You know what is wrong in this world? A conspiration, a cabale, a mafia of both big and small kit manufacturers has conspired to simply kill off what would certainly be the most viable segment of the market ever, the one segment of the market that is clearly the most important one for the one and compelling reason that it's the one I'm interested in most - true scale models of late 19th c. coastal shipping, both naval and general maritime.
If you look around at the mainstream purveyors of plastic kits, I can see countless different variations of Shermiger tanks and Spitwulfschmitt planes, as if anyone were actually interested in these - or as if they had any historical significance whatsoever! Imagine there being countless kits of even the most exotic variations of, say, Messerschmitt aircraft available, but noone producing, say, a Cerberus class 1/72 coastal ironclad. Can you believe that? I can't, yet it's true.
Of course, even in the darkest hour of our hobby, there is always someone out there offering a little comfort. There is that small light that refuses to get extinguished, that plucky and dedicated representative of true modeling screaming defiance into the face of the Spitwulfschmitt-Shermiger mafia.
It may not be a fire big enough to keep you warm and comfortable at night, but it is enough to keep you awake, and not to lose hope for what may be a brighter future, one day, when the shiny catalogues of the big companies are full of torpedo gunboats, paddle tugs, turret vessels, armoured trains, SBBL 32pdr guns, and the like.
Such a light is burning down in Hampshire.
There, in the small village of Ashe, already mentioned in the Domesday book as the home of four villagers, ten smallholders and ten slaves, the august company "Sgts' Mess" offers the Victorian modeler hope - in the shape of their kit BO7 which is labelled rather unpretentiously "Pinnace":
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http://www.sgtsmess.co.uk/bo7-pinnace.html <<
In fact it's a kit of a 50ft steam pinnace or picket boat, a type of vessel that was constructed in the hundreds, saw service both with the Royal Navies and other, foreign establishments failing in their attempts to come close to the senior service; pinnaces were used in a variety of roles, from tugs for unpowered rowing boats to general runabouts and even to second-class torpedo boats. Capable of being armed with machine guns, light quickfirers and torpedos, they were the mainstay of any operation in coastal waters. In short, if you had to pick just one kit to be made for late 19th c. coastal warfare, a pinnace would probably the object of choice.
So what do we get once we open the package?
Pride of place belongs to the boat, which is a single-piece casting. Basically all that is needed is a halfway decent paintjob to make it stand out. There are a number of nice little details directly cast onto the main piece, like the anchor chain or the lifebuoy, and the general quality of the casting is very good; very little cleanup to do.
Of course one can always add further details, but even straight out of the box this has a lot of potential. The rest of the kit is made up of the funnel, a couple of ventilators and a six-pounder gun; these are done in white metal.
The funnel is slightly raked, but this can be easily corrected if intended. Putting all the pieces together the model already looks very much the thing:
This is going to be a fun build! I'll probably add a couple of details - the steering position between the main and the aft deckhouse for example, and also some torpedo dropping gear - it will be an interesting challenge to see whether I can make that removable, as these were quite delicate.
A final note - the kit also comes with a couple of 20mm figures; the picture below is not very good, unfortunately, but the poses are rather nice; one sailor is apparently, well, steering the boat, while the others come with a cup, a fag and an Aldis lamp.
Unfortunately, the figures look rather 1930ish (which should not come as a surprise, as they are designed for the 1930s to WW2), so they are not that useful for Victorian coastal wargaming; a nice addition for the spares box, though.
19 August 2010, 10:17:51 PM