Recently I received my first Black Seas fleet pack. I chose the US fleet that comes with the USS President and USS United States named resin ships, three smaller generic 38 gun plastic frigates, and six plastic brigs. There is also a pack of metal sterns for Chesapeake, Constellation and Congress, along with the supposed figureheads for each, although there are four of those.
I decided to build one of the plastic frigates first and wanted to do the USS Chesapeake. The metal stern is bulky, more the size of sterns in the Third Rates pack I also bought. Much larger than the three plastic sterns that are on the sprue. Even though it bothered me a bit, I still attached it to the hull. It wasn't until I painted it that it occurred to me to look at the scratch 1/1200 Chesapeake I did awhile back. That one was from the Humphrey plans and I did quite a bit of research on the ship back then. Definitely wrong!
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| The Black Seas supplied stern |
So what gives with Warlord Games? They couldn't bother to do the tiniest bit of research to get the stern for this ship right? Holy Cow! It's not even close! More like a fantasy ship's stern. There are plenty of references to what the Chesapeak's stern looked like. It took me just a few minutes to find several.
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| This is Cesapeake's stern from Plate D of Mark Lardas' book American Light and Medium Frigates 1794-1836 |
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| To the left we see the bone model Chesapeake (courtesy of Manfred Stein), while on the right is a detail of a painting by American artist James E. Buttersworth, circa 1815, showing USS Chesapeake's stern during her battle with HMS Shannon on June 1, 1813 |
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| James E Butterworth's full painting done in 1815 |
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| Painting of the Leopard Affair, closeup of Chesapeake's stern to the left |
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| Painting showing Chesapeake being towed into Halifax |
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| Another painting of Shannon vs Chesapeake |
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| This painting has a nice closeup of Chesapeake's stern |
So I was pretty hyped up about these models in the beginning, but if this first ship I picked is just an example of how inaccurate all of the named ship sterns are from Warlord Games, it will be the last I throw my money away on. It would have been so easy for them to get it right!
One more thing....the figurehead for Chesapeake....they appear to have gotten that right. Winged angel with left arm over right exposed breast. I found it among the four figureheads supplied. I have no idea yet about the other three. There are only two more frigates, Congress and Constellation. Hopefully the right ones are there.
6 comments:
A disappointment, for sure. Hope the detail on the other ships is more accurate.
Me tpp Jonathan. These packs are too expensive to just get some uninformed sculptor's fantasies about how historical ships actuall appeared. At 1/1200 scale it would be no big deal. But at 1/700 you would have to step back from the table several feet not to notice the error.
Kinda a lame thing to get wrong, though I doubt that most gamers would even notice. I wouldn’t of. Still, I agree that if it’s supposed to be a particular ship then there’s the expectation of getting the details right.
Otherwise, how are you finding the kits? Still looking forward to see how the ship turns out. 😀
Warlord Games tend to produce incorrect stuff, and use a repetitive production method leaving hobbyists the world over with rubbish kits. Your ship being just one of them. However nice going on your painting. Which is rather cool. BB
Well I guess I am just a whiner, but the spars are molded into the masts! So rather than appearing to set againt the mast, the mast and spar are flush. And they are set 90°< perpendicular to the hull for a following wind only. I can't even cut them away to turn them without damaging the masts. If I build any more I will have to scratch build masts and spars for them or they will all look strange with wind directly abaft the ships.
The hulls with open hatches and protruding guns are decent as well as the decks. And the figureheads are a nice addition.
Friv Game,
"With Us"? Does that intimate you are affiliated with Warlord Games and the Black Seas line?
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