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!

2mm Web Resources: Late Entry

Someone's been hiding their light under a bushel!

Another Blog dealing with 2mm miniatures has slipped in under the radar of the SteelonSand ever-roving eye, but have no fear, I will now rescind the error by introducing you to Mr Andrew Beasely's latest Blog. (He of "Kings Sleep" fame)

This has got going recently, and goes under the moniker "2mm Wargaming"

Currently, there's an excellent report on an idea for scratch building small scale woods that you can actually put your bases into!

Check it out at:

http://2mmwars.blogspot.com/

See, I told you 2010 would be filled with plenty more 2mm goodness!