Combrig HMS Victoria 1/350

[Micha_Pol]

A tiny update in every sense of the word: I finished the two remaining steam craft as well as two of the other ship´s boats. The outer hull was done by airbrish and the interior painted by hand. Fun little things. The oars and lifering are from an other kit, as none were included by Combrig. 

 

[Bertie McBoatface]

So cute! And immaculately made. Keep it up!

 

[Courageous]

Lovely work on those little boats.

 

Stuart

[Micha_Pol]

Small update, mostly detail work but importatnt one. Built the the parts for the boat-supporting structure. The kit parts are thin, flimy PE that will never hold, so I used evergreen plastic rod with a 1,1 x 1,1 mm square cross-section, bent into shape using a flat iron. The supports are 0,8mm brass rod cut to length. It´s all somewhat out of scale, but will at least hold. I also prepared the davits, once again the thin, flimy kit resin parts required replacement, since they have to actually hold the boats in place, 0,8 mm brass rod was ground to a point and bent. Last but not least, I finished painting the boats and added PE oars and rudders to all of them.

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Micha, nice work there. I love those boats. Regards, Jeff.

[Courageous]

On 9/20/2022 at 8:43 AM, ArnoldAmbrose said:

nice work there. I love those boats.

 

Stuart

[TallBlondJohn]

If you haven't done the propellers then correcting one can be done, just use a very sharp scalpel to cut the blades off and glue them back on turned around. I've done it in 1/600, though my props were plastic not resin which made adjustments easier.

[robgizlu]

18 hours ago, Courageous said:

 

Stuart

 

Me too - Fabulous work 

Rob

[Ray S]

Yes, excellent work on this. Those ship's boats are lovely to behold, as is the overall paintwork. There is nothing quite like a Victorian Battleship that oozes character.

 

Ray

[Micha_Pol]

After an other lengthy break (once again spent painting tabletop miniatures) I have returned to HMS Victoria; this time, to complete her. I finally finished all of her small guns. Now the Victorians seem to have loved to complicate things , hence the ship had there 3 different torpedo boat defence weapons: 12x 57mm guns, 9x 47mm guns and 8x five-barreled Nordenfeldt rifle-caliber "machineguns". Two of the 47mm guns were in rear casemates which the manufacturer has shown shut, and 3 further were on the masts (those are already painted). The rest is assembled here. The 57mm on their heptapod mounts were a challenge. Miraculously, I did niether break nor lose anything. I also did the cat davits for handling the anchors; these are resin. I also started on the boat-carry structure above the shelterdeck, it´s all scratchbuilt as the kit parts were unusable.

 

Edited January 6, 2023 by Micha_Pol
spelling mistakes

[Micha_Pol]

HMS Victoria is moving closer and closer to completion. In this context, I have got a question. In this picture we see the ship in harbor with three flags hoisted. Which are these flags? In fact, how are flags used in the Royal Navy anyway? More specifically, what is the flag on the mainmast? https://drive.google.com/file/d/16naynQgNZ3TxvEOm40sA7Qf3PPFv9C2Y/view?usp=drivesdk

Edited January 17, 2023 by Micha_Pol

[Faraway]

19 minutes ago, Micha_Pol said:

Which are these flags?

I don’t know how the Royal Navy use or used flags.

But the one on the right (stern ?) looks like the Union Flag 🇬🇧
The one at the mast head looks like the Flag Of St George or the flag of England 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Jon

[Micha_Pol]

19 minutes ago, Faraway said:

I don’t know how the Royal Navy use or used flags.

But the one on the right (stern ?) looks like the Union Flag 🇬🇧
The one at the mast head looks like the Flag Of St George or the flag of England 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿
Jon

So to sum it up here, Victoria is flying the White Ensign on her stern, a Union Jack on the bow and the Flag of England on her mainmast? I think that´s how I shall build her, that´s beautiful.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

29 minutes ago, Faraway said:

the one on the right (stern ?) looks like the Union Flag 🇬🇧
The one at the mast head looks like the Flag Of St George or the flag of England 

🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

Gidday, actually the right is the bow, and would the flag there be flown there because she's at anchor? And the mast head - is there a full Admiral on board? Just a guess. I can't make out what's at the stern.       Regards, Jeff.

[Dave Swindell]

29 minutes ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

And the mast head - is there a full Admiral on board?

I'd agree with Jeff here, Union Flag on the jackstaff on the bow, White Ensign on the Ensign Staff on the stern, and Admiral's flag at the top of the mainmast

see

 

[Micha_Pol]

Interesting; I just looked it up, an Sir Georgy Tryon, commander of the Mediterranian Fleet who held his flag on HMS Victoria (and went down with her), was a Vice Admiral. According to the "command flags of the Royal Navy" Wikipedia page the vice-admiral´s flag has a red dot in the upper left corner...  which is clearly not there on the photo. Or does the admitral´s flag here signify he´s in charge of the respectve fleet?

[Faraway]

1 hour ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

actually the right is the bow

I did struggle to know which way she was facing.

Jon

[ArnoldAmbrose]

1 hour ago, Micha_Pol said:

the vice-admiral´s flag has a red dot in the upper left corner...  which is clearly not there on the photo.

That's what I thought too, which is why I mentioned full Admiral. But then, who was on board when the photo was taken?

 

48 minutes ago, Faraway said:

I did struggle to know which way she was facing.

Yeah, she didn't have a lot of freeboard at the forward end.

 

Regards, Jeff.

[Zoran Srb]

Wow... That nice. Good luck with the build. I cant wait to see her finished!!!

 I was wandering about Combrig offerings, namely Le Terrible and Montcalm.... You just may sway the decision...

[Killingholme]

The photograph does indeed show a flag of Saint George flying from the main mast- the command flag of an Admiral. But that doesn't necessarily rule out it stlll depicts Victoria's flag officer as a Vice-Admiral. Before 1864 there were colour squadrons, commands of which where depicted by white, red and blue flags. After 1864 this was abandoned and all flag officers used the same white command flag (the St. Georges flag as depicted in your photograph) with the command being denoted by which mast it was flown from. Admirals flew it from the main mast, vice-admirals from the foremast, and rear admirals from the mizzen. After the coming of steam power and the consequent loss of the multiple masts on capital ships, the flag by necessity had to flown from the one remaining 'main' mast. To mitigate this, the red dots were introduced as a way to mark the difference between commands. Prior to this the red dots had only been used for identification on ships' boat flags. I'm not certain exactly when this change was mandated, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 'old' way of doing things persisted into the late Victorian period.

 

Will

[ArnoldAmbrose]

8 hours ago, Killingholme said:

but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 'old' way of doing things persisted into the late Victorian period.

Gidday, thanks Will. Another possibility is that Sir George Tyron had delusions of grandeur or was anticipating a promotion. 😁

But seriously, due to the change from three-masted sailing ships to one- and two-masted steam ships there must have been a bit of confusion or ambiguity at times.

Regards, Jeff.

[bissyboat]

Wow! I think I died and went to boat heaven. Amazing work. ⚓🙌

[Micha_Pol]

On 19/01/2023 at 22:21, Killingholme said:

The photograph does indeed show a flag of Saint George flying from the main mast- the command flag of an Admiral. But that doesn't necessarily rule out it stlll depicts Victoria's flag officer as a Vice-Admiral. Before 1864 there were colour squadrons, commands of which where depicted by white, red and blue flags. After 1864 this was abandoned and all flag officers used the same white command flag (the St. Georges flag as depicted in your photograph) with the command being denoted by which mast it was flown from. Admirals flew it from the main mast, vice-admirals from the foremast, and rear admirals from the mizzen. After the coming of steam power and the consequent loss of the multiple masts on capital ships, the flag by necessity had to flown from the one remaining 'main' mast. To mitigate this, the red dots were introduced as a way to mark the difference between commands. Prior to this the red dots had only been used for identification on ships' boat flags. I'm not certain exactly when this change was mandated, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 'old' way of doing things persisted into the late Victorian period.

 

Will

Thanks a lot for the detailed explanation. That sheds some light on the matter. Interesting. I have Royal Navy decals from the Russian company "Begemot"=Бегемот, so all the necessary flags are at hand (as well as depth markings, which she had for and aft- As to when the picture was taken - Victoria is shown in her "late" configuration, with the higher funnels, As far as I know this was installed during her repairs after the grounding (January 1892). Since she went dowin in June 1893 that is the timeframe.

[Micha_Pol]

More tiny detail work done; both forward and read bridge as well as the connecting walkway got their railings, as well as some other small details. This was quite the task, as the parts had originally been delivered with think "walls" that had needed removal. The raing are generic Trumpeter ones. I also finished all of her tin, tiny guns. Due to the delicate resin gun barrels these will be added last. Finally, I completed the boat-carry structure. Next, the boat cradles need to be added; there are many different ones in the kit with no indication which go to which boat, and there are too few. You might notice I also test-fitted the ship to the wooden base, I like it.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Micha_Pol

[Micha_Pol]

Here is what the rear bridge had originally looked like, BTW.