HMS Glory-less - part 2

HMS Glory-less is now complete and undergoing sea trials on the modelling table.  A few words about the name - I have not given the model an historical name as it is far from being an accurate model - rather a vague representation of the original HMS Glorious.

The painting process involved spray painting it black and then drybrushing on the other colours - light brown for the decks, white for the lifeboats and pale grey for everything else.  A quick squirt of matt spray varnish finished it off.

Hopefully a maiden voyage will be taking place soon...

Camel Cataphracts - more news

Further to my recent post on armoured camels, there followed an email exchange with John Bassett.  John writes: 
<< Enjoyed your recent blog on the cataphract camels. They certainly seem to have existed in real life, and were in used in battle against the Romans in the early C3 AD - towards the end of the Parthian empire and a generation before Harry Sidebottom's "Ballista" books.

Our source is a contemporary history written by the Roman senator Herodian. He wrote a history that starts with the death of Marcus "Richard Harris" Aurelius, covers the reign of the demented, tyrannical Commodus (Joaquim Phoenix...), his assassination, the subsequent civil wars, the rise and rule of Septimius Severus and the brief and blood-thirsty reigns of his various relatives, culminating in the rise and brutal fall of the demented teenage trans-sexual god-emperor Elagabalus. Something for everyone here, and a brief stage appearance by Parthian cataphract camels can only have added to this unedifying if colourful pageant. Anyway, Herodian IV.14.3 - the battle of Nisibis, AD 217:

"Meanwhile Artabanus was upon them with his vast and powerful army
composed of many cavalry and an enormous number of archers and
cataphracts who fought on camels, jabbing with long spears."

No real reason you couldn't use them in a Sassanid army, as they took over various parts of the Parthian army, including the horsed cataphracts. I doubt there were any at Carrhae - the camels there are mentioned as supply animals, but who knows...

I don't recognise the model camels. I have some Minifigs armoured camels from about 1975, and they are only armoured on the chest and shoulders (if that's what camels have...). I wonder if the full armour may be conversion work by JR from Garrison originals?

The riders do look like Minifigs PB cataphracts. The only designated camel riders that Minifigs made in the early 70s were lightly armed Arabs and Palmyran caravan guards, before issuing a Parthian armoured camel lancer figure at the end of the 1970s.
I still have a great fondness for this period (both the Greek and Roman world and the 1970s!) as the first "proper" wargames figures I got in 1974 were Minifigs 25mm Greeks. I still play with them. >>
Thanks again to John for his useful information.  I can say that the armour is definitely not conversion work.  Since the earlier post, two further batches of camels have emerged from the dust - photos coming soon!

HMS Glory-less - part 1

I have to report a brief outbreak of ship building on the modelling table of late.  The already reported  re-release of the Airfix 1/1200 WW2 ships set me looking into the conversion opportunities offered by these kits.  Armed with my trusty copy of Conway (the volume covering 1906-1922), the Internet and a newly arrived reference book (below), I began work.

I had decided to begin with the HMS Hood kit which looked to have possibilities to be bodged into some of the earlier British battle cruisers.  The original HMS Glorious - though perhaps better known as a WW2 carrier - looked very much like a shortened Hood with only two turrets.  I assembled the hull and main deck and called in my trusty X-Acto razor saw to remove a 12mm(ish) chunk just ahead of the aft mast. 

I then carved away and filled the mounts for the 'A' and 'Y' turrets.  The 'B' and 'X' mounts should really have been trimmed down by a few mm but I didn't bother.  Assembly was then completed with lifeboats and secondary guns being secured in locations somewhere between those offered by the kit and those indicated on the plans I found.  A single funnel was located approximately midway between the masts.

Ready on the slipway!  The white stripe ahead of the aft mast shows where a miscalculation was rectified with a slice of plastic card...

The completed model ready for some paint.

Camel Cataphracts - and why not?

I was originally going to call this post 'Dusty Warriors', but the late Richard Holmes had already bagged it.  On Sunday afternoon I set about doing more tidying up of some of the figures rescued from JR's attic last month.  With the aid of a 2-inch paintbrush the worst of the dust (see the photo in my previous post) has now been removed from these chaps - to reveal some really rather nice paintwork.  Can anyone help with identifying the manufacturer?

My plan is to base up the painted figures and (in the fullness of time...) paint some more in order to get some use out of these rather splendid figures. I have noticed that these older 25mm metal figures are fairly compatible with many of the newer plastics - and Martin has many of the latter which we have used in Strategos / Lost Battles games.  

Clearly I was drawn to the sheer ridiculousness of what WRG used to call 'Extra-Heavy Camelry' - what better place to start?