"Big Ships" Topic

Gents, assuming gaming space isn't an issue, who makes the biggest (i.e. longest/tallest etc) pre-Dreadnoughts ?

I've seen them at 1/1250 and 1/1000, anything bigger out there ?

Technically, you could use 1/700 scale model ships. Many Japanese companies make pre-dread models in this scale.

Isn't Old Glory's (Merrimac) Range 1/600?

Thanks,

John

1/700 are "modeler's kits" and run anywhere from $35 USD to $95 USD a crack. The kits come from Japan, Russia, Germany and the US. Russia and Japan are fairly well represented, while the US is so so. Britain and France are sketchy, and Germany, Spain and Italy just barely touched. Pacificfront.com is the biggest vendor of these kits. Almost all are resin, though one company, Sealsmodels, puts out a few Japanese ships in plastic kits that run around $45 USD per.

In 1/600, you have Old Glory/Merrimack, which run $12 USD per if you are OG army. They are good for gaming, being bigger and more rugged, though not as detailed as the 1/700 stuff.
Joel is currently working on more of these kits – Russio-Japanese is mostly covered, with smatterings in US, French and British ships. This line goes back to the early 1880's in some cases.

I collect both if you have any questions.

Thanks to all so far – Vsb, how long would an Old Glory battleship work out at?

To explain, we've got a decent sized hall, plenty of interest to run games on the floor, so we're looking for the models to be as big as possible (whilst still being able to carry them in and out!!)

Take the length of the ship in feet, move the decimal two places to the left, then double the amount and you have the length of the model in inches. In other words, 350 feet = 3.5 x 2 = 7" long.

So…. they range from 5-10".

Here's Shikishima in my hand – she runs around 9" long.

picture

Excellent, thanks very much!

Heller used to make a model of the POTEMKIN in 1/400th scale link and the moulds went to Russia, where I thnik that it might still be made. It was accompanied by a similar scale model of the AURORA link

Bob Cordery

The Old Glory Shipyard will have more US Ships as well as Spainish ships available for Historicon – about 16 new ships. There would be more, but we are working on some other things.

The 1:1000 scale "Houston" Pre-Dreadnoughts are actually various scales around that figure. They are available from Great Endeavors with a top price of about $12 USD US:

link

If I recall he once wrote me that his longest ship was about 8" (it was a US Heavy Cruiser I think) . . . anyway they have a large selection of (metal) Pre-Dreads.

-- Jeff

Thanks again for the replies, for the moment we're going with the Old Glory 1/600. The plan is to do Ulsan, then Yellow Sea. So, since you've all been so helpful, I'll push my luck – what OG models are the best fit for the Russian cruisers Rossiya, Gromoboi and Rurik ? I've done the wiki and google bits and have saved loads of bits and pieces, but I'm coming from the perspective of my last Naval game being WWI using Navwar stuff about 1978 and to be honest the photos I've found all look the same to me.

TIA

I'd save Ulsan for last. Honestly – all three of those are unique cruisers. I'd wait to see what Joel has down the road.

Thanks again, looks like we'll be starting off with the big boys :-)

I hope that Joel does some more Italian and French ships for the Med during the 1880s.

Dan

Id like to see him do the rest of the US ships for the great white fleet. Looking foreward to doing some what if stuff.