Gentleman,
Has anyone built, seen or heard of… a model display portraying multiple sailing ships engaged in battle?
I believe this would be a, admittedly, quite ambitious… but also… most capital.
Sincerely,
Captain Isaac Hull
USS Constitution.
Other than what you might see at a wargame scene using miniatures, no I don’t believe I’ve witnessed such an endeavor on the net.
regards,
Jack
Look at Shep Paine. Some very creative takes on that.
Certainly up through the early 1800’s there’s quite a few in Museums.
I want to remember having seen pictures of a museum setting that had a display of the Brits “crossing the T” at Jutland, to scale. The separation between the “heavies” was–if memory serves–about 10-15 kiloyards, which, at 1:2400 would be around five yards.
Wer is a just world, and there were 1/96-1/100 Java or Guerriere to model. closing to boarding range would need about 2’ x 4’ of base; the 1-2000 yard (cable’s length) gunfire range a staggering 30’
Even at super-deilicate 1:350, sailing warships will be right at 9’ apart at gun range range, and 3-4’ apart at carronade range.
The sea is a big place; it engenders a sense of equal scale. I had a skipper once who defined a collision-at-sea as any CPA (closest point of approach) under 1000 yards while at sea (he’d relax that to 500 yards in the littoral, and 100 if in a channel or Roads–where you;d be under a local Pilot anyway).
A model ship club that I was a member of did a portable diorama of the Battle of Samar (sp?), of WW2. They used either 1:1200 or 1:2500 scale ships- forget which, and merely laid them out on whatever surface they were displaying on (usually floors). So the ocean was not scale, but they tried to keep distances about correct, but had to condense it even at that scale.
Sailing ship battles were usually fought at close enough ranges that a credible diorama could be created…
http://www.shipmodel.com/files/striking-her-colors-dior-striking-her-colors015.jpg
This diorama is not terrific - not particularly well researched or executed. The frigate United States had a roundhouse throughout her career that is not represented, her paint job doesn’t match the contemporary sources, and the sails are looking too new…
CapnMac, the RN never crossed the “T” at jutland. at the battle of the nile & i think trafalgar, nelson crossed the french “T”.
Looks really nice to me!!!
Here is a spectacular large diorama of a small segment of the battle of Trafalgar:
I opened the site. WOW! Thanks for sharing the site.
Actually, Jellicoe managed to cross the German T twice; they just maneuvered out of that fix before decisive effect was achieved by the Brits.
Nelson’s contribution to sailing warship battle was to “break” the conventional line-of-battle by refusing to form up that way. Line of battle was a single-attack axis formation which was virtually decided by who held the weather gauge. Nelson’s particular brilliance was to form his squadrons into what looked to the enemy to be a line-of-battle, and thus fix the enemy as they sought to own the weather gauge. This allowed Nelson to maneuver his squadrons to cut through the enemy’s line, then turn back upon them in the weather gauge, having raked the enemy column with broadsides down their least-protected axes.
So, it was not so much crossing a “t” as hacking a dash into a plus sign. Which was also tactically brilliant. Nelson’s enemies at sea often relied upon a single supreme commander, who led in a high-value flagship from the van. Command and control ran, but signal, from the lead ships after to the lesser ships.
Nelson’s use of squadrons in slashing attacks effectively decapitated the enemy formation, and negated any advantage they might have had in numbers or weight of guns. Further, the enemy had the confusion of having gone from the relative sailing simplicity of the weather gauge to suddenly needing to maneuver, and this requiring hands for sail-setting and trimming–whose job was made far more exciting for all the shot, grape, and musket balls flying about.
Back in 1980,BEFORE mother nature changed my life on a stormy DECEMBER day I did just that.I used heavily modified LIFE-LIKE little ships and a large map of the TRAFALGER area.
I then put it all in a coffee table display under glass.SORRY to say ,it did NOT survive DECEMBER 3 1982. It took me over eighteen months to do that.It,believe it or not was a relief after working on a client model ten hours a day.
I was probably prouder of that than I should,ve been,but I had never seen a piece of interior decor like that before or since.I thought about doing another one on my big live-aboard motor boat,but gave up on the idea.I remember it being both a challenge and a whole lot of fun too. Isn,t that what modeling is all about? TANKER-builder