Shipbucket

I've revised the ram bow on the San Lorenzo as eswube had pointed out earlier, after loooking up some refs on similar ships of the time.

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Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress

That's certainly better. I'm looking forward to seeing more great ships in this thread.

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Worklist

"If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

I really like your sloops and sailing corvettes.Same for the Rio Negro,is a very nice Ironclad.

In the mid 1880s, a naval mission to Europe by several officers toured British and Italian yards and were treated to demonstrations of the latest torpedo boats, which hugely impressed the Lisenians. Glowing reports about the speed and agility of the sleek craft were influential in convincing the senior staff of their usefulness. The torpedo boat was viewed as the ideal weapon for the modest but ambitious Armada. Knowing that first rate battleships were out of the question with the navy's limited budget, and desperate to avoid complete inferiority with regards to Japan and China, the government approved funds to purchase torpedo boats abroad. The Torbellino class, designed with British help but built in Italian yards, were the first ever torpedo boats to be incorporated into the ANL.



Armed with Whitehead torpedoes and a pair of small QF guns, these quick craft entered service in 1889. A first series of 18 was ordered, these immediately being put through their paces once crews were trained and conducted exercises against the larger ships then in service. It was hoped that if war ever came, the torpedo boats would sortie out to defend the coast, under protection of heavy coastal guns. Once they had weakened the enemy ships with their torpedoes, they could make a hasty retreat back towards their base, while the heavier coastal defense ships would finish off the wounded enemy with gunfire. The short range of these rudimentary boats and the need to concentrate groups of TBs for striking power meant that it would be impossible to defend more than a few targets at once. Despite being reliable and well-suited to the sea around the islands, they were disliked by their crews. Conditions aboard were incredibly cramped and service aboard a torpedo boat was generally a miserable, unenviable task.

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Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress

Great work! Both on picture and on "historical background".

In 1890, the navy commissioned its most powerful warship yet. The French-built San Ignacio coastal defense ship was a radical departure from previous warships in Lisenian service. The one-off vessel resembled a large river monitor, clad in heavy armor, bristling with casemated 6-inch guns and designed around a single massive Canet gun, one of the most powerful pieces of naval ordnance at the time. The San Ignacio was the ultimate expression of the ideal Jeune École warship as envisioned by the French-educated sections of the naval staff. By this time, a good portion of the naval officers had received training abroad in the United States, and came to regard the small but heavily armed coastal cruisers and the San Ignacio as white elephants. Unfortunately for the San Ignacio, its first few years in service did much to prove its critics correct.



The 12.6-inch gun was undeniably powerful and capable of crippling much larger ships, but serious problems were revealed during exercises. The sheer weight of the turret threatened the stability of the ship when aimed to either beam, which in turn reduced accuracy against distant targets. Reloading the hefty rounds, which weighed almost 900-lbs each, was incredibly difficult. Cramped conditions in the turret, crew exhaustion and magazine rooms combined with unreliable loading machinery made it impossible to match the manufacturer's claimed rate of fire. In practice, the Canet piece took almost to an hour to reload, which was simply unacceptable in combat. The weight of the gun and forward magazine also contributed to poor sea-keeping, the result being a very wet bow at the slightest hint of swells.

The San Ignacio was still faster and better protected than the previous coastal defense ships however, and the American-sourced 6-inch QF guns were regarded as excellent. These guns were in fact so well liked that arrangements were made to produce them locally at the naval arsenal, and several older ships received the 6-inch QF as part of their refits, which in turn lessened the logistical burden of maintaining and supplying different calibers throughout the fleet.

Despite all of the ships drawbacks and its unfortunate reputation, it remained the most powerful ship in service well into the end of the decade. By then, attitudes had shifted within naval circles towards building a better balanced fleet, capable of extending the range of the Lisenian navy further to sea.

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Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress

Very interesting design and great drawing! Keep it up!

Thanks eswube! Now for something a bit more different.

In 1878, two engineers working in the naval arsenal's torpedo workshops began to experiment with the idea of submersible crafts after being fascinated by a newspaper article on the Confederate submarine Hunley. After years of work and tinkering, G. Lopez and Spanish-born J. Grande fashioned a crude wooden submarine, reinforced with copper and iron. Fitted with an imported Otto-cycle engine for surface running and a small electric motor for underwater propulsion, Grande took the curious looking contraption into the water for the first time in November 1881. Leaks limited the "human torpedo" to a depth of 25 feet, and speed was a measly 2 knots, but nonetheless some navy officials expressed great interest in it.



Unfortunately, on the ship's 9th dive in Jan. 1882, the main hatch failed and the boat was flooded, Grande and his two crew barely escaping with their lives. All was not lost however, as the interest on submersible crafts created by the ill-fated boat would encourage the navy to continue experimenting with submersibles in the future.

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Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress

Very nice submercible,pure 19th technology.

I have been meaning to post the next update in the history with some new ships, but unfortunately I had to spend a week in bed and in the hospital with a very painful debilitating illness which obviously everything on stand by.

I'm recovered now and I'll confess that to pass the time in the emergency room and distract myself, my mind wandered between craving a cheeseburger (blame my young metabolism) and going over my AU ships

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Republic of Lisenia AU - In progress
Republic of Lisenia in FD Scale - In progress