"Help needed for Russian warships' flags in 1905" Topic

Hello everyone,

I'm a new comer from China and have just found this tremendous forum, which contains lots of exciting and inspirational discussions. I've been painting and gaming with 1/72 figures for some years, but it's just since recently that I've got obsessed with 1/2000-1/2400 scale warships. And one of my favourate naval battles is the battle of Tsushima.

I've begun with building the 1st division of the Russian Pacific Squadron, made up of 4 Borodino-class battleships. Models are from WTJ, with impressive details and sharpness / smoothness considering they are 3d printed minis. I've only replaced the original barrels of the secondary turrets (which come as part of the hull with supporting material in between) with brass rods and added the masts to give them a sharper look. Here are the results:

Now, as I'm painting them, I find that the overall black / dark grey scheme with yellow stacks just looks a bit too gloomy on such a small scale ship. The only way I can think of to give them some "sparkles" is to add some flags on the top of the masts.

Though there are books telling detailed story of the battle itself, I have not had a chance to get a single idea about the contemporary regulations of the utilization of flags in Imperial Russian Navy. After a lot of google-ing I've found very limited references. It seems that, for the foremast the only possible flag is the St Andrew's flag, and for the aftmast either an St Andrew's flag or a swallowtailed flag (sorry I don't know the right terminology at all…)

Thus my questions:
1, What flags could possibly be raised at the top of the 2 masts of these 4 battleships?
2, Were the ships in the same division raising flags in different ways in order to distinguish oneself from others in the chaos on the battlefield?
3, Especially, was there special flags to mark the flagship and the presence of the commander-in chief?

Many thanks in advance for your help.

Greetings from China,
chen

link

It's often a good idea to lighten up the dark main color on a very small model by a couple of shades, so it looks right under indoor lighting conditions. Outdoors, a big object like a ship, painted black, will be bleached out by sunlight. Notice that the artists in the paintings you linked to didn't paint the Russian ships pitch black, but a very dark grey with lighter highlights. Maybe you should try to fool the eye this way.

Oh, and welcome. I enjoy meeting people from far away on the internet. I don't know anything about the modelling and wargaming hobbies in China, and I hope you'll tell us more.

Hi Irv, thanks for your advice. I have already considered this altenative, but I think I'd rather stick to the historical fact that these ships were painted in a very dark grey close to black. I'm now obsessed with the idea of adding little flags. :) At least I would like to learn something that I have not known for long.

In China the 1/700 and bigger scales ship models dominates, and the standard is very high. Wargaming is at the very beginning of appearing. We can find some 1/2000 plastic ship models here but the range is very limited.

Cheers,
chen

Have a look here for types and uses:

link

As an ensign, each ship would fly the St. Andrew's cross, at the stern. Often, in action, more than one was flown from various vantage points so if one was shot away, another was still flying (i.e., the ship had not struck).

The swallowtail pennant was flown at the mainpeak to show that the ship was in commission (originally, it also served to show wind direction). The jack would only be flown (at the bow) when the ship was anchored, so you can ignore it.

Command flags are another matter. Not sure where the Russian regulations had them flown.

Tumbling Dice has flags for the Russian 1905 navy for 1/2400.

Chen,

I haven't anything to add to help, but I would like to say your Russian battleships are looking really good and the barrels and masts you've added really add to them – very nice!

And welcome to the forum!

Nick

Thanks very much for your information, links and nice comments!

The website @Vaughan has shared is excellent. Nice to see a clear list of terminologies. And with the information from @rmaker now I tend to get each of the ships flying 1 or 2 St Andrew's cross. That would make a mighty look. I'd prefer to save my money for printed products of other flags with more complicated patterns, but this time a simply hand-painted little blue cross may do the job I think. I'll keep this project updated here, mates.

chen

Chen,

This doesn't help you with your project, but I really admire your work. Stunning!

Awesome work Chen! Can I ask you if you have diagrams of plans for Fuso, Hiei, Jiyuan and other small units of the 1894 Yalu River Battle?

Wow, very nice looking ships, Chen!

It's often a good idea to lighten up the dark main color on a very small model by a couple of shades, so it looks right under indoor lighting conditions. Outdoors, a big object like a ship, painted black, will be bleached out by sunlight.

I served on submarines, and between the salt and the sun, the hulls actually looked to be a color close to Panzer Gray.

1, What flags could possibly be raised at the top of the 2 masts of these 4 battleships?
2, Were the ships in the same division raising flags in different ways in order to distinguish oneself from others in the chaos on the battlefield?
3, Especially, was there special flags to mark the flagship and the presence of the commander-in chief?

In general, you'd have the Ensign flying at the mast while underway, with a commissioning pennant above that. As mentioned by rmaker, you'd often see multiple Ensigns flying to prevent the appearance of surrendering if/when one got shot away.

Flags (well, Jack and Ensign) flying at bow and stern is for when you're in port.

At least in the US Navy, "Flag Officers" are called such because they have a personal flag that shows where they are. An Admiral's flag will have however many stars he wears, and may have a number in the case of a Group commander. The Commodore's flag has the squadron number on it. You'd need to look up the Russian flags, sorry.

I think 1/2400 might be a bit small for signal flags, but that's another option to dress up a ship, particularly the flagship. Signal flags would be on the sides, as shown in this picture:

Hi keltoskythian,

Blueprints of Fuso and Hiei are difficult to find. This was why I gave up making them. As for Chinese ships, you can find quite some nice illustrations and plans about them, using Chinese caracters as keywords (which you could copy/paste on the wikipedia page).
Here is a site in which you can find some profile illustrations of both sides (move downward and click on the small ship icons):
link

And thanks a lot @Lion in the Stars for the information and advices! I was too doubting that the colour be so deep. I'll try to correct it on the 2 finished ships.

Oh and as you can see, I gave up the idea of adding signal flags…

Very nice ships! (or should I say, targets )

Yeah, the problem with signal flags is that you need to do all the rigging, too.

Very nice painting. I am very tempted to do this period. A friend of mine has long done the 1905 war.
Very nice. Thank you for sharing.