Shipbucket

Good evening, guys.

After the failure of the anti-republican coup d´etat in mid July 1936, it was clear that the most critical factor in the beginning of the civil war would be the Army of Africa, the most professional corps of the Spanish Army, made up by hardened veterans and battle wise officers. But as most of the fleet remained in republican hands, crossing the straits from Spanish Morocco to Andalusia was very risky. An air bridge with german and italian aircraft was organized, but the amount of troops was clearly insufficient. In August 5th, 1936, a nationalist convoy formed around the small transports Ciudad de Algeciras and Ciudad de Ceuta, sailed from Ceuta to Algeciras.

The escort was given by the gunboat Dato, the armed trawler Uad Kert, and the torpedo boat T-19; and also a pair of tugs.

The air cover was of paramount importance: for this operation, 2 Dornier Wal and 3 Savoia 81 seaplanes, plus 3 Fokker trimotor civilian aircraft were patrolling the straits; and a force of up to 6 + 3 Breguet XIX attack biplanes and 2 Niuport figthers was gathered for bombing the republican vessels.

The crossing begun at 17:50. Comming from the Atlantic, the republican destroyer Alcala Galiano at 19:00 tried to intercept the lead vessel of the francoist line, the transport Ciudad de Algeciras, but the gunboat Dato repulsed the attack, so Alcala Galiano went to the rear of the line trying to catch the slower sea going tug Arango (the other tug, Benot, was only a harbour tug, and loaded with ammo only, as she was unable to withstand the bad sea, was forced to return to Ceuta), but again was repulsed by the artillery of Uad Kert and T-19, and even the rifle fire of the infantry aboard Arango.

Then, Dato returning from the lead position, also shelled the destroyer. Finally, the Dornier seaplanes bombed the republican ship, scoring one bomb. So Alcala Galiano, with 18 mortal casulties and some damage onboard disengaged and headed to Malaga. The rebel convoy anchored at Algeciras at 20:00, landing 2 infantry battalions, an artillery battery, a mortar group, a signal company, 2 ambulances, and several tons of ammunition: 2000 men, 6 105 howitzers and 4 mortars; compared to less than 800 men ferried by the air bridge in the previous 3 weeks, without artillery. In francoist historiography this voyage was called "the Victory Convoy".

Credits: Thanks to Colombamike for the comments and drawings of the (elusive) Uad Kert. The Alcala Galiano is based (in fact, is was almost untouched, only some details) on a previous very well done drawing by Alvama of the Churruca class destroyers. Cheers!

Very interesting and well done. Great work!

Thanks, B!

After the failure of the anti-republican coup d´etat in mid July 1936, the republicans secured the main base of the spanish submarines, Cartagena, a well defended harbour in the Mediterranean Sea. So, all the submarines were flying the tricolor flag. As most of the officers sided with the rebels, the NCOs and sailors mutinied, subsequently more than 350 officers (including most of the flag officers) were executed (50) or just murdered (300). Worsening the already relaxed discipline, was the fact that the real authority in all the vessels of the republican fleet were the "local committees" (almost all of communist or anarchist sign) in each ship: The Spanish Republic had a headless fleet.

Consequently, the operativity of the submarine was very low. The first series then available, B Class, was a Holland design (F-105) built al Cartagena with the license of Electric Boat Co. in the 1920s. Of the 6, 2 were rammed by foreign merchant vessels at republican harbours, another was bombed at Malaga early in 1937, one was lost with all hands off Estepona, B2 with a soviet commander most of the war, survived and after the SCW was used as battery charger.

B6 was the first republican submarine that was lost in September 1936.

During an artillery duel against the steam armed tug Galicia,

the submarine was shelled surfaced, and when the rebel destroyer Velasco arrived, the submarine surrendered. Almost all the crew was rescued, but a machinery chief remained inside and opened the valves, so B6 sunk.

The second series was also a licensed version of a S class submarine from Electric Boat Co, and 6 were built in Cartagena in the 1930s, and were good boats equal to any design of the era.

During the SCW some were commanded by a soviet skipper, but with any success.

C-5 was lost with all hands off Rivadesella the New Year´s Eve 1936 in a confused affaire (ranging from sabotage from the commander, to an internal explosion). C-6 was scuttled at Gijon in October 1937 when the Nationalist Army overrun the republicans from all the northen (Bay of Biscay) coast. 3 boats survived the war and flown to Bizerta with all the republican fleet in March 1939.

C-3 while in surface, was torpedoed and sunk with only 3 survivors by the German submarine U-34 (Commander H. Grosse) in December 1936 off Malaga, during Operation Ursula (a secretive tour to the Mediterranean Sea of a pair of German U-Boats in aid of the francoist forces).


Credits: I recibed a lot of aid from Colombamike, from blueprints to very useful comments towards perfecting the drawings. Thanks a lot! The starting line for U-34 Type VIIA, was a nice Darth Panda´s Type VIIC boat. During Operation Ursula, any distinctive marking of the Germans submarines was painted off. Cheers.

PS: Thanks to Eswube´s comments about the shading.

Well done!

I only have some small reservations about shading (or rather lack thereof) on upper parts of submarine's hulls (on the extreme fore and aft) and front parts of their sails to show they are bit rounded there.

Ok! Thanks, I will fix it!

Good afternoon, guys!

As the anti-republican coup d´etat was a failure, the two parts found themself badly prepared for a war, specially a long one. The SCW is a conflict very studied, and important conclusions (fair and wrong) were obtained from it. But mainly about land and air warfare, but in my point of view, very little was wrote about the maritime part of it, which was a critical point, because, as any long war, SCW was a war of supplies, so it was critical keeping open the sea lanes for your own shipping and denying them to your enemies.

As I previously said, the most critical factor of the war was the only professional corps of the Spanish Army, the Army of Africa, which was garrisoned in Northen Morocco.


But as most of the spanish fleet remained loyal to the republican leftist goverment, crossing the straits was very difficult, and only done in few times, and the air bridge was clearly insufficient for crossing the 30,000 men needed in the peninsula. In addition, the main southern rebel harbour, Cadiz, was disconected from the rest of the rebel forces, and the good harbours in Galicia (northwestern corner of Spain) were badly communicated (only one railroad and one road) with the Castillian Plateau. So, it was of paramount importance an offensive of the Army of Africa from their beach heads at Cadiz, Algeciras and Seville, first to secure Andalusia, then to connect with the rest of the rebel forces securing a friendly border (Portugal) in their backs.

As the flag officers were in the rebel side, they understood clearly the need of an aggressive submarine campaign (the 12 submarines of the Spanish Navy were with the republicans), so as early as September 1936 an agreement with the friendly fascist Italy and nazi Germany was attained: 2 German submarines and 6 Italian boats patrolled the western Mediterranean Sea and the Spanish coast. In the next months, the Germans torpedoed and sunk a republican submarine, and the Italians torpedoed and damaged a 6 inch armed cruiser. But this caused alarm to the British Admiralty, which menaced to sunk any foreign or suspicious submarine. Trying to avoid any clash with the powerful RN, Germany retired their two boats, and Italy sold a pair of Archimede class submarines to the Spanish Nationalist Navy (and putting other 4 under mixed spanish-italian command).


The lead of the class, Archimede was renamed C-3, and Torricelli C-5 (trying to confuse the republican intelligence: 2 boats of the Spanish C class were lost the previous months); later both were renamed as General Mola and General Sanjurjo respectively. General Mola was the most successful submarine of the SCW and of the Spanish Navy, with 4 vessels sunk, one of them, Cabo Palos loaded with soviet armament, and 1 damaged.

Cabo Palos, when built was the biggest and most modern vessel of the Spanish merchant fleet, one of a class of two built for Ybarra and among the first spanish built ships with diesel engine. At the beginning of the SCW it was requisitioned and used as a transport between the Spanish Mediterranean harbours and the soviet Black Sea ones. When sunk, Cabo Palos was coming from Odessa with a load including 30 Polikarpov monoplane fighters, more than a hundred M-1937 45 mm/46 cal. anti-tank guns with 300,000 rounds for them, 15,000 Mosin Nagant rifles, spares for tanks, cannons and machine guns, and nearly 60 million of 7.62x54R rounds.


General Sanjurjo was involved in the sinking of the motor vessel Ciudad de Barcelona with a heavy toll of lives, which was travelling from Marseille to Barcerlona with more than 500 volunteers for the International Brigades.


Both boats survived the war and until the arrival of a Type VII German submarine, were the best boats of the Spanish Silent Service, and were based at Cartagena. Soon after the war, the stern 100 mm guns were landed. In 1943 while rescuing German sailors from a sunk U-Boat, General Sanjurjo was involved in an incident with a British T class submarine. Subsequently, both Spanish ex-Italian submarines were painted white for avoiding further confusion.


Both boats were paid off in 1958, after the arrival of American aid.

Credits: Thanks a lot to Colombamike, for the blueprints, the comments, the stabilization keels and the canvas detail . And also thanks to Ian, as I previous said him: "plagiarism is the most sincere form of praise" (the shading of the saddle tanks was made trying to mimic the shading of Ian`s nice series of american submarines ). Cheers.

Great additions!

(just a tiny nit-pick - General Sanjurjo submarines have all a missing pixel in the contour of the stern )

Trying to do it less steped, but I forget to draw the missing pixel!

Great additions to this most interesting series.

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English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
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Good afternoon, guys.

A spanish gunboat of mexican origin: the nationalist Calvo Sotelo.


In 1932, the Mexican government ordered a whole armada to spanish shipyards: no less than 15 vessels. The most prominent of these ships were a pair of transport-gunboats called Durango and Zacatecas, which were built by Union Nacional de Levante (Valencia) the former, and Echevarrieta y Larrinaga (Cadiz) the later. The desing was capable of transporting a complete battalion of 500 men, or alternatively, 400 hundred soldiers and 60 horses.

The first of the pair, Durango, was commissioned in the Mexican Navy in 1936, but in July of that year, the anti-republican coup d´etat failed and the SCW begun. Cadiz was seized by the rebel forces and soon, the unfinished Mexican vessel was confiscated, and finished in 1938 as a gunboat with 4 120 mm guns and a pair of 88 mm AA guns for the rebel Navy and named "Calvo Sotelo" (the other 3 gunboats were also named after murdered politicians).

Soon after its commission, the gunboat was found too topheavy, and part of the armament (first, the superflying forward gun, then the superflying aft one, and lastly, the 88 mm AA guns) was landed. The vessel was in the Mediterranean during all the SCW and during WWII, still with topheaviness problems, the remainder 120 mm guns were changed to 101 mm lighter guns, and was the tender for a MTB flotilla based at Tarifa. After the war, it was a school ship for naval prentices, and finally an accommodation ship moored at La Carraca - Cadiz, despite the relative low age.

Credits: I want to thank Colombamike and his accurate comments (and enormous patience! ) about how to improve the drawing. Cheers.