Oriel IRN SEVASTOPOL 1899 - Oriel

Iterum · Feb 13, 2023

Dear Friends,
die to illness I wasn't able to build a lot and stopped a plenty of projects.

To do a restart I picked out an Oriel kit from my pile of Models (surviving a fresh water leckage in the cellar) and decided to go for

I(mperial R(ussian) N(nay) SEVASTOPOL the ship easy to distinuish from her two sisters as her funnels are shorter than the crane pole inmid.

Battleship_Poltava_in_Kronstadt,_Russia_-_Autumn_1898.jpg

Her her sister IRN POLTAVA hhows the well rounded hull (and the second source to distinuishing the windows' number in the wheelhouse). She is a typical pre-dreadnought (Loa 115ms/Lcwl:112,47ms/Displ.:11.354ts) with her twin pair of 305mms on both ends and a huge numbers of 152mm artillery (boardside two in twin turrets two in single cassematte mounting) and six 457mm Tts (4 above/2 below CWL) and a mixture of a dozen 3pdr/47mm and 28 1pdr/37mm QFguns

Certainly in her pacific colour sheme a lot of details will be easier to be seen but the kit is printed in her Baltic/Black Sea blueblack hull delivery.

Of intrest may be the Admirality achor (here on IRN POLTAVA with the longer than pole funnels and a four windows wheelhouse's front) in his tremendouse size and

this astonishing edge simply cut into/out-off the hull's side. This pictures shows also the 47mm Hotchkiss guns in question in hull were QF guns - not revolver cannons (may be in the crow nests?) as I hoped.

Here some of the dockyard's plans that are surviving giving some ideas about what is in the hull that may bee viewable through the bulleyes - in particular:

The officiers' accomodation aside the center cassematte's 152mm single guns.

All three Shops took part in the Russian-Japanish War of 1904/05 and SEVASTOPOL was badly damaged during an artillery duell against IJN MIKASA. Returning to harbour she swung out her torpedonets awaiting Fürther attacks. These Camel during the very next nichts: Here Nets we're able catching 79 of 80 Japanese torpedos - but this one passing over the nett sunk deeper by a befoe damaged pole hit her most badly in the very end. She managed by defending herself to sink two torpedoboats and damaging six during their attack runs against her. So she was a very expensive prey for the Tenno's navy - killing 35 men and five officiers.
On the 02.Jan.1905 the land fortifications capitulated and now the single hit counted worthy: the Japanese torpedo damaged the propeller so the hope the escape the Battleship to Vladivostock was ruined and Admiral Essen decided to scuttle the ship in 55ms deep water instead. She still is there outside in her wet grave untill today.

This as a little historical background for those interested in why I choose her from her tripple.

Iterum · Feb 13, 2023

So yesterday night I started to complete the LC-skeletton so far,

cutting down the UWS to 10mms below CWL to get a bit of a hull's shape in the clear resin (on my monitor in the background is the building of IRN ADMIRAL NAKHIMOW 1888 by a colleauge giving a lot of very helpful hints) that may be coloured greenly/brownish a bit. Due to this one "anchor pocket" will be visible completly emptied - and I do think about placing a 1/200 figure in there as a Mr. McScale.

A some idea about the shape of the hull in length and the bulkhead's - all of them survived the leckage in my celler not so I had to rebuy them again.

Here the hull's outline with some possibility to insert some further details. Thebhorizontal LC board ist the "real" CWL so I do geht some more hull under water to show.

So this was my yesterday's result and I stopped after sticking them into each other as a very first fitting test.
So for this afternoon my idea is to cut out/sand the bulkhead's beavel and starting to fill the more delicate sections with some balsawood (grain horizontally!) to get some good surface to deal with - in particular under the CWL. As the detailling inboard is still in discussion in my mind to add some more intrest into the kit.