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Hi all-
Well, here it is, the current phase of my last construction before
departure.
Purely aghast at the horror of a French ironclad, however decrepit and
obsolescent, stalking the South Seas, it's only a matter of time before
our intrepid Royal British/Brikish (if I may borrow the appellation)
Navy sent a *real* warship on foreign station, one that could whip the
French before withdrawing for High Tea. The ship currently under
construction is intended to be such a vessel--the 1894
line-of-battleship HMS _Queen._
_Queen_ is currently complete up to the armoured deck, and in some
places up to the top deck--these decks will be covered with fine
Imperial teak, but make no mistake that this vessel is at its heart 100%
Birmingham steel. Carrying four 14" naval rifles and a bevy of
medium-calibre (8.1" and 6.2") weapons, _Queen_ will be able to dispose
of enemies large or small, European or "Other". Her construction
particulars incorporate the lessons of modern European naval warfare
which, as we all know, confirms our navy's indefatigable superiority.
That rhetoric aside, _Queen_ is both a joy and a disappointment. My
first thought had been to create a heavily contoured vessel, based on a
maximum beam of 48 studs (large grey baseplates); this would allow me to
explore various hull contours and get away from the box-method of
construction:
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/oldhull.jpg
This didn't last too long, because I simply didn't have enough room to
build it properly. Therefore, I switched back to a 32-stud pattern.
The results of an evening's building are here:
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/queen1.jpg
-Stern and after 14"/8.1" turret details--the large turrets are detailed
inside, but the smaller ones are not--an artefact of their odd shape.
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/queen2.jpg
-Another shot of the same, but you can see up into the bow area. By the
way, this ship is designed to separate into four sections with Technic
pegs, so that I don't have to annihilate it when I need to put it in
storage. Ouch!
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/queen3.jpg
-Bow area. The foredeck framework has not been built up yet; I expect
to have anchor chains actually run out of the shaped anchor ports. Note
the beveling to the bow (it exists in the stern as well). "A" turret
(14" HG) is sitting on its half-completed barbette (the barbette will
eventually be bow-top in height); the forward 8.2" turret barbettes have
not yet been started. This 32-stud plate may be truncated to a 16-stud
one, depending on my own construction decisions.
http://www.msu.edu/user/braunli1/queen4.jpg
-Looking back towards the stern. This is the first large ship for which
I have made "real" room provisions underneath the decking--the hull is
for more than holding the deck up. The odd structure in the ship's
centre is six boilers, selectively compressed and raised up above the
waterline. In a real ship, the boiler rooms would be generally below
the waterline and would extend over a much larger area of the ship. As
it is, I am going to leave the reciprocating engines out of this ship
because they too are below the waterline. (And please, no wisecracks
about the plates being blue = water in the ship. ;) Everyone knows the
North Sea is grey!)
Anyways, this is the current phase. The finished ship will have
casemates between the 8.1" MCG turrets (for the 6.2" weapons) and a load
of anti-torpedo-boat weapons on the upper decks, later. The carried
boats will probably hang on davits above the 8.1" turrets, else
nearby--in either case, they'll be somewhere suitably stupid for a
late-nineteenth-century capital ship. Of course, this ship's draught
probably means that it can never visit Port Block, but mayhap I can
build a dredger to fix that.
Thoughts, comments, insults regarding the tile in my kitchen, etc. are
welcome.
best
Lindsay
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: HMS Queen
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| (...) No heart of oak. No sails being unfurled to the wind. No piratical crews overthrowing the oppressive taskmasters that kidnapped and enslaved them. Gray steel and black smoke. Idunno. (mind you, a great Lego project) (...) "Arrrr, ye scurvy (...) (24 years ago, 26-Jul-00, to lugnet.pirates, lugnet.boats)
| | | Re: HMS Queen
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| On Wed, 26 Jul 2000, Mr L F Braun (<397EA9CC.EE4A6F68@....msu.edu>) wrote at 09:05:16 (...) You have my sympathy. I wouldn't want to leave something like that. Absolutely amazing, but you really *must* have a go at a more sculptural shape some time. (...) (24 years ago, 26-Jul-00, to lugnet.pirates)
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