Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 5

"You may fire when ready, Gridley....."

A Spanish-American flavour, now, to this latest instalment of the various Pre-Dred photographic and postcard views from my collection.

Above, and below, we see the action at Manila Bay in the Phillipines on May 1st, 1898, depicted in a stereograph of artwork from James M. Davis and B.W Kilburn of Littleton, New Hampshire.

The U.S. battleship Olympia, followed by the U.S.S. Baltimore, Petrel, Raleigh, Concord and Boston, engage the Spanish line of battle at close quarters.

Entitled "The hottest part of the fight", I think the artist has probably taken some liberties with his depiction of the action, and if we take Olympia's adversary as being the Spanish flagship, Reina Christina, I think has somewhat exaggerated the size of the Spanish ship! A stirring propaganda view nonetheless, and given the amount of shot and shell expended at this battle, that saw the destruction of the entire Spanish fleet, probably not so far from the truth.

If you are interested in learning more, there is no better place on the internet than the outstanding, nay superlative site, spanamwar.com, which is an incredible depository of contemporary accounts, historical articles, photographs, maps, orders of battle, ship specifications and other information on the war. Quite frankly, you need no other resource if looking at this conflict!

http://www.spanamwar.com/index.htm

The detail available on anything and everything pertaining to the various engagements is an absolute goldmine for research; clear a whole day of your calendar, and spend it exploring the various links - can't recommend it highly enough.

Next up, we have another stereograph, this time of a photo of the U.S.S Olympia, Commodore George Dewey's flagship on the day. This is from Underwood & Underwood in 1899, originally from the collection of George N. Watson:

Again, spanamwar outdoes itself, with a virtual tour of the whole ship:

http://www.spanamwar.com/olympiatourintro.htm

Moving on to the Spanish side of things, we have a view of 'Il Solitario', the battleship Pelayo.

She was on her way from Spain to the Philippines in the company of the Cruiser Carlos V, but was unfortunately so slow that had only reached the Suez Canal by the time the whole shooting match was effectively over.

Finally we have some photographic views of the Armoured Cruiser Cristobal Colon, first in the harbour at Genoa in 1897 where she was built by Cantieri Senestri Ponenti of Anslado:

Noteworthy is the forward armoured shield which you will note has no armament installed; the Armstrong 10" gun that was suppose to be there, was never put in place, having been rejected by the Spanish admiralty, and she was at the Battle of Santiago Bay with only her secondaries available.

Below we can again see the empty fore-turret turned to port, merely the side barbette armament presenting a threat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_cruiser_Cristobal_Colon

Really, hamstringing your most capable cruiser seems like a pretty short-sighted policy, but of course the Spanish did not have the time to install new armament before the conflict blew up, and she was rushed out to Cuba as part of Cervera's Squadron.

The conflict in hindsight seems to have been rather one-sided, but certainly at the time, the world was stunned by the overwhelming success of the U.S, a reputation that was to be firmly cemented by the Great White Fleet, some years later on.

One wonders, though, if the Spanish had been a bit better organised, and had their whole fleet concentrated at Santiago in particular, whether things might have turned out differently.....

Dr Who in 6mm: More Dinosaurs.....and Triffids!

Well, having thoroughly enjoyed putting together some Pre-Historic enemies for the doctor to tackle at the end of last year, I was itching to add a few more types into the mix, and began casting around for some possible candidates.

Sometimes you find the best things in the strangest of places, and I think that I can say that this definitely was the case when I happened upon the Dinosaur range from QRF.

Rightly renowned for their 15mm figures, I was surprised to find that they also do some great Pre-Historic monsters, and also some suitably menacing evil plant life!

The Dinos can be found here:

http://quickreactionforce.co.uk/catalog/index.php/cPath/140

and the carnivorous plants are lurking amidst the 15mm Sci-Fi:

http://quickreactionforce.co.uk/catalog/index.php/cPath/24_55_347

The dinosaurs offer some really interesting types at very reasonable prices, so I invested in some baby Plateosaurus, some quadra-ped Placerias, and the giant Phytosaur.

The Phytosaur, TR07, can be seen below, a mean looking crocodilian type that weighs in at around 53mm long, so could play well as even a 15mm or larger crocodile for all those 'back of beyond' or Pulp games:

From menace we move to cuteness, with the TR06 Plateosaurus young, that provides you with eight of the little fellers for just Uk £2.00; sweet aren't they:

Or are they, how about a horde of them engulfing you, all at once?

Yes, never turn your back on a dinosaur! I'm hoping to put these alongside some scratch-built nest sites with eggs made from modelling clay.

Moving slightly away from the obviously reptilian, I also bought some TR02 Placerias, which Wikipedia has down as a form of hybrid mammal, perhaps an ancestor of the modern Hippopotamus:

I found a great image of how these may of looked:

http://critters.pixel-shack.com/WebImages/crittersgallery/Placerias1.jpg

From a brilliant set of recreations online, invaluable if you're looking for inspiration on those Dino colour schemes!

http://critters.pixel-shack.com/GalleryP.htm

I think if you could get hold of some suitable riders or smaller scale Howdahs, these would make great Fantasy beasts as an alternative to the more usual Elephant/Mumakil.

Next, what could these constituent metal parts be? mmh, let's see, base with tendril-like legs, large, hooded flower head, and a vicious looking stinger.....

Yes, be afraid, be very afraid, it's a 'not' Triffid, to whit the SF10 Tripedium Linguatam (Stinging Type)!

These come in a pack of four, with two slightly different base sizes, again, as with the crocodilians above, could be used alongside any number of scales/size of minis, depending on how big and dangerous you want them:

Yes, I like mine very big and dangerous:

Obviously, these are not strictly canon if deployed as Triffids, but to be honest, who could resist? I loved the John Wyndham book, was a massive (if petrified) fan of the BBC TV adaptation starring John Duttine back in 1981, and well, suffered through the various Big Screen film versions, as well as the recent BBC remake......maybe draw a veil over that one......

A quick introduction, for those of you who have no idea what I'm on about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x0rdtAv9jg

Believe me, truly terrifying when they get going, although admittedly a little slow in the perambulatory sense!

So, more to play around with here, and hopefully February will see some painted examples appearing - far too much bare lead on this Blog recently, something I hope to correct in the near future!

Small Scale Sci-Fi: Walkers and an APC

Some more small-scale Sci-Fi ruminations now, and a look at a few more miniatures that might feature in the final line-up! First off, I've been toying with the idea of expanding the use of 'Walkers' within the various forces, beyond the current use of the 2mm bi- and quadra-ped types from Irregular in 2mm.

Obviously scale/size becomes somewhat of an issue here, in that I want to avoid going into Japanese Anime territory with 5oo foot high Megazoids storming about the battlefield, and rather keep them to more modest proportions.

Having bought some of their excellent 6mm scale Vikings, I was tempted by the Graviton range from Kremlin Miniatures, and invested in some of their walkers, as you see in the photo above.

http://www.kremlinminiatures.co.uk/gravitonwarrior.htm

These consist of a very bulky looking type with somewhat human proportions, bulging with various protrusions and weapons, and a more insectoid looking one, with numerous sensor/weapon items concentrated around its 'head'. In spite of appearances in the not-so-great photo, the castings are nicely detailed and clean, and I think will work well up against the 2mm Sci-Fi, being definitely b-i-g, but not unfeasibly enormous!

For comparison, here's one next to another entry in the possibles list, the GMM42 Medium Mecha unit from Germy's range over at GZG, which stands 18mm tall:

The Germy Mech is very RoboCop ED209 in style, and like the rest of his range, nice and crisply clean in both design and sculpt. Looking at the website photos of the Kremlin Miniature's range, I feel the majority of their items look a tad expensive, when compared to other manufacturers, but the walkers are definitely good value at 0.60 pence for the two.

Next up a pic of the Germy walker against the 2mm version from Irregular:

and then against the Alien APC/SPGs:

So I think the walker/warbot/mecha units above should merge pretty nicely with the smaller scale vehicles; I think the only problem is that the variety available has me hankering to depict more factions on the table top, some entirely Robot armies perhaps? :-).

Next, I wanted to have some alternative vehicles that might serve as Assault or Infantry Support for a Human faction, that would look bulkier than a standard APC, yet would still suggest that troops could be carried inside.

For this I picked the DSM 123 Virnazh Medium Grav APC from GZG's Dirtside Range. This has a nice APC style body topped by a business-like support weapon turret that has a flavour of WWII-era French tanks about it; seen here alongside Brigade's Baldur Light Tank:

The casting and detail on this vehicle rates as excellent, and I mean excellent, given it's size, and far exceeds the small monochromatic photo available on the company's own website; these really are much better in the flesh! The only caveat is a bit of flash to the rear, I guess from the mold, and this does detract somewhat from the otherwise great quality, but would clean up easily enough:

What is interesting about this model, if not unique, is the level of detail underneath the mini; of course this is hover/grav, but even so, it is unlikely that you would see the bottom, even 'in flight', so hats off to the sculptor here, as it gives the option of fielding a completely different vehicle:

Finally, and probably somewhat dangerously, this got me thinking! The more I looked at this undersurface, the more it seemed to resemble a larger-scale starship; putting it alongside a fleet-scale Folgore fighter from Brigade Models:

Wouldn't make a bad spacecraft, would it? That's all I need, the temptation to go into a whole new arena of Spaceship gaming.....(groans)......

Anyway, more ideas to throw around; we've got the Alien races of the Venusians and the Telosians seen in previous posts on this subject - alongside the Human forces, let's call them the Terran Federation; but now also the possibility of enhancing their capabilities with walker/mecha units, or even going down the route of a Robot faction of its own, not to mention some ideas I have to make use of the Germy 'Bug' ranges for a whole new team.....lots more to come on all this, I fear......

Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 4

A look at some more Pre-Dred pics now, these being all original Postcard views....much nicer a hundred years or so ago.....none of those boring shots of sandy beaches or dull monuments you see for sale these days!

To start then, some heavy metal from La Belle France, with the photos above and below being views of the Battleship Massena, some 11,924 Tons (or thereabouts) of 19th Century muscle.

An example of the rather scatter-brained, "am I Jeune Ecole or not Jeune Ecole" French approach to warship building, she was ostensibly a part of the Charles Martel Class, but just like all her contrary sisters, insisted on having a unique layout.

Commissioned into service in 1898, the Battleships-Cruisers website is ungentlemanly enough to accuse her of being "900 tons overweight", now that's quite some bustle on such a Grand Damme. I would suggest that most of this weight was concentrated in the typically Gallic enormous armoured fighting tops, which no doubt gave her something of a rolling gait in heavy seas....

She was principally armed with two 12" guns fore and aft, two further 10.8", and eight 5.5", as well as two submerged 18" Torpedo tubes.

If you're a fan of the French, for a bit of fun, you could have a look at the War at Sea website, which has some rather good computer depictions of the principal ships:

http://waratsea.tauniverse.com/France.htm

This site is something to do with one of those online games the 'young people' are always going on about, but for my money has some nifty-looking depictions of the vessels of various navies; well worth a look if you haven't come across it already.

The really cool part can be found here on the index page for the various countries; use the link below to find the Index page and click on "The Fleets" menu box - then just run your mouse over the ships depicted on the national flags and watch those guns swivel purposefully in your direction - marvellous!

http://waratsea.tauniverse.com/

Next we have another classic, if only for the elongated Gallic name, the Jaureguiberry, try saying that after a few Stella Artois (other beers are available...).

Her namesake was a French Admiral who fought at sea during the Crimea, and on land during the Franco-Prussian War.

I think this is a classic view, with her puffing away into the distance, however if you look at the roiling bow wake developing a nasty-looking trough ahead of her, I think the crew is in for a bumpy ride.

Again sporting those armoured mushroom fighting tops, which apparently had electric elevators inside, and the diamond gun layout of her sister ships, as well as the pronounced tumblehome (as in, if you fell overboard, you would tumble homeward all the way down the side...).

She was armed with two 12", two 10.8", eight 5.5", four 9 pounder, and twelve 3 pounders, along with eight 1 pound revolvers, and two submerged 18" Torpedo Tubes.

Finally we have a view of what I suppose is a slight late-comer to our Pre-Dred party, namely the HMS Drake of 1901. Wearing her cruiser ancestry on her sleeve, in as much as she closely resembles the lines of the previous Powerful Class armoured cruiser pair, she was armed with two 9.2" and sixteen 6" QF guns.

The postcard that this view comes from is in itself rather interesting, in that it was posted on the fourth of February 1905, and bears the following message:

"Portsmouth 4th Feb. Joined yesterday after a night at home - HG."

I can only surmise that it was sent by a member of the crew, and given that it bore the rather glamourous continental address of Miss J. Carter, c/o Fraulein Muller, Elisenstrasse 11, Dresden, was probably from an officer writing to his lady friend, or perhaps more chastley, a sister.

So, could we find out who this mystery man was? Well, in the true tradition of Sherlock Holmes, I doffed my deerstalker in the direction of the oft-quoted Battleships-Cruisers website, and was surprised to find a full run down given of the officers on the cruise the ship made between January 1905 and 1907.

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/hms_drake.htm

There is an absolutely exhaustive list of the various destinations and activities, which give a fascinating insight into the duties of the Peace time, pre-WWI Royal Navy. The cruise is especially significant, in that H.S.H.Prince Louis of Battenburg was present on board as a Rear Admiral, in those far-off days when there was no House of Windsor, and our Royal Family were proud of their continental, and dare I say it, German ancestry: Saxe-Coburg Gothas aplenty!

Tragic to think that all this harmony and fraternity would be shattered so brutally in such a few short years.

One wonders how the Miss Carter and Fraulein Muller of the postcard fared in the cataclysm of WWI, when our friends became the 'Hun'.....

Scanning through the crew list, I was unfortunately unable to come up with a clear answer as to who HG was, if Miss Carter was his paramour, then there were Sub-Lieutenants Henry H.G.D Stoker and Henry G.Moon, as well as a Midshipman Hugh H.G. Begbie, that might all have been suitable candidates for the sender of the card.

In any event, it's interesting as to where a bit of Wargaming research can take you, and thanks to the incredible effort in putting all that information onto the Web by the Battleships-Cruisers team, for a moment there, we had a window into the Past......

Small Scale Sci-Fi: Drones

I thought I'd take a look now, at some developing concepts that have recently come to mind regarding the mixed 2 and 6mm Small-Scale Sci-Fi project. Taking advantage of some of the Christmas/New Year sales at various manufacturers (Budget? What budget?), I've been looking to expand the basic forces as they stood.

One area that had been bugging me for some time was the balance or look of the various units. Big tanks, small tanks, APCs, etc, etc, all well and good, but in a way, all so 20th Century!

What the Future needs is some future concepts, well, at least some 21st Century ones.....

So what better to represent a more futuristic battlefield than Drones? Whether AI or remote-controlled, at least they would begin to give a contrast to the heavy metal of earlier eras.

Which minis to use for them though; well if we began from a standpoint of mixing sizes, why not continue in the same vein? I had been enviously eyeing the breadth of choices available to 15mm Sci-Fi gamers, particularly the expanding range over at GZG, and especially the new Drone units. Surely, these would be too big, even though there where some exciting sculpts available? Well, we shall see.....

http://www.gtns.co.uk/store1/commerce.cgi?product=SG15V&exact_match=on&cart_id=5005927.24157

Continuing the theme, I realised that Drones might operate with in-theatre controllers, and the need to represent these in a futuristic way luckily co-incided with the re-sculpting of an item by Brigade models, namely their SFS-492 Surveillante from the Eurofed faction...... Alright so this is a bit 20th Century AWACS-looking, but I couldn't resist it:

(All models shown in this post are straight out-of-the-baggie, so no flash removal, etc, just as they came.)

So how might this 'controller', ostensibly a fleet-scale sized craft for Spaceship battles, compare with the Drones from GZG? Well, here we see it alongside the new winged V15-71 Mini Aero Drones:

Next up against the other Drone type that I chose, the V15-70 Mini Hover Drones:

Of course, the million dollar question was really would these new items match up with the existing, mixed scale units, so here goes with some comparison pics; first up the winged drones beside a Venusian assault unit of Irregular 2mm Alien APC and SPG....

and then against the ostensibly 6mm scale Baldur Light Tank from Brigade:

Moving on to the rather beefier-looking hover unit from GZG, and the 2mm Irregular again:

Well, to my eye, at least, not so disproportionate, certainly they could represent some pretty heavyweight robot/AI weapons, in that the removal of the human pilot means extra space for systems, and 'oomph' in terms of weaponry and capability.

I suppose at a stretch, they might also be used in a more aerospace sense if based individually, certainly they look as if a 2mm crew could fit inside. Talking of conventional fighters then, how would they compare to the fleet scale efforts, of say, Brigade Models, that might be more in proportion for a teeny-tiny crew?

Next to the SFS-464 EuroFed Folgore fighter:

Well, a pretty good match really, and if you were to go down this route, and move away from the plastic EM-4 miniatures types I showcased in a post last year, then how would more 'in-scale' (in the visual sense) sized craft compare to the ground units?

Well, not a million miles off, so, lots to think about here, as I spin around in ever decreasing circles of mixing and matching size and scale!

I suppose the base-line of the whole thing was to take advantage of the breadth of different models and concepts available from differing manufacturers and scales, whilst retaining a visually pleasing balance; something that would look good on the tabletop whilst remaining true to my liking for the littlest of minis!

I'll reserve judgement for now, but expect more to come on these strange experiments in defying the holy commandments of 'Scale'......

Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 3

Some more entries now, from the SteelonSand Photographic Archive :-).

First off, we have above a postcard image of what I presume is a French Torpedo Boat, No 82, in that the photo was taken by a M. Laurent-Nel of Rennes, and the background is formed by the rather nice-looking Citadel at Pourt Louis, Morbihan, which is in southern Brittany between Brest and St. Nazaire.

http://www.blavet.co.uk/port%20louis%20citadel.htm

The boat itself, according to the battleships-cruisers website, must lie somewhere between Nos 75 to 125, and there is a small image there that matches the one in the photo above. These seem to be boats built between 1888 and 1895 or so, no idea of capabilities though, I'm afraid.

(Scroll down about half way, beyond the Mistral Class, to image of Boat 84)

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/torpedo_boats3.htm

Following on with the TB theme, we have an excellent image from Japan of a flotilla of five of their boats, during the Russo-Japanese War. Can't be exactly sure about the provenance, as to whether this image was actually taken at the time the caption states, but it no doubt shows contemporary craft. Interesting to see apparently a number of different colour schemes, and judging by the thickness of the funnels, a number of different types.

Could these be the 16th Torpedo Boat Division of Wakabayashi, that featured a mix of a single Shirataka class, HIJMS Shirataka, and type 67 Class and 39 Class boats, that were present at Tsushima and the Yellow Sea?

In any event, it's a nice grouping, but I think you'd need to be quite an expert to get to the bottom of which is actually which. (So not me then...!)

Next we have a view of the Japanese Cruiser Asama, completed 1899, which had been part of the Allied Power's fleet during the Boxer Rebellion, and of course later had a role at Tsushima. Interesting here is the dark colour scheme with the double bands on the funnels, battleships- cruisers has a similar photo which is dated to circa 1911.

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/asama_class.htm#Asama

EDIT: Actually, on reflection, I think that this is not the Asama after all, having been looking at my Navwar model of this ship recently - she's far too sleek for an armoured cruiser.....that and the fact that I just realised it says 'Takasago' in Japanese on her stern! (Albeit in reverse - the negative must have been back to front.)

See Takasago here:

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/takasago.htm

That's more like it:

Now for a look on the other side of the fence, as it were, with some vessels of the Tsar. These appear in contemporary stereoview photograph cards, which were so popular in the late Victorian and Edwardian Eras, viewed through a pair of lenses attached to a frame holder for the image, to give a form of 3D perspective. That's right, forget Cameron's Avatar - these are the real deal- this is Stereography!

Below we have, from Underwood and Underwood, a view entitled "War Dogs of the Far East-Russian fighting ships in the fortified harbour of Port Arthur". This image was taken just prior to the conflict in 1904/05, and was released as part of a series of 'reportage' style views with details of the conflict on the reverse - no Sky News or CNN in those days.....

A close up of one half of the image; the back of the card identifies the Cruiser Pallada, with three funnels to the left of the frame, the Peresvyet, again three funnelled to the right of frame, and next to her, with the indented topped four funnels, the Varyag.

I can't hazard an identification of the single funnel vessel immediately behind the dark Torpedo Boat in the left foreground, or the two-funnelled ship beyond. Take your pick, I guess from the following list (Scroll Down about half way- be aware, this downloads as a PDF file):

http://www.russojapanesewar.com/1904-Fleets.pdf

EDIT: Having taken a good close up look at the photo again, I'm going to vote for the two funnelled ship in the centre rear to be the Rurik; twin row of portholes, triangular looking visible ratlines from the masts, and bowsprit removed as per fifth photo down in left hand column on this page:

http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/rurik.htm

Things are a lot clearer in this next one, issued by the Keystone View Company, U.S.A.

It is entitled "Russian Pacific Fleet", and is again a photograph contemporary to the Russo-Japanese War, although the card itself seems to have been issued during WWI.

Here we can again see the characteristic indented funnel tops of the Varyag, accompanied by a Petropavlosk class Battleship. I'm going to stick my neck out here and identify her as the Sevastopol, based upon the heights of the three heavy steam pipes, the central one of which appears higher than the funnels either side; lovely view of the pair of midship turrets, anyway:

Hope you've enjoyed looking at these, next time will be some postcard views of French heavyweights, and an intriguing mystery......

Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 2

Some more Pre-Dreadnought photographs, now, with more of a Boxer Rebellion era flavour.

Above we have a slightly grubby view of the Japanese battleship Shikishima, which was completed in January 1900 and was present throughout all the major engagements of the Russo-Japanese War - Port Arthur,Yellow Sea, and of course Tsushima. Apparently, she soldiered on in various guises right up until 1947, when she suffered the final ignominy of being scrapped after WWII.

She was armed with four 12" guns in twin turrets fore and aft, had fourteen 6", and thirty-odd guns of smaller calibre, also five 18" torpedo tubes.

The photo itself is interesting, in that it is from a Trade Card issued by the 'Art Pavements and Decorations Ltd', of Holborn and Camden Town, London, who specialised in Marble Masonry and Tiling.

They make the proud boast on the card that the Shikishima had "800 yards of Terrazzo Marble Mosaic laid"!

Now that's what I call class, no nasty corticene linoleum on our Battleship! I suppose having been built at the Thames Ironworks, the Japanese took advantage of local craftsmanship to decorate the Officers' Mess deck - those were the days......

Next up, we have a view of the cruiser HMS Eclipse, of whose class, sister ships HMS Dido and Isis where present off the Taku Bar during 1900. These were in effect enlarged Astraea Class protected cruisers, and had a mixed armament of 6 and 4.7" guns.

Next we have a view of a class of ship sadly lacking in the Navwar and other 1/3000th catalogues, the tidy looking sloop, represented here by HMS Alacrity, which was captained by Christopher Craddock (of Battle of the Coronel fame) during the Boxer Rebellion, and saw action at the Taku Forts, and of course provided shore parties that fought throughout the campaign.

Moving on to another veteran of the Taku Forts assault, as well as famously a participant in the Battle of Chemulpo four years later, we have the Russian Mandjur class gunboat Korietz.

She was armed with two obsolete 8" muzzle loading guns, in barbette bulges forward, one of which can plainly be seen here, and is that a Nordenfeldt QF atop the bow?

Interesting as well, in this view, is the puff of smoke at the stern - firing a signal gun or salute, perhaps?

Finally we have a shot of HMS Orlando, a 1st class Cruiser with a partial 10" armour belt, two 9.2", and ten 6" guns, also a handy brace of six 18" torpedo tubes, including two submerged, at bow and stern. This view is from an Ogden's Guinea Gold Cigarette Card, and is subtitled "Now in Chinese Waters" - so there!

Next time on this subject, there'll be some torpedo boats, and some stereo-views of Russo-Japanese vessels, so stay tuned....

Pre-Dreadnought Photos: Part 1

When researching the detail for the "55 Days at Sea" Boxer Rebellion Naval project, I was often frustrated in trying to find images of the ships of the various protagonists. Whilst there are some excellent resources online, particularly in terms of information, I found the accompanying photos to be somewhat disappointing; either they were that bane of the inveterate Net surfer - small thumbnails that you could not enlarge, or they showed views that were not all that helpful.

Furthermore, where a certain ship had a long and distinguished career, it was in the latter phases of that career that she was most usually depicted; in the case of many Pre-Dreadnoughts, when they soldiered on into the First World War, for instance, so the colour schemes and configurations in the photos were outside my main time frame of interest.

I therefore started to collect, where possible, original photographic or postcard views of the ships that featured in my 1/3000th campaign project, or sometimes bought reproduction or reprint views of hard to find vessels, if no real depictions were available.

Rather than just file these away, I thought I'd use the medium of the Blog to share them with a wider audience, so that others might use them for their own research.

A small note about copyright; most of these photos were taken in excess of one hundred years ago, so the rights of the original photographer may have lapsed in strictly legal terms, however I reproduce them here with no intent to subvert or contradict ownership of the original image, and I would ask that any of you who might be interested in them, restrict your own use or copying of the image to private, research purposes, rather than for any commercial gain or mass dissemination.

First up, we have a few frames showing some heavyweights from Italy and Austria, not strictly Boxer Rebellion, of course, but I could not limit my collecting to just that era, given the temptation to collect neat images of other ships of the time!

(Remember, all thumbnails are clickable for a larger image view.)

Below we have the Austro-Hungarian Battleship Kronprinz Erzherog Rudolf of the Kaiser Max class, completed in September 1889, depicted here in November 1890.

She had a somewhat unusual layout of two 12" guns forward, with one at the rear. Her secondary armament consisted of six 4.7" guns, and various smaller quick-firers, she also sported four deck mounted torpedo tubes of 15.7".

Moving on to the Battleship Wien, of the Monarch Class, completed in May 1897. She was principally armed with four 9.4" guns, six 6" guns, and four deck mounted torpedo tubes.

We have next a view of the battleship Sicilia, from those Adriatic rivals, Italy. Completed in May 1895, she was armed with two pairs of 13.5" guns fore and aft, backed up by eight 6 inchers, and five deck mounted torpedo tubes of 17.7".

Finally, a sneak peak at the vessel of another nation, namely the Coastal Defence Ship Bouvines of France:

Completed in December of 1894, she had two 12" guns in single mounts fore and aft, seconded by eight 4", and two 18" torpedo tubes in deck mountings.

There are plenty of photos of various ships to come, and I am sure that the itch to collect more will no doubt see further entries in this category of Blog post, so keep a good lookout for them in the near future!