Blackhawk UP! Brown Water Navy's 3D printed gunboat model in 1/600 scale

I know, it's been a while since I've posted. Lots of projects that pull me in different directions.

Regardless, I found some motivation with a new batch of ACW ship models I acquired from Matt at Brown Water Navy. Today's focus is one of the new models, the USS Blackhawk.

A large sidewheel tinclad, Blackhawk served as Admiral Porter's flagship for the Mississippi River Squadron. Spacious, with room for Admiral Porter's horse, Blackhawk served in multiple campaigns including the Red River and Vicksburg.

For nearly 20 years my gaming needs for a Blackhawk were filled by pretty much the only game in town in 1/600 - Peter Pig. Models aimed squarely at the gaming market, The Peter Pig model cleaned up into a serviceable model with good painting and the addition of some boom and masts. Now the Pig has a competitor for this model - Brown Water Navy. You can check out the websites of the each respective products, but what really works here is pictures. So here you go...

Here's the BWN model in the forefront

and with the Peter Pig model up fron

Both compared to a Thoroughbred City class ironclad

And overhead view. You can see that there are variations between the two models is cabin length, the texas, sky lights and stack location

 More to come!

The ACW Naval building project 2015 - 2016. The final posting.

It's done.

I've completed the assembly and painting of all the ACW naval models in my collection. If took more than half a year, but it's done.  The last two models - USS Kearsarge and USS Minnesota were stubborn. The standing rigging on Minnesota took the better part of a month. I don't want to think about how many feet of wire are on the model.

Port beam of the Minnesota from Bay Area Yards. Stripped down for combat with her boats lowered away. 

 Bow quarter view of the model. The steel wire really helps stiffen and support the masts - just like the real standing rigging! 

USS Kearsarge from Thoroughbred Models. Ready for action! 

Now I can do two things - reorganize the painting table for the next project and start playing some games using these models!

ACW Naval update - week 10

Good day and welcome to week 10!

As predicted in the week 9 update, very little was accomplished this week due to the demands of preparing for Cincycon 2016. However,  very little means something was accomplished. To wit - rigging on several ships is completed or nearly so.

Completed
Two ships have their rigging completed - CSS Patrick Henry and the USS Sassacus double ender.

CSS Patrick Henry with the standing rigging installed. A quick coat of black paint and this model is complete!

Slightly different angle of the Patrick Henry

Sassacus class double ender. The masts are from Bay Area Yards, so the rigging does help keep things in place.

In progress

CSS Jamestown / Thomas Jefferson. Need to finish up the rigging. Maybe four more wires and it's done!

Back to the yards
 Following the convention, USS Minnesota took a little damage to the forward standing rigging. It may be an opportunity to redo some of the standing rigging. The model was completed several years ago when the author's skills were not as developed.

USS Minnesota from Bay Area Yards.  The masts and rigging were one of the author's earliest attempts.

Tales from the Anaconda: The Battle of Hampton Roads. March 1862

Cincycon 2016 featured an American Civil War naval game loosely based on Hampton Roads. This battle of Hampton Roads had some odds and ends. In addition to USS Monitor, the steam frigate USS Minnesota was off the shoal and joined by USS St. Lawrence being pushed around with the aid of a tugboat. The casemate ironclad CSS Virginia was joined by the gunboats Patrick Henry and Jamestown.

Rules: Smoke on the Water, from Canis Publishing.

Scale: 1/600


Models:

USS Monitor - Peter Pig
USS Minnesota - Bay Area Yards
USS St. Lawrence -  Bay Area Yards
Union tugboat - Thoroughbred Figures

CSS Virginia - Thoroughbred Figures
CSS Patrick Henry - Bay Area Yards
CSS Jamestown - Bay Area Yards

The Confederates enter the roads from the southwest, the Union steam in from the northeast leaving the protection of Fortress Monroe behind them. St. Lawrence, realizing it cannot keep up, rapidly falls behind and out of the game.

Minnesota maneuvers to deliver the broadside.

Though starting cautiously, USS Minnesota soon accelerated into the center of the battle and drew fire from all sides. Three of the first four heavy rifle shots from CSS Virginia were DUDS, sparing Minnesota 30 points of damage. There was much grumbling about the quality of the Richmond primers and fuzes. In return, a broadside of the Minnesota (20 guns!) resulted in 1 pentration of the casemate by the 10" smoothbore, 18 bounced rounds of 8" and IX" gunfire...and a critical hit to the boiler! Steam filled the ship, scalding many crew men working the lower deck. The survivors abandoned ship. Leaving Patrick Henry and Jamestown to fight on or run away.

Fire burns on Minnesota while steam pours out of Virginia.

Well that's one way for it to play out, but not much fun at a convention, so ceding the Union a victory, play proceeded as if the boiler survived.

Minnesota took fire, caught on fire and deciding that today was NOT a good day to die, broke off and retreated to the relative safety of Fortress Monroe.



The action then shifted to USS Monitor. Monitor had a lot of trouble hitting the approaching gunboats. Their fast speed let them close in rapidly and with some good ship handling, both gunboats rammed the Monitor...

Minnesota sent the port broadside into CSS Patrick Henry causing moderate damage and a fire.

Sound collision!

Great ship handling - the CSS ships did the best possible job maneuvering to contact.

With little effect. Monitor suffered a machinery hit reducing her speed to slow. Didn't even lock together. Both Confederate ships attempted to board Monitor, but the attempt was repulsed with losses to both boarding vessels.



Monitor slowly backed off and unloaded the 11" guns into Patrick Henry.  Between the heavy guns and the fire, Patrick Henry was crippled and sank.

Monitor did not escape unscathed. Accurate fire from the heavy guns on all three Confederate warships reduced the turret to scrap. Monitor limped away, taking fire from the Virigina, which could not catch up. Jamestown, seeing what fate had befallen Patrick Henry steered clear and went to the assistance of Virgina.

A fun little game with lots of action. The dice were hot as armor was repeatedly penetrated with generally low probability opportunities. Very far from the grinding slugfest that was the original battle, but perhaps an idea of what would have happened with guns firing shot at full powder charges.

ACW Naval status report - week 8

Well. Almost forgot to post an update for this week. And it's been such a great week!

Not much moved to the 'done' column this week. but lots of progress in the other areas.

What's Done?

Finished up painting the rigging on USS Varuna and got the matte coat of varnish applied.

What's almost done?

Good progress on the CSS Thomas Jefferson and CSS Patrick Henry. Both had their ordnance installed and the rigging is coming along. Finding some odds and ends to paint as this progressed. Should be done in the next week or two. (Did I mention that rigging in a pain?)

 

CSS Patrick Henry from Bay Area Yards.

CSS Thomas Jefferson with the guns mounted. Rigging is underway.

CSS Patrick Henry with the bow and stern pivots mounted. Lots of work left on the rigging.

 


What's 'In Progress'?

We had a gorgeous day on Saturday almost like early summer. Highs in the 70's, sunshine and dry air - spray painting weather! Several hulls that were ready for a primer coat got painted as did a whole mess of guns from Bay Area Yards.

CSS Calhoun. Good shot of the detail that went into this model. It's a great piece.

CSS Calhoun from Bay Area Yards.

USS Easport from Brown Water Navy Miniatures (Shapeways).

USS Kearsarge from Thoroughbred Figures.

USS Miami from Bay Area Yards.

Typical double ender. Big heavy semi-pivots mounted fore and aft.

Miami had a very different hull form than did the Sassacus or John Paul Jones class double enders.

In addition to the priming work, some general painting was done to CSS McRae and USS Lackawanna.

CSS McRae from Bay Area Yards.  Working on the block painting before starting the detail work.

The masts cleaned up nicely!

ACW Naval status update - week seven

It's been another productive week getting work done on the ACW naval backlog. Several additional items are done, several more are almost done and a few new items have been added to the queue. So without further delay...here's week seven!

What's done
The big news here is that USS Varuna is ready for the tabletop. Varuna is a Bay Area Yards model that - unfortunately - is out of production. The model is of a warship with a short but distinguished history. Varuna fought with Farragut and was sunk at the Battle of the Forts during the assault on New Orleans.

Added the guns.

Just realized I didn't paint the yards on each mast.

And on a white background.

 Next up, we have a couple of shore batteries. Both of these are from the Bay Area Yards line and both are still in stock.

The two gun battery position with bombproof. Guns are Thoroughbred Miniatures garrison guns.

One gun battery. Exterior is covered in flocking.

And both batteries together.

 What's Almost done
The rigging on the Florida is installed. Remaining tasks are to paint the rigging.

There's a lot of steel wire in this image.

I'm still thinking the stacks need a darker shade of gray applied. This may be the week.

A chronic problem I have with the big ships is the base warping and rising as you could seen on the right.

There's not a lot new with the Lackawanna and the McRae this week. Kearsarge and Calhoun are stalled waiting on the weather to improve for their base coat of spray paint. It's an opportunity to get some more models ready for the base coat so we get those most bang for the buck as it were.


What's New?

A couple of new items. Broke out the model USS Miami that's been patiently waiting on the box for the last 17 months ago. I can't complain. That model of USS Varuna you see up the page? It's been in the queue since 2007.  In addition, I received a model of USS Eastport from Shapeways. It should be relatively straightforward to finish, but it does require warmer weather suitable for spray painting.

Two double enders - USS Miami in the foreground and USS Sassacus in the back.

Two parts added to the hull - a mast and a stack. Miami apparently only has the one mast. There is a small length of styrene that I must admit I have no idea where it goes.

View from off the port bow.

Don't mind the dog hair - it gets into everything!