ASV15 "Screw Corvette" |
An iron hulled gunboat 200' long. I'm using ASV15.
Covadonga
I'm going with another ASV15 for this one, although she's quite a bit smaller than the Magallanes. The other option would be to use the "ASV13 Screw Gunboat x3", but I'm keeping those to be the Peruvian harbour defence boats.
Toltén
A French built paddle steamer with an iron hull. I've written in my notes 130' long, but I can't actually remember where I got that figure from! There's a choice of 3 different sized paddle steamers in the TD range:
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| From left to right: ASV14 Paddle Gunboat, ASV16 Paddle Corvette, ASV12 Paddle Sloop |
Angamos
Here's where it gets tricky. An iron hulled steamer with the funnel set back, and a bloody great 8" Armstrong pivot. The photo above is the only one I can find, but she pops up in a watercolour in Rudolf de Lisle's diary:
Amazonas, Rimac and Loa
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| Amazonas |
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| Rimac or Loa? |
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.armada.cl%2Farmada%2Ftradicion-e-historia%2Funidades-historicas%2Fl%2Fvapor-loa-1%2F2014-02-14%2F103930.html
I've lumped these three together because, although they had different armament, they all appear to be a very similar British merchant steamer design, about 290' long (37mm in scale). Rimac and Loa always seem to crop up on the web as the same photo. The only ship in the TD range that comes even vaguely close is ASV22 Merchant Steamer Great Britain:
I think I might take a look at Hallmark's 1/2400 range for the Lissa period. They do a merchant steamer which might be a better fit, and they also have a few corvettes and gunboats that might be worth looking at.
Nice ships Matt. I’ve made mostly the same modelling decisions. I gave most ships a fairly full set of sails, which is not historical but looks nice. I left the Cochranes mostly I rigged as I’ve read that they unskilled topmasts and yards. I used the older British frigate for Esmeralda, and also for HMS Amazon. The Covadonga is pretty much a dead match visually to that smaller schooner.
ReplyDeleteYes, good call on the Esmeralda. I presume you're referring to ASV8 Small Frigate HMS Arrogant? I'll stick a couple in with my next order to TD.
ReplyDeleteForgot to say, thanks for the info on the lesser known ships toward the end of your post. I was basically shooting blanks on them.
DeleteYou're most welcome, I'm glad it's helpful. It's been a useful exercise for me, just to gather the info in one place, rather than have it spread over random bookmarks and scribbled notes.
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