"Ships for Salnave's War in 1/2400?" Topic

I've had W.E. Warner's excellent book 'Warships of Salnave's War' for a couple of years and I've just downloaded David Manley's Dahlgren & Columbiad rules, together with the Salnave's War campaign supplement.

I just wondered if anyone had given thought to which Tumbling Dice ships to use? None of the ships seem to be part of any named class produced by TD, but I suspect the selection of screw and paddle gunboats and sloops will serve just nicely.

The problem I have is that the TD website doesn't have photos or measurements of these so I can't compare against the line drawings and photos in Warner's book to see which models best represent the prototypes.

Has anyone already figured this out? If not, I'll probably just get a selection and share my own findings, but if someone has already got there before me, it makes sense not to reinvent the wheel.

Best wishes, happy gaming,

Nick

Well, you've avoided the 1st problem you might have encountered by having chosen the most advantageous scale. At 2400 you'll have many fewer problems than you would have had at 1200 scale.

TD make a broad range of Victorian/transitional steam models. About 1/2 are specifically named ships that will be too large, or too late in the period to be useful. Only Atlanta will be a clear 1:1 representation of a needed model.

If I were trying to do this, and given the relatively low cost of the TD models, I'd order a soup to nuts lot of every Victorian sloop, paddle ship, Corvette and gunboat TD offers. Id also order a full swipe of the Napoleonic smaller generic sail craft. Retrofitting a funnel to rep a screw warship should be pretty easy. I did this some years ago in prep for a naval campaign to get models for the Spanish navy ca. 1865.

You should be able to find a workable analog for most of what you'd need. You could go thru the Panzerschiffes ACW line to plug any holes. You should also consider Hallmark's 2400 scale transitional steam, but they're more pricey.

Sounds like a great project. I once considered trying this at 600 scale and hit a brick wall. 2400 should go much more smoothly.

Enjoy.

Nick,

Thanks for improving my knowledge of previously unknown to me conflicts.

I hope that your project works out well.

Jim

Agreed with the good Colonel – another war I had never heard of!

I have the majority of the Victorian ships from Tumbling Dice. Lovely little sculpts, unfortunately I haven't posted any photos of them on my blog. Your best bet for images is to look at peoples images for the 1879 War of the Pacific. Google "1/2400 Huascar" and you will get lots of images of the various steam ships in the range. Thomo's Hole is an awesome source of eye candy and has some of what you need: thomo.coldie.net/tag/1-2400

Spithead Miniatures do matching sets of ship models for Salnave's War in 1/1200. He doesn't have a website but readily contactable via his FB page and I think he does post here as well.

Excellent range, using the Warner book for reference – and a lot of other early and unusual ironclads on offer as well.

There are quite a lot of the smaller TD models in photos on my blog:

link

Thanks guys, much appreciated.

Bearing in mind the modest cost of TD miniatures and the fact that Paul is still taking orders I'll get a smorgasbord of ships and see what I can use – any unsuitable ships will find their way into the navies of my imagi-nations of Parazuela and San Sebastian. The idea of conversions is one I hadn't considered, but you're right that in this scale it should be a simple matter to fit funnels and the like.

Thomo's Hole is indeed a great site with lots of good info and comparison pics.

Boggler – I am a regular visitor to your blog, matey; it's a constant source of inspiration, as are your posts here.

Nick

I have always wanted to do the Battle of Riachuelo (June 11, 1865). Warner has written an excellent book on this less than well known battle.

If you are successful with Salnave's War (and I hope you are) this will be an interesting follow up.