Ships For Land, Sea, And Air

By Gerard Boulianne (AKA VonHindenblimp)

The landship pictures were taken from Col. VonHindenblimp's last German Cultural Exchange and Tax Extortion tour of East Aberjumba. The appreciative natives were treated to four performances of Seigfreid, two hut burnings and a dozen hangings. As usual, the British protested that subjecting helpless natives to Wagner was cruel and inhumane.

The land ships were built out of .03 styrene, pillboxes for boilers and brass tubing for the stacks. This was my first try at casting resin. Once I finished gagging at the price of RTV silicone, I simply followed the instructions in the box.
The original wheel was made out of a toilet paper spindle and plastic T- sections. While my casting technique leaves a lot to be desired, it worked quite well, and I recommend that anyone with a lot of identical pieces to build try it.

The ships are based in the German Naval base of Dar-es-salami under Admiral Otto VonSeezik. From there, the Germans keep an eye on the decadent Sultan of Panzibar and his Flimflamistani ally Yezzir Imarat and guard against a sortie by the British gunboat HMS Lady Hyacinth.

The boats were made with two basswood planks sandwiching basswood spacers to create a hull shape. Then the deck was covered with commercially available plastic planking. The sides were made by bending .03 styrene around the wood and gluing it up with an ungodly amount of CA glue. All of the rivets are made by slicing plastic rod salami style and gluing it in place. The little disks are not as difficult to handle as you might think. The point of an X-Acto knife builds up a considerable static charge. You cut up a couple of hundred disks, put a half dozen spots of extra thick CA glue at a time on the hull, touch the point of the knife to a disk and place it in the drop of glue. It takes about two evenings to finish a hull as long as you don't have a life.

The portholes were either commercially bought or made from eyelets bought in a fabric store. The masts were made of brass tubing telescoped over coat hanger wire. This makes for very slender and realistic masts. Where wooden masts were needed, a dowel was chucked into a 3/8 inch drill and sanded as it turned at low speed.

To get plans and ideas for my historical ships, I go to the http://www.papershipwright.freeserve.co.uk/

http://www.digitalnavy.com/html/ships.html and the http://www.moduni.de/ web site. The last has a section on paper ships that includes pictures and dimensions. Also useful is http://www.ku.edu/~kansite/ww_one/naval/n0000000.htm . They have a photo library and access to Jane's and Brassey 1888.

For scale, I generally do the length and width at 1:125 and the height at 1:72. This gives a cartoon-like ship that will just fit on a wargaming table. The Kontusion and Seekau were constructed by using Reviesco's paper model Thor as a template for the wood and plastic finished product. The fort Zindeneune was made with the standard foamcore body. It is based on a Prussian 19th Century fort and Old Fort Henry in Kingston. The one building hint I can give for the fort is to laminate deli trays or scratch foam over the fort. This material can be engraved or embossed and then painted with a wash of hobby paints for very realistic effects.

The Luftkreuser Fredrich der Gross was constructed from a mailing tube capped with plastic half domes from the crafts store and covered with .005 styrene. Use five-minute epoxy to attach the styrene, and smooth with modeling putty.

Name: The Rhine(2 screws) Weapons 2x4.75" BLR (turret) Max Speed 6.5 kts. Armour Hull 5 cm. Turret 5 cm. Deck 2 cm. Dimensions L=49 m. W=7.85 m. D=1.6 m. Crew 28
Name: The Wespe(2 Screws) Weapons 1x12" BLR (front) 2x90mm. BLR (side) 2x37mm. HRC (front & side) 2xTorpedoes(?) Max Speed 13 kts Armour Belt 20 cm. Casemate 20 cm. Deck 2.5 cm. Dimensions L= 46m. W=11m. D=3m. Crew 76
SMS Arminius (1 screw) Weapons 4x210mm. BLR (2 turret) 4x37mm. HRC (?) 1xtorpedo tube (bow) Maximum Speed 11 Kt. Armour Belt 11.4 cm. Turrets 11.4 cm. Bridge 11.4 cm Dimensions L=61 m. W=11 m. D=4.5 m. Crew 132
Name: Wotan, Heavy Siege Landship. Engine: 3 Move: 1 foot/turn Vehicle Weight: 120 tons Armament: 1x 7 inch Siege Hwtz. Armour: Hull=2 Running Gear=1 Crew: 1xCommander 1xDriver 4xEngineers 2xGunners Endurance: 5 days Cargo: 35 tons = 5 turns of siege firing
Name: Thor, Heavy Landship Engine: 3 Move: 1 foot/turn Vehicle Weight: 120 tons Armament: 2x6 inch Hwtz. 2x4 inch Long Gun 6xMaxim MG Armour: Hull=4 Running Gear=1 Crew: 1xCommander 1xDriver 4xEngineers 14xGunners Endurance: 8 days
Name: Buffel, Medium Landship Engine: 2 Move: 1 foot/turn Vehicle Weight: 80 tons Armament: 1x4 inch Long Gun 4xMaxim MG Armour: Hull=4 Running Gear=1 Crew: 1xCommander 1xDriver 3xEngineers 6xGunners Endurance: 5 days Cargo: 4 tons
Name: Storch Medium Combat Tripod Engine: NA Move: 4 feet/turn Vehicle Weight: 4 tons Armament: 2xMaxim MGs Armour: Hull=1 Running Gear=0 Crew: 1xCommander/driver 2xGunners Endurance: 1 day

Since the game stats of the ships depend on how the player builds them, I have left the stats in terms of the prototypes and let the players work it out fot them selves.