1:1200 Xebec Frigate - El Gamo

On May 6th, 1801, Lord Thomas Cochrane, commanding the diminutive 14 gun brig HMS Speedy, came across the 32 gun Spanish xebec frigate El Gamo. Instead of withdrawing before the dramatically superior force, Cochrane attacked the Spanish ship in a direct assault, bringing Speedy so close that Gamo's guns could not fire down in to her, while Speedy's elevated guns sent shot crashing up through the crowded decks. As the Spanish crew attempted to organize a boarding party, Cochrane stood off again and fired in to the massing boarders. He repeated this process several times and then, with a numerically inferior crew, boarded El Gamo and captured her, garnering a great deal of fame for himself and his ship.

I've had an interest for some time in representing El Gamo, but could find little information on what exactly a xebec frigate was. Clearly it had to be something larger and more formidable than the typical xebec rigs that were so common in the Mediterranean. Several of the guys over at TMP's Napoleonic Naval board squared me away, informing me that this type of vessel was in fact square rigged as any other frigate of the day, and owed its xebec name to certain hull characteristics - specifically the narrow prow and long raised poop deck.

I've used Langton Miniatures' 32 gun xebec frigate model, but since that comes with a xebec rig, I've added a 'small frigate' mast and sail package to it. Rob Eubanks at Waterloo Minis was a big help there, for which I am grateful. I did however leave the lateen on the mizzen mast, and left off the mizzen topgallant, as that is what I see represented in some of the paintings of the ship.

And here is a picture painted by the famous Antoine Roux:

1:1200 "Galley Gunboat" & "Large Gunboat" - Langton Miniatures

Joining the flotilla of gunboats are two more vessels from Langton Miniatures - a galley gunboat, with two guns, and a 'large' gunboat, with three guns on pivots. Both of these craft can be portrayed with sails or oars, but I prefered the former. These are pretty simple kits, but still with nice detail, and brass sails. As with most Langton kits, they sit pretty high in the water, so I have sanded them down a bit.

One of the fun aspects of gunboat models is all of the interesting rigs they display - they get fairly exotic. It's a fun break from the standard three-masted square-sailed ships of the line.

The bases are trimmed-down sections of Langton resin sea bases, with black acrylic underneath, and the rigging is made of nylon bristles from a paintbrush. I replaced the white metal masts with brass rods, for strength.

 For size comparison, here are the two gunboats in front of GHQ's HMS Cleopatra:

 Here is the flotilla in its entirety - so far:

Santissima Trinidad: Tumbling Dice 1:2400

Here's a small post about a small subject - Tumbling Dice's 1:2400 model of the Santissima Trinidad, a massive warship rendered in exceedingly tiny form.

1:2400 scale doesn't produce models with the same visual appeal as, say, 1:1200, but what it's great for is gaming the larger fleet actions without purchasing extra dining room tables - a great benefit when you live in the city and don't have anything like a dining room. I've done a relatively quick and simple treatment on the hull, in the interest of time. If I'm going to build up fleets of these things I don't want to take forever on each individual model. I'll indulge my passion for detail on the larger models.

Rigging this model was actually not too tricky. Yes, the spaces involved were very small, but the miniature is made of strong metal and the shrouds/ratlines are cast on, so the masts are very resistant to bending. That helped a lot. I didn't bother to add the majority of the standing rigging, concentrating instead on running rigging just to give a basic impression.

Imperial Roman Legionaries

This unit was a long time in the making as my painting time has been very limited in recent months, but I finally finished them and sent them off to their owner.

Here are 24 Imperial Roman legionaries from Warlord games, based, formed up and ready to go. These are plastic figures. Sorry the pictures are not quite as well focused as they should be, I didn't inspect picture quality closely enough before mailing these out, so this is the best I've got!

22 Gun Xebec - GHQ 1:1200

Here we have GHQ's model of a 22 gun xebec in 1:1200. Xebecs are, in my opinion, a really neat looking type of vessel, and in the Napoleonic era and earlier they were very common throughout the Mediterranean region. They were especially favored by the Barbary Coast pirates, as they were extremely fast, maneuverable craft. The young American navy, seeing it's first wartime deployment as a truly national navy, would have seen a lot of these vessels during the Barbary Coast War. They were lightly built and sat low in the water, so they were not line of battle ships, and they were not suited to the rougher seas of the open ocean, but they could easily run down slow merchantmen or escape from more heavily built warships.

There were several different types of rigs a xebec might employ, and this model displays a complete lateen rig - all of the sails are triangular and attach to a yard that crosses the mast at an acute angle. Another type of rig was the polacre, which combined lateen and square sails.

This model has been raised up very slightly on plastic sheeting, had it's bowsprit and stern boom replaced with brass rod, and is rigged with monofilament nylon thread. It sits on a Langton Miniatures sea base, below which is a layer of plastic and a magnetic sheet (for ease of transport).

From this view you can see an interesting aspect of the rig, which is that the fore and mizzen mast are raked forward and backward respectively. Only the main mast is perpendicular to the deck.

Here is a size comparison shot showing the xebec next to GHQ's 32 gun frigate HMS Cleopatra.

8 Gun Schooner - GHQ 1:1200

Another type of vessel seen in abundance on the waters of the Great Lakes during the War of 1812, in the forces of both sides, is the schooner. These small, fore-and-aft rigged craft were fast and maneuverable, and relatively inexpensive, as far as warships go. This model carries an armament of 8 guns - not a terribly formidable broadside, but it'll do in a pinch.

As usual, I've raised the model just very slightly on some thin plastic sheet. I've also replaced not only the bowsprit but also the two masts with brass rods to add strength. That made it much easier to keep the rigging taut - I've used monofilament nylon thread again. The model sits on a metal base from Langton, with plastic and a magnetic layer under that. The shrouds/ratlines are Langton photo-etched brass.

 Here's a size comparison shot showing the schooner next to two other GHQ models. To the left is a 14 gun cutter, and behind them is the 32 gun frigate HMS Cleopatra.

1-Gun Gunboats: Langton Miniatures 1:1200

One of my gaming ambitions is to be able to fight out the Flying Colors Great Lakes campaign, and for that I am going to need a range of ships. I'll need a few 6th rates, some brigs and schooners, and especially a lot of gunboats. Both sides in the War of 1812 produced large numbers of gunboats - and why not? They were comparatively cheap, they were maneuverable, and doctrinally they were very much in fashion at the time. For better or worse...

Fortunately Langton Miniatures makes a great selection of these diminutive craft, offering a variety of rigs and armaments. Here are two, small one-gun craft, which come in the sailed and rowed variety. I've gone ahead and added a mast and spar to the rowed one as well, because I liked the look and so that it can also serve as a model of a sailed boat as well.

These are great little kits that don't require much assembly and, of course, paint up rather quickly. I've replaced the white metal masts that came in the kit with brass rod to improve strength, I've used nylon paintbrush bristles for the rigging, so that I didn't have to tie off and keep any tension in the line, and I've created a sea base around the rowed model, which has a little bit of a base cast as the same piece with the hull. I wanted it to sit on the same size base as the other, one that is large enough to pick up easily. The water for that one is just built up out of Elmers wood filler, notched and painted. It's a bit rough, but when it's one in a flotilla it won't stand out.

Scroll down to the bottom of the post for a size comparison shot to see how small these craft are.

Here for the sake of size comparison is a shot of the two gunboats next to a GHQ Miniatures 32 gun frigate, HMS Cleopatra.