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Victorian-era Rocketships of the Great Powers (a work-in-progress thread)  [RSS] Share on facebook Share on Twitter Submit to Reddit
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Made in au
Cocky Macross Mayor





Adelaide Australia

Greetings, all!

If you've been kicking around Kickstarter of late, you might have noticed the VSF print-n-play 'Ironclads' spaceship wargame:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tripleacegames/ironclads-space-battles-in-the-victorian-aether?ref=project_link&fbclid=IwAR0Z8zjd9U1JzJI9vaY3uPJxIWsWbQTy-tbLsa4pYd_mFUPv677PIhlpNjA



I've been thoroughly tickled by the concept, and I'm a backer, but the sort-of-chibi-style 'ships in space' look of the miniatures doesn't quite 'do it' for me. However, 'Ironclads' inspired me to recall to mind a vague idea I'd had a while ago for a collection of VSF / Pulp rocketships with naval-style gun turrets and casemates.

I wanted to avoid the phallic 'fountain pen with fins' cliche that dominated pulp covers in the 30's and 40's, and go with a squatter, boiler-like appearance. Part of the rationale of this is that in 'Ironclads' ships can rotate on the spot, and Newtonian physics makes it dangerously clear that bootlegger turns are a bad thing when you're a mile long.

Separate reaction engines on pylons, magnetised, spherical turrets, iron framework, rivets everywhere but NO gears or cogs! (I mean, why would you put those things on the outside where you can't grease them??)

With the original Buster Crabbe Buck Rodgers serial playing in the background, I fired up the Babbage Electron Manipulator, and got sculpting.


Spaceclad 4th Rate - 'S' (Selene) class




The 'S' class was amongst the first classes of Aether-going warships in commission with the Royal Aether Fleet (RAF). Built in the new yards at Llanbedr, Wales, the 30 hulls of the 'S' class formed the yeomanry of the RAF throughout the 1860's and 1870's.

Although underpowered compared to the faster German or American frigates of the period, (An Armstrong 120MW Irradiating Sodium Boiler was the sole powerplant), the 'S' class were the best-protected ships of their size, and surprisingly quick to the helm. The small centrifuge meant cramped living for the crew of 128, made worse by the fact that the Captain's cabin alone occupied a full third of the outmost deck! A single Aetherboat occupied the 'cloaca' in the sternplate. Typically for the era, no lifeorbs were fitted.



Fitted with two of Brunel's revolutionary 'ball and cup' Universal Turrets, the 'S' class was capable of carrying remarkable firepower; three or four 9-ton guns, firing wide-arc 'birdshot', vacuum shell, or electro-rounds, were the most common main armament, supplemented by four casemate-mounted 13pdr quick-fire guns. Oddly for a 4th Rate, no torpedo or rocket tubes were fitted as standard. Both Magna-cannon and Turbine Accelerator turrets sometimes replaced the 9-ton gun turrets, but it seems 'S' class Captains often preferred the old-fashioned but reliable solution of gunpowder over the wondrous but untrustworthy 'damfino' * wonder-weapons of science.



Of the 30 ’S’ class 4th Rates commissioned, eight were lost in action, three perished in accidents, and two are still listed as ‘missing’ to this day. Ten were sold to Brazil in 1888, while the remainder had all been scrapped by 1900.


Spaceclad 3rd Rate - ‘A’ (Ares) class




One of the largest designs of 3rd Rate from the 1860’s, the ‘A’ class was rushed into service as a foil to France’s Cométe class, which was proving decisive in the battles over Niobe Planitia. A solid balance of endurance, speed and protection made the “ ‘andy A’s “ remarkably reliable for British Rocket-Ships of the time.



The 288 crewpersons were quartered in a quite generous centrifuge which orbited the two Armstrong Boilers, generating a combined 312MW. Memoirs of ‘A’ class officers and crew universally praised their ships, if only because they were equipped with the first suction lavatories in British service that didn’t leak!

The ‘A’ class is noteworthy alone for the fact that three ships - Ajax, Amphritrite and Astra - were the first to include women in their crews. Each received aboard two women officers and 80 Aetherwomen in June, 1863. (The tale of Midshipwoman Horatia Trumpeter of the Ajax is, of course, the stuff of legends, but I digress.)



The only real weakness of the ‘A’ class was its lack of firepower. Haste had denied the class being commissioned with the planned ‘Size 2’ Universal Turrets, for they had such development issues that the ‘A’ class was revised to take three of the smaller ’Size 1’ turrets. While this did allow them to participate in the war following the Venusian Confrontation, the changes meant they could not be refitted with the bigger turrets post-war. Six QF 13pdr guns in casemates and four torpedo tubes (two forward, two aft), complemented the main battery.

22 ‘A’ Class 3rd Rates were built between 1862 and 1869. Five were lost in battle, One went missing, and one was captured by American privateers in 1866, and taken into USAAF service. All had been withdrawn before the War of 1888.



Well, that’s a bit more than I’d intended to write! Where’d all that information come from?!? I really must stop these ouija board sessions, summoning up Mr. Fred T Jane, late of Cavor City, Luna!

Onto more sculpting then, although I don’t know how many of these I’ll make. I’d like a selection of 4-5 per nation, with maybe four of the Great Powers represented.

The sculpts were scaled at 1/1000 but now that I'm getting the first prints in my hands, I'm thinking they look a bit closer to 1/700 or so. Anyway, the ’S’ class Frigate is 41mm long, and the ‘A’ class 82mm. All the sculpts are multi-part kits, to make printing quicker and easier, and enable kitbashing and customisation.

Turrets will come as a variety of conventional or ‘damfino’ weapons. Each is pre-drilled to take a 1x2mm magnet, to make swapping weapons easier.

These and other eclectic offerings will be available to print from my myminifactory storefront, just as soon as I get the darn thing open! (Still a week or three away.) More about that soon, I hope,

Thanks for taking a look, folks. I hope you were amused by my rotund retro-rockets and revisionary ramblings. Next time: The huge Hampton that is the ‘H’ class battleship!


*Damfino’ : RAF slang. Shorthand for ‘Damned if I know’, a phrase oft employed by British Aethermen when asked about the science behind certain super-weapons.

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Made in us
Battlefield Tourist




MN (Currently in WY)

Nice work.

I look forward to see how these chunky designs develop and print.

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