I know that the masses of people who follow this blog have been checking every day to see how the ship building is going, only to find nothing posted since early Feb...
#Clunk!
Back to reality. For the couple of people who are interested... it has been going well.
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| Under construction presently: Chitose (the seaplane tender version), Nippon Maru (the next in line of my scratch-built Japanese oilers) and Hatsuzuki (the second of two Akizuki-class destroyers to fit my purposes). |
Did I achieve that self-appointed target of 70 ships built in 90 days? Of course not! I have, though, made a huge 'dent' in the unassembled kits.
I am not exactly sure how many of the original target of 70 that I built by the end of March. I had completed 84 in total at that point. I think 40 of them I had made prior to January, so I reckon that I managed to make 44 over January–March. My uncertainty with this came about because, in early February, I decided to stop the double-accounting and simply focus on building all that I have. Then, in March, I purchased a few more. Confused? So was I for a while, especially when I seemed to be making no progress and the number remaining to be built went up!
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| First of three photos showing progress with construction. Those built to the beginning of Feb are at left. To the right of the scratch-built oiler are the ships that I had built by 7th March. |
There were a few hiatus in Feb. and Mar, but I am content with what I got done. I can see the end point (just over there) and it is well in sight and eminently achievable. Here are the stats 'to the minute':
The current total is 187 ships. This includes all ships, carriers, battleships, cruisers, destroyers, transports, oilers and other 'auxiliary' vessels, a motor mine sweeper (MMS51) and six little torpedo boats, but not the Japanese miniature submarines that come with a few of the kits.
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| In this second photo we see progress to 24th March. |
Of these, 150 have been 'constructed'. I used inverted commas since 28 of them are 3D-printed models, so came ready-made. Of the remainder, Julian built 32 in years-past and I have made 90—82 kits and 8 scratch-built ships—since April last year.
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| Lastly, the recently built ships, as of today. I did not notice until I cropped the photo for posting here that the last two built are out of photo to the right (part of the scratch-built Kenyo Maru just visible, Shimozuki off to her right). |
So, only 37 more to go. I have set up a few mini-targets along the way, viz.:
- all Japanese cruisers built—completed!
- 30 remaining,
- 100 built by me,
- all Japanese destroyers built,
- all Japanese carriers built,
- all Japanese battleships built,
- 18 remaining,
- all RN & RAN ships built,
- 10 remaining.
The last ten will be the remaining US ships that I have: six carriers, two battleships and a couple of destroyers.
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| A view down the line of the remaining 37, with bits of post-it notes indicating my little interim targets. |
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| First interim target achieved: all Japanese cruisers built. Light cruisers to the front, heavy cruisers at the back. In order of launching (historically) from left to right they are: front row, Tenryū & Tatsuta (Tenryū class), Kiso (Kuma class), Abukuma and Natori (Nagara class), Yūbari (her own class of experimental light cruiser), Jintsū and Naka (Sendai class), Yūbari (Agano class); back row, Furutaka and Kako (Furutaka class), Aoba and Kinugasa (Aoba class), Myōkō and Haguro (Myōkō class), Takao, Atago and Maya (Takao class), Mogami and Mikuma (Mogami class), and Tone and Chikuma (Tone class). These are all that I 'need'/want to represent, with the exception of Ōyodo which I have ordered and will receive once it is available. |
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| Japanese cruisers coming your way! |
With the end so clearly in sight, I aim to get back ro some painting, in addition to building ships. There are plenty of ships to be painted, of course, but I'll also get back to the figures; plus a 1/6000 representation of Alexandria.
Julian is keen to do a hypothetical attack on the British fleet at Alexandria using Henschel Hs 293 radio-controlled anti-ship glide bombs launched from Heinkel He-177s. It's part of an alt-WWII campaign that he's involved in, so will be occurring in 1943 in that 'world'. To this end, a couple of weeks ago we constructed a section of the harbour and city.
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| Outline of the harbour of Alexandria. The strips of plastic sprue are to represent the breakwaters. |
Looking out on the azure blue southern Mediterranean. 
With pieces of foam added to represent groups of buildings or larger buildings.
The town is purely backdrop, so need only be a representation. Except, I found a really nice diagram of Alexandria in 1941 from Alamy. I could not resist and had to make some changes. I added a few buildings near the lighthouse, removed some from behind the three piers (Kamaria Port) and added in the three fortresses, oil stocks and storage tanks, Gabbari Quarantine Station and laid out some thin plastic to represent the railway. None of it is really necessary for Julian's (our) purpose, but it had to be done!
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| Alexandria with added oil stocks and storage near the three piers, forts on hills, quarantine station and railway. |
This will now be added to the items to paint! Once I have undercoated it I'll stick on the railway and then paint buildings and other features.
It has been a fascinating exercise and I have learnt lots, event though I have not delved deeply. The lighthouse on our model is not THE lighthouse, or what remains of it, that is on the other side of the (former) Island of Pharos. Wondering why there was no island in the model, I looked it up. The ancients built a bridge (mole) out to it, the Heptastadion, which progressively silted up over the centuries and lead to the land connection—and fabulous real estate potential. The Ras El Tin Palace was built on it, for one!
