Turkish Aquanef 'Osman Pasha' at Sea!

Exclusive report from our Correspondent; Istanbul, 24th of September:

Persistent rumours of a new secret weapon in the struggle for supremacy over the Eastern Nations have been borne out by the appearance of a steel monster in the waters off the Golden Horn.

This Correspondent has seen with his own eyes the strange grey shape appearing from the depths, a modern Kraaken designed by the greatest technological minds as the latest plaything of the Sublime Porte. Were it not for its modern armament of torpedos and Nordenfeldt repeating guns, this could easily be mistaken for a fantasy from the Arabian Nights, this strange leviathan that at a stroke has made obsolete the Ironclads and Dreadnoughts of the Tsar, and of the Kingdoms of Italy and Greece, and no doubt will cause concern even in the bulwarked bosom of the mighty Empress Victoria herself.

Named the Osman Pasha, this terror of the deep is now undergoing sea trials, but will soon be ready to challenge for dominion of the oceans, whether above or below the waves......

Photographic evidence follows.

This correspondance is credited to special envoy SteelonSand.
Well done that Man!

You can find more of his great work with the Osman Pasha at his blog here:
http://steelonsand.blogspot.com/2009/09/aquanefiness-part-2-ottoman-sub-osman.html

Turkish Aquanef 'Osman Pasha' launched

Steelonsand has gone to town in a rash of creativity, recreating the Turkish Aquanef I posted here the other day. The result, mostly using eye drop pipettes, is fantastic - I can't wait to see this lovely all painted up and ready for battle!

http://steelonsand.blogspot.com/2009/09/aqua-nefiness-quick-scratch-build.html

Sydney on the Red Planet

Eastern Australia today suffered a massive and extremely rare dust storm. Originating from central Australia, the dust was the typical ochre colour. The result - spectacular! (these are unmodified photos, the colour is real)

Or has some Vanwellian experiment gone awry and transported Sydney to the Red Planet?

WWS reaches 100,000 Hits!

Huzzah and Hurrah - White Wine Sauce has reached 100,000 Hits (since Aug 07), with half of those since Sep 08!

My sincere thanks to all who visit and enjoy the posts material here, and especially those who have left comments and encouraged us to keep posting.

I would like to thank my fellow WWS partners for their wonderful input and motivating encouragement, particularly Mssrs Ogrefencer, Vanvlak and Zophiel.

And of course a Mention in Dispatches goes to Mssr Blease and Wessex Games for inspiring me with VSF madness in the first place.

Yours in Splicing the Mainbrace!

Cerberus in 1/1200

Inspired by my research into the real ship, I broke out my long neglected 1/1200 scale Cerberus by Brigade Models, and a lovely casting it is too.

The model comes in 5 separate parts: hull, 2 main turrets, breastwork superstructure and mast. All part were very crisply cast with no flash at all. All fit together nicely with no filler required. One particularly good feature is that the breastwork structure fits over the turrets, which in tun have a peg and hole fitting. This means that they the turrets can be painted and fitted without gluing, so they can rotate freely.


I painted the model prior to assembly, undercoating in white. I went for a traditional RN paint scheme, and as accurate to the real ship as possible. The hull was therefore black, the armour, superstructrue and deck fittings white, gun muzzles dark grey, mast and funnel ocre and the deck a faded wood colour. Finally, I added a RN White Ensign to the masthead (again by Brigade) and fitted her to a base in the style of Mssr Ogrefencer (name and flag yet to be fitted). A smallish wake befits a vessel of 10kts max speed - no big bow waves for Cerberus! Then again, nobody should ever rush a lady...

This model represents Cerberus as she appeared in the late 1880s, after her mast reconfiguration (in 1878) and the addition of the torpedo spars and nets (in 1887). I must admit that as a result of my research this became more of a modelling project than a wargaming one, but the overall effect is quite realistic I think and I'm looking forward to her first tabletop battle.

Ironic then that my first Aquanef fleet unit is a surface unit! There are also 4 Russian units about half done and I just found some Navwar 1/1200 ACW ships (again courtesy of Mssr Ogrefencer, thank you Sir!) which will be joining us soon...

HMVS CERBERUS

I just picked up a lovely monograph on this wonderful piece of colonial naval history:

'HMVS Cerberus: Battleship to Breakwater.'

Built at the cost of 125,000 pounds (of which the British Government donated 100,000 pounds). She was laid down in 1867, completed in 1870 and delivered (after a perilous journey) the following year. She was ordered to protect Melbourne, one of the Empire's richest colonies at the time due to the gold rush, from the Russian threat. Not an inconsequential threat it turns out, as Russia was allied to the United States during the civil war and the Russian Pacific Fleet commander had sealed orders to bombard Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart should hostilities break out between the US and Great Britain.

The monitor was the first British armoured ship to fully dispense with sail and be powered purely by steam. She was also first vessel with a central superstructure with gun turrets at the ends, and the first design to have breastwork protection and low freeboard. She had two sister ships, Abyssinia and Magdala, built for service in India though they were completed later.

Gunnery drills on the uppder-deck: 2 quad barrelled Nordenfeldts and a QF 4pdr


HMS Devastation (1871), built 3 years after Cerberus, incorporated many lessons learnt from Cerberus can rightly claim credit as being the first ocean going modern battleship. (Whereas Cerberus was specifically designed for Harbour defence)

"Indeed Devastation itself was an enlarged version of the coast defence Breastwork Monitor Cerberus, whose construction marked the beginning of practical turret ship design" Birth of the Battleship, John Beeler, US Naval Institute Press, 2001

"Between the harbour defence ship and the sea-going battleship was a matter of degree - the Devastation was to develop out of Cerberus in due course." British Battleships, Oscar Parkes, Seeley Service & Co., London, 1957

She was a powerful warship equipped with two twin 10 inch gun turrets (muzzle loading, rifled Armstrong guns), 4 quad barreled Nordenfeldt machine guns and 2 six pounder guns (added in 1892/93). Armour plate ranged from 6 inches on the sides to 10 inches on the turrets. She was not initially provided with any protection against torpedoes, but outriggers and nets were later fitted for this purpose.


The local press commented upon her arrival that "Victorians can sleep peacefully upon their pillows, with the consciousness that Cerberus is in every way fit to fight their battles and to fight them in modern style".

Cerberus enjoyed a period of 53 years service in which she never fired a shot in anger. Ironic then that her guns caused such general collateral damage to windows that public protest effectively negated the conduct of firing practices close to shore!



A free 1/250 scale card model of Cerberus as she appeared in the 1890s (with mast modification and torpedo booms fitted) is available here:

http://www.cerberus.com.au/store/model_paper.html

In the meantime, I'm working on my lovely 1/1200 scale Cerberus from Brigade Models: pics soon!

Ahoy and pass the Rum ye Scallywags!

Dont pretend you dont know what day it is! http://www.talklikeapirate.com/

Think I'll go walk the Quarterdeck with Capt'n Peaches...

Scientific Adventure Violence for Young Men and Literate Women

The year's foremost journal of progressive armaments and weaponry! Behold the latest line of defense captured in action!

The second book to emerge from the printshop at Grordbort Industries, Victory follows in the footsteps of the trans-galactically successful Dr Grordbort's Contrapulatronic Dingus Directory that was released last year.

Filled to the brim with first hand tales of exploration and progress from the great heroes of our time, picture strips of unimaginable escapades on the frontier, never-seen-before portraits of dazzling damsels and monstrous villains, and laudable accounts of man and robot pitted against our greatest enemy (the uncivilized world), Victory is an onslaught of action-packed scientific adventure in full-spectrum color - containing facts that every boy and literate girl should know.

Written and illustrated by Weta Workshop Conceptual Designer Greg Broadmore, this book sumptuously details a science-fiction history that never was. Hearkening back to the classic sci-fi serials of yesteryear, it reveals the backstories and mythos of Weta Limited's highly limited ray gun collectible line.

This gorgeous 64 page full-color hardcover will be available mid-November.

You can pre-order now (I already have!) directly from Weta here:
http://www.wetanz.com/victory/

British Leviathans

More Monsters in the Sky design development, this time its the British, who are looking great.
Check out the sketches and leave some feedback!

http://monstersinthesky.com/2009/09/15/evolution-of-the-british-leviathan-part-2/

The Mystery of the Russalka

I found this interesting article online, detailing some of the lack of seaworthiness of early ironclads. Or what it those mysterious Atlanteans....

Tsar's Battleship lost at sea in 1893.
by Christopher Eger

Background
The Russalka (Mermaid), a 204foot long ironclad monitor built just months after the loss of the famous USS Monitor, eventually followed her American cousin to the same fate. Built in 1867 she suffered -like the Monitor- from a very low freeboard and poor sea keeping abilities. This led to insufficient flood ability and damage stability. After a quiet 25 years service on the Baltic the poorly designed warship left harbor on her final patrol. She had become largely obsolete and had since past from her place as a first-line battleship to that of a training ship assigned to the Gunnery Training Squadron.

Last Voyage of the Russalka
Never firing a shot in war, the HIH Tsar Alexander’s Imperial Russian Naval Battleship Russalka, sailed from the port of Tallinn (now in Estonia) to Helsingfors (currently Helsinki, Finland) on September 7, 1893. Today this is a regular 80km two hour express ferry service between the capitols of two Baltic countries. In 1893 this was an all day crossing from one Russian naval port to another. That morning the Russalka was to sail with another ship in her squadron, the gunboat Cloud ("Tutysa") at 0730. However Captain 1st Class Victor Hristianovich Ienish arrived aboard the Russalka an hour late from hospital due to a headache caused by concussion received just a few days earlier and the battleship cast off to sea at 0830, trailing her companion.

The morning started with a calm gentle breeze and 2 foot seas but with a gale forecasted. Some 17 miles north of Tallinn the pair of ships had closed to within a half mile of each other but the seas had grown considerably. By lunchtime the Clouds ship's log was noting sea state 5 conditions (16-20 kt winds, 6ft seas with long waves). Having to close her deck air intakes to prevent water from swamping the engines, the Russalka's speed dropped considerably and the distance between the two ships increased. The seas and wind increased to a strong gale and the two ships became further and further separated. Eventually they were over the horizon from each other, separated by the then 40 kt winds and 20 foot rolling waves of a fierce Baltic storm. The Cloud arrived in Helsingfors at 1500 and waited for her companion. She was to have a very long wait.

The Search for the Russalka
The next morning when the Russalka did not appear either in Helsingfors or back in Tallinn, Rear Admiral Buracheka ordered a search by all available ships. For 37 days dozens of ships crossed the Gulf of Finland looking for the overdue battleship but only found remnants. The Russalka's lifeboats were found un-used as if washed off deck and cast about the sea as were empty lifebelts and life rings. On September 15 the body of seaman 2nd class Ivan Prunskogo, a lookout from the Russalka washed ashore near the fortress of Sveaborg (now Suomenlinna). He was the only soul of the 12 officers and 165 crewmen to ever be found. A court of inquiry led by Rear Admiral Syridov found that Rear Admiral Buracheka, commander of the Gunnery Training Squadron had been negligent in ordering the ships to sea with bad weather on the horizon. Captain 2nd Rate Nikolay Mikhailovich Luzhkov, commander of the Cloud was dismissed from the service for leaving the Russalka alone during the storm. He would later die in the naval hospital at Kronstadt a broken man after his only son would die a hero a decade later aboard the Russian battleship Petropavlosk during the Russo-Japanese war.

The Russalka Remembered
The name Russalka was retired from the rolls of the Russian Navy and in 1902 a monument of an angel with outstretched arms named after the ship was placed on Kadriorg beach in Tallinn. Pointed at 23 degrees, the course the Russalka took towards Helsingfors, it was made of Finnish granite and carved by Estonian sculptor Amandus Adamason. To this day flowers and wreaths are laid at the feet of the angel for the lost souls.

In July 2003 the Russalka was found at the depth 74 meters some 25 miles south of Helsinki by the Estonian State Maritime Museum (Meremuuseum) research vessel Mare. The wreck is standing vertically almost upright, with her bow deep in the mud and the stern rising some 100 feet from the bottom. Now that she has been located after 110 years an investigation is under way to finally determine how the Russalka was lost.

Read more: http://ww1history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_mystery_of_the_russalka
http://ww1history.suite101.com/article.cfm/the_tsars_battleship_russalka

A real Land that Time Forgot!

and right on my doorstep too!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/07/discovery-species-papua-new-guinea

Time to load up the Nef with my trusty dino-hunting gear and see if there is any "big game" there...

Strategic targets

I just found these while rummaging around in my bits cupboard and thought I'd share an idea I had.
Last year I visited London (and enjoyed a few ales eh DC?) and grabbed a few of these resin buildings from a cheezy souvenir vendor for about 1 pound each. Lovely detail and pre-painted.


So, Buckingham Palace or French chateau? Tower of London or enemy fortified building? St Paul's Cathedral or enemy parliament house? A lick of paint round the edging, neglected so far I must admit, and some nice buildings are had very cheap for minimal effort!

Now if only I could find those Revell Hindenburgs (which DC put me onto) that I was looking for in the first place....

Maquis Fleet

Lertia has posted pic of her French Maquis fleet to the Brigade Models forums.

She has used some unique colours in a crisps style for a uniue 'parade style' appearance - good stuff!

http://www.brigademodels.co.uk/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=822

There are more pics of this fleet at the Facebook Aeronef group

Sedales Serpent

Vehicle design for the Iron Grip game series from Isotx.

A bit more on the pulp Nef side than the VSF genre in my opinion, but very kewl!

http://keiththompsonart.com/pages/sedalesserpent.html

Ragnarok 55 out and about

The latest SFSFW magazine has been released and the mail packet delivered some to the colonies yesterday. Two particular VSF treats in this edition:

Firstly, an Aeronef scenario set in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871 which pits a combined Franco-Swiss force against some aggressive Germanic types. Nice!

And secondly, the back cover sports a pic of Wessex's (infamous) Battle of the Pyramids which was taken by me at Salute back in 2001 (when I met Mssr Blease). OK, its not a major drawcard but I was chuffed to see it there!


You can get Rag 55 from SFSFW:
http://sfsfw.blogspot.com/2009/08/ragnarok-55-pdf-available-at-wargame.html