Davco 1:1200 HMS Temeraire, 2nd Rate, 98 Guns

(I note that this post gets viewed frequently so I want to point out that the rigging is incorrect, done before I had a good reference to go by.)

This is the Davco 1:1200 2nd rate, 98 gun ship of the line HMS Temeraire. She was one of  three ships of the Neptune Class, all of which took part in the battle of Trafalgar. Her two sister ships were the Neptune and the Dreadnought. Temeraire was launched in 1798, with a displacement of 2121 tons. She had a complement of 738 men and boys.
Armament:
Gun Deck: 28 x 32 pounders
Middle Deck: 30 x 18 pounders
Upper Deck: 30 x 18 pounders
Quarter Deck 8 x 12 pounders
Forcastle: 2 x 12 pounders

The 98-gun Temeraire was one of the key ships that took part in the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Britain was bracing itself against the possibility of invasion by Napoleon. Napoleon had succeeded in bringing together fleets from France and Spain, in order to ravage British interests. The Battle of Trafalgar was to sow the seeds of British colonial power for many years, as well as decisively destroying the Napoleonic threat.
Admiral Lord Nelson was the genius commander behind the British tactics in the battle: a master tactician, and already a national hero. The French fleet was commanded by Admiral Villeneuve. He had 33 ships, compared with the British 22. By dawn of the 21-Oct-1805, the two fleets were visible to one another. Nelson arranged his fleet into two columns, to pierce the enemy line head on. Nelson's Victory ploughed straight through the line, taking terrible damage, before opening fire. The Victory smashed the French flagship the Bucentaure, with Admiral Villeneuve, the only man left standing on the quarter deck.
Then the Victory's progress was blocked by the Redoutable. The Temeraire, captained by Sir Eliab Harvey, flanked the Redoutable on the other side, and the Victory and Temeraire smashed their foes with shattering broadsides at point blank range.
Captain Jean-Jacques Lucas of the Redoubtable said: "It would be difficult to describe the horrible carnage caused by the murderous broadside. More than 200 of our brave lads were killed or wounded. I was wounded at the same instant, but not so seriously as to prevent me from remaining at my post ... A little later a third ship [HMS Temeraire] came up and stationed herself astern of the Redoubtable and fired into us at pistol range; in less than half an hour our ship was so riddled that she seemed to be no more than a mass of wreckage. In this state the Temeraire hailed us to strike, and not prolong a useless resistance. I ordered several soldiers who were near me to answer this summons with musket-shots, which was performed with the greatest zeal. At the very same minute the mainmast fell on board the Redoubtable. The entire stern was absolutely stove-in, rudder-stock, tiller, and two tiller-sweeps, sternpost, wing transoms, and transom knees were in general shot to pieces."
The ships behind Victory engaged the Franco-Spanish fleet as they came through. A musket shot from the Redoubtable hit Nelson and knocked him down, breaking his back: he was taken below and missed the battle as it climaxed towards British victory, although he was kept informed at all times. The Temeraire continued to fight the Redoutable and managed to smash the French ship Fougueux in the process. The tactic of piercing the Franco-Spanish line was successful, and during the storm which blew up later that day, many of the crippled vessels were finally destroyed. Nelson died in the course of the battle, and was given a state funeral.
Thus the Temeraire acquired its legendary place in British naval history.

Now the sunset breezes shiver
Temeraire! Temeraire!
And she's fading down the river.
Temeraire! Temeraire!
Now the sunset Breezes shiver
And she's fading down the river,
But in England's song for ever
She's the Fighting Temeraire.
Henry Newbolt, 'The Fighting Temeraire', 1898

Like the Davco HMS Agamemnon, this model required new masts, yards, jib & sprit, and the fore staysail//fore topmast staysail/flying jib. It turned out to be a very nice model.

Here are a couple of comparison shots with GHQ's HMS Victory on the left and Davco's HMS Temeraire on the right. I think they will look OK on the gaming table together.

I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed building it.

Davco 1:1200 HMS Agamemnon 64 Gun

I recently bought 12 Davco 1:1200 Napoleonic ships from a fellow shipmate on the SOG Anchorage. Having never built a Davco ship before I decided to start on one of the larger ships of the line rather than the smaller vessels. I picked the 64 gun HMS Agamemnon.  The hull casting was almost as good as the Langton and GHQ ships and comes in two pieces, stern gallery and hull, like Langton and GHQ. The masts are also nicely cast, unfortunately they are softer than the GHQ masts and unusable in my opinion. The sails are also nicely cast but the spars are nonexistant.

So, although there is nowhere near as much scratchbuild and modification work required compared to the Navwar ship Revolutie, there was still  a substatial amount that needed to be done. New masts, jib boom, and bowsprit had to be built, and spars cut and added to the sails.

Also there was a real surprize towards the end I hadn't counted on. I always build from the stern to the bow and rig as I go. When I got to the bow, after mounting the fore mast and jib assembly, I discovered the flying jib and fore topmast staysails were billowed the oposite direction from the driver?? Really?? I checked all of the Davco ships and they are all that way, just wrong. I find it difficult to believe the manufacturer and customers never noticed. I asked my friend about it and he looked at his Davco fleet that he has had for many years. He confirmed they are all backwards with the drivers billowed to port and the jib and fore staysails billowed to starboard. He says he and all the gamers he's played with over the years never noticed or never mentioned it if they did. I'm almost sorry I pointed it out to him. The bottom line is that just when I thought I was almost done, I had to make two new brass sails, paint and seal them, then wait for them to dry before I could mount them.

Here are a couple of photos of the reverse spanker/driver and jib, fore topmast staysail, and fore staysail for the HMS Temeraire I am also building:

The last thing I added were anchors, GHQ extras of which I am running low.

The Davco package included the following info on the ship:
3rd Rate, 64 gun
Sister ships: Stately, Belliqueux, Nassau, Indefatigable
Launched: 1781
Displacement: 1384 tons
Gun Deck: 26 x 24 pounders
Upper Deck: 26 x 18 pounders
Quarter Deck: 10 x 4 pounders
Forecastle: 2 x 9 pounders

I would also like to mention the fact that the Langton HMS Agamemnon is in no way the same ship. So I'm not sure which is the more accurate for class and configuration.
Here are the finished photos:

My next post will be the completed Davco HMS Temmeraire.

NavWar's 1:1200 Dutch 64 gun Revolutie

(I note that this post gets viewed frequently so I want to point out that the rigging is incorrect, done before I had a good reference to go by.)

A fellow shipmate at Sails of Glory Anchorage shipped me 10 NavWar/Devco 1:1200 ships he had laying around. This is what he sent:

Looking through them I found two Dutch 64 Gun Revolutie Ships of the line, so I decided to build one and see how it went.

The Revolutie was a Dutch 3rd rate ship of the line carrying a nominal 68 carriage guns. It was launched June 15th, 1779 at Rotterdam. It was captured by the British on August 17th, 1796 and renamed the  HMS Prince Frederick.

These NavWar ships are no where near as crisp molds as the Langton and GHQ ships, but I just couldn't beat the price at only $4 a ship. I had no idea how much work would be involved to make this a decent model that could take it's place on the same game table as my other ships. The hull required removing sprue stubs and adding missing gun hatches. The ports on one side don't match the ports on the other. The guns on the quarter deck don't line up with the ports, etc. but with some creative modification and painting, it ended up OK. Rather than the classic yellow stripe along the gun ports, I chose a black strip along the gun ports and yelow port hatches with a yellow hull (wales).

 The sails were the most work. They are solid, flat with no billow at all, and no openings between the sails and the spar below. This would make it near impossiple to rig. I considered just scratchbuilding the masts, spars and sails, but decided to see if I could modify them enough to work by drilling holes between the bottom of the sails and the spar below, then carving an opening out with a xacto knife. I also had to carve out the poor excuse for spars molded into the sails and make some new ones to glue in place.

The spanker and sprit sails were just total losses, so thick I think they weighed as much as the hull. I scratchbuilt these out of wire and brass sheet. I also added the clew lines on the lower main, fore, mizzen and spanker sails. I thought at first I could make the jibs work but ended up making sails out of brass.

The mizzen went on first:

After setting the mizzen shrouds and stay rigging, the main was next.

The main shrouds and stay rigging done, the foremast was set and the process repeated.

Next was the running rigging:

Next was the base. As always I used matt board and common spackle to form the waves.

Here is the finished ship:

 And here is a comparison shot with Langton's HMS Glatton.

1:1200 Langton's 24 Gun Frigate

Here are some pics of the 24 gun frigate I just finished. There are no ensigns on it yet because I'm still not sure whose it is. Hope you enjoy!

Next to GHQ's HMS Victory for comparison: