My third submission for the challenge is a 1/600 scale model of the British broadside ironclad HMS Hector. The Hector entered service in 1864 and was armed with 20 68 pounders and 4 110 pounder guns. She had a top speed of 12.6 knots, which was very fast such a large ship in the era. Note - there's a wisp of thread for the rigging along the stern - sorry about that!
A broadside ironclad is exactly what the name describes - these steam/sail powered ships were armored along the sides but had little to no armor across the bow or sterns. The armor thickness was 114mm on top of 457mm of wood - pretty good for the age.
The Hector will be joined by the HMS Warrior and HMS Scorpion as part of a British intervention force I'm building for a convention game this summer (Historicon). The game will be split in two parts - the first day will be a naval encounter with the British trying to force a landing and the second game will be a land based battle using 28mm figures including the new Perry British intervention force. The specific scenario will be influenced by the outcome of the naval game.
From a modeling perspective, this was a tough/frustrating project. The final model is about 90% scratch built. I did purchase a hull casting for a merchant but found it unusable - except for the smoke state. The rest of the hull has been redone by myself and the mast/furled sails are are scratch built. It's still a serviceable model from a game perspective.
The model is 5.5 inches long and four high. In terms of scoring, I'll leave that up to Mr Curt. I'm just glad to have the darn thing done! I suspect you'll see some other British ships and maybe even French ironclad relatively soon.
From Curt:
Fantastic work Miles and a very interesting project (I quite like the sound of your interventionist scenario). Will we be seeing some of the Perry Interventionist models during the Challenge? I hope so.
Due to its size, complexity and the fact that it was largely scratchbuilt, I'm going to score this like a modified 28mm vehicle, so 20 points. Again, great work.
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