"Pre-WW1 Merchant/Civilian ships in 1/1200th" Topic

I have French & Italian Pre-Dreadnoughts from XPForge & they are brilliant However, I need to find some large & small unarmed Merchant Ships & possibly civilian vessels of the period so they must be pre-1914 but an be from any time in the last years of the C19th. Can anyone point e in the right direction?

Cheers! Jae

Not anymore.

This is a tough subject I've struggled with for a long time.

I have a set of seven Thoroughbred 1/1200 converted steamers that I deconverted back to merchants/transports by leaving off the guns. 6 are side wheelers, one is a screw steamer. I want more screw steamers, but I'm running out of hope that Toby will reopen.

You can do this same trick with old Houston's ACW armed screw gunboats from Stone Mountain. The Houstons were actually about 1/1000 (very roughly) but it's actually an advantage if a group of civilian vessels looks varied in size and shape.

The old Figurehead 1/1250 coastal range has a lot of small merchant vessels, tramps, and coasters. Some are timeless designs that could pass as 1890-1940 ships, some can be converted. The only place I know to get these now is The Last Square in WI.

War Times Journal has two cargo ships and the Otranto in their WWI British auxiliaries list. The Otranto was built in 1909, so this is probably too late for your needs. Also, all three are armed.
These are available as 3D files, but WTJ lists XP Forge as a licensed printing source for their files for those without a 3D Printer. The files a sent as both 1/1800 and 1/1250 scales and can be scales from 1/4800 to 1/600 as I recall.

A friend is planning to do the Thunderer battle with the tripods and is using a predred light cruiser, the Otranto and the freighter for ship models. Not exact models, but close enough for tabletop.