Sovereign of the Sea

Continuing my efforts to derail my own project by acquiring unsuitable large ships, we come to the other Heller kit. This is another 1/600 plastic kit but this time of a real French warhip - La Couronne.



The ship was launched in 1636 and the box illustration confirms the model is very much an example of a ship of the early 17th Century. "Phew, I'm safe" was my thought but then in my reading about the Anglo Dutch wars (three of them,) I spotted the illustration below.

The English warship "Sovereign" or "Royal Sovereign"was launched in 1637 (as Sovereign of the Seas in fact) so unsurprisingly looks very similar to the Couronne. Whereas Couronne had a service life of barely twenty years, Sovereign fought in all three of the wars against the Dutch and was one of the most impressive vessels in the English fleet. Over the course of sixty years I expect the  ship had many refits, but I am happy for it to look like a ship of an earlier age to show off it's veteran status.

The kit is a very similar size to the Phenix, with very good moulded detail. The keel at just over 3 1/4 inches is the perfect size for Royal Sovereign (127 ft.) This kit does have the guns of the broadside showing along its flanks (although not the 100 guns reputedly carried) and has great detail of quarter galleries and turrets shown. The stern is disappointingly plain compared to Phenix with a decal supplied as the decoration, so I will have to paint on a bit more of the "gingerbread" that this ship was notorious for.

The sails of this kit are proper injection moulded sprues. They are much better detailed and more robust than the Phenix kit, and there are more of them.  The part that becomes the deck of the ship has some cannons moulded to it and also appears to have a cover over the lowest portion of the deck. I am not sure it this is a permanent structure or something like the nets rigged in later periods to protect the deck crew from falling debris in a battle?

I am very happy with this model. Due to the period look there will be little opportunity to kitbash multiples into a variety of ships (probably a good thing when I think about it!) but it will make a unique and interesting flagship for the English fleet.

First Rate!

My concept of small ship actions being the limit of ambition for 17th Century naval games didn't last long. The idle thought of; "I wonder what is available in plastic kits that might be useful?"  led to several hours of Internet research and a few likely looking candidates for big warships. The kits are from Heller and the one that is closest to my interests is the Phenix. This is a 1/600 kit of a large French, ship of the line based on designs from the late 1600s. There is not a specific ship that this kit represents and apparently the kit is quite elderly so has a few issues. This does nothing to put me off however. If it looks more or less right I will have no problem using as the basis for my own kitbashing attempts.

As ever there was a hitch to my brilliant plans.  This kit appears to be out of production; not visible in the Heller catalogue and absent from my local model shop and online destinations. Waiting for one to pop up on Ebay looked like my only chance and then I stumbled upon some stock in a Greek hobby shop. I snaffled two kits (same delivery charge as one) £8-£9 each seemed like a fair price including postage to me in the UK. They turned up in less than a week. (How we are going to miss that frictionless cross border trade once we are totally out of the EU...)

The kit itself has pretty good detail and not too many parts. I particularly like the carving on the stern, which is so typical of warships of this period. The only other contents in the box are a good instruction sheet and some very lightweight vac-formed plastic sails. These might be tricky to paint (they are white so I don't strictly need to) so I think I'll try before I cut them out. A surprising omission is a sheet of paper flags.

The size of the hull at 4 3/4" to the figurehead makes this ship 178 feet long at my nominal scale of 1/450. This makes this in the area of a 1st Rate or maybe 2nd, depending on the number of guns carried. It will certainly look imposing next to my horde of small ships and vessels. The only thing that are noticeable by their absence are any gunports. Maybe they were always intended to be painted onto the completed model? This suits my purposes as I can add them in the scale to suit my project and in whatever number I decide suits the type  of ship I want to portray. Peter Pig even have gunports with protruding ordnance intended for just this sort of conversion.

Stern windows and decoration piece.

So, overall very happy with these kits. My intention is to build one "as is" to be a French or English First Rate and the other I may chop a section out of the hull to create a smaller, handier Dutch warship. I will of course have to waterline them but a good razor saw will usually do the job with few dramas.  I also have some of the Minairons sets of  flags (link) that should work well with these kits.

Buys from Cavalier

A fairly restrained haul from Cavalier in Tunbridge Wells this year. Mostly focussed on 17th Century naval and a few odds and ends impulse buys. One of the things I had intended to have a look at was the 1/700 buildings  that Brigade Models have just started producing (link). Perfect for coastal scenery for Black Seas and pretty damn close to my 1/500ish Anglo-Dutch War project. Looked really nice in person so I got a few pieces.

The star fort is in fact Castell de San Antonio  from their 1/1000"small scale range". I think it is a bit less scale dependant so will still work for larger scales. The others are (from the back) St. Mawes Castle, two Martello towers and Fort Vauville. All are excellently cast in a dense resin and should paint up nicely. I shall of course be using them for scenery anywhere from the Channel to the Med or the Caribbean.