#21
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Thanks, Renaud for your valuable information. It has emboldened me to use go a shade darker with the upperworks.
After adding the rudder, bilge keels and propeller shafts, it was time to turn the hull upside down. This required building the cradle to hold the model upright. Even so, I have left the outboard propellers aside until a much later stage of construction, as I otherwise have a strong tendency to keep knocking their blades off. My display cradle is a simple scratch-built affair constructed with panels of a card/balsa/card sandwich. It is intended to be strong, stable and relatively unobtrusive. At this stage I have built up the portside hull in seagoing mode, with all hatches closed. I plan to display the starboard side with searchlight, and gun hatches open to illustrate a harbour defence mode, but that is going to involve a lot more work. |
#22
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Work has proceeded at the slow pace appropriate to a French shipyard in the 1890’s, (mostly because I took a month off between Covid lockdowns to visit relatives interstate - also the little turntables for the secondary armament required some re-work to get them operating properly.)
I built up the port side of the hull in seagoing mode, with all hatches closed. On the other hand, the starboard side has its searchlight, and gun hatches open to illustrate a harbour defence mode. There is a lot of detail in the compartment under the forward shelter deck so I’ve included a photograph now as it will be hard to see once the deck is fitted over it. |
#23
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Although this ship appears slightly more modern than most of the ones I am familiar with, the secondary armament looks like the type used on Massena.
Mike |
#24
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Hi Mike,
Those guns on the Jeanne d'Arc are the 1893 model 5.5 inch ones. The ship carried fourteen in all, so although in our terms they were secondary armament they were the guns that the designers intended to provide the main firepower. There is no doubt that the Jeanne d'Arc was under-armed for its size. In contrast, Massena carried no less that four sizes of main guns. Eight 5.5 inch guns were amongst these, but were twin mountings in turrets. The Massena guns with similar gun shields are the eight slightly smaller 3.9 inch weapons. I think that the widely differing warship design theories that were being tried out prior to WWI are what make these older ships so interesting. - Ron |
#25
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Apologies- Massena's 5.5 inch guns were in eight single turrets (military.wikia.org needs correction)
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#26
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An event! – The first funnel has been raised. There are five more to make, as ultimately there will be six of them. Incidentally, whilst the funnel caps and ladders are of card, but the pillars supporting the navigation bridge have a core of piano wire inside the paper, because they are weight bearing. The machine guns on the bridge are fixed, but the other guns can be rotated.
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#27
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Very nice and detailed model !!!
Compliments... I'm following this thread with a very high interest ! Ciao Jp
__________________
"Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" |
#28
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I have had time to add the other funnels that give this armoured cruiser its very distinctive profile. The next step is to add several more ventilator shafts with their rows of shutters. As each of the shutters is a separate part I am finding it a real challenge to fit those shutters so that they sit evenly. Bright light and close-up photography shows up the flaws. Hopefully the ship's boats, davits and rigging will eventually distract some of the attention away from them.
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#29
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Wow! Great work. That certainly is a distinctive profile as you pointed out. If undergoing ship recognition training this one would certainly be one of the easiest to remember.
I often wonder just how head-spinning it was for senior officers from the older generation to cope with all of the changes. I imagine that as with aviation and armor in the 20th century, some adapted and some did not. Doug |
#30
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Jeanne d’Arc is comming along nicely.
This one is easily distinguished by those six funnels. Mike |
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