This morning I spent an hour or two doing some work in my garden - not something that I do often. My main task was to dig away the earth that had been washed down the 1 in 10 slope in front of my shed. Once I managed to get the shed door open I found a whole load of wargaming stuff that I had 'forgotten' about.
Amongst this 'goldmine' was a box of World War I model warships that were made by Minifigs many years ago. They include:
Amongst this 'goldmine' was a box of World War I model warships that were made by Minifigs many years ago. They include:
No. 7: Drake Class Cruiser
No. 11: Invincible Class Battlecruiser
No. 12: Dreadnought Class Battleship
No. 13: Cruiser (unknown class )
Note: No. 13 is listed as an Early Turret Battleship in the Minifigs catalogue
No. 15: Transport Ship
No. 20: Destroyer
No. 21: Destroyer
No. 24: Destroyer
No. 26: Submarine
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I have to say Bob, they look great! Any plans for them? I think some hypothetical fleets may be coming on - as mentioned, I will be using mine for a couple of Eastern Med fleets - Turks and Slavic to begin with.
ReplyDeleteI did not know Minifigs ever had WWI ship in their catalog! What scale are these miniatures? they look very good, at least to my taste -- enough details to make the model interesting, without any excess of precision.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking about a couple of South American navies as possible candidates for ‘users’ of these ships; two capital ships, a couple of cruiser, and a flotilla of destroyers would be about right for each side.
ReplyDeleteIt would be reasonably historical, especially as the Brazilians had two British-built Dreadnoughts (Minas Gerais and Sao Paulo) by the beginning of 1911 and the Chileans considered buying one or two of the older British Battlecruisers – HMS Inflexible and HMS Indomitable – as replacements for HMS Eagle (ex-Almirante Cochrane).
Bob
Adik,
ReplyDeleteMinifigs made this range of models for a very short time during the 1970s. The scale works out at about 1:1500th.
What was great about the pre-Dreadnoughts in particular (mine were lent to someone years ago and I never asked for them back - which, with hindsight, was a big mistake!) was that they were so generic that I was able to use them to model the Japanese battlefleet of 1904/05.
No one seems to know what happened to the originals or the moulds; if they could be found I am sure that there would be a market for these models now.
Bob
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI suspect that these are the "1/1500 figures" that Phil Barker found in a box that inspired him to write his DBSA ("Damn Battle Ships Again") rules.
Thank you for posting these photos . . . and, yes, I wish that they were still available too. I'd like something somewhere between the Houston "1/@1000" scale and 1/2400 scale.
-- Jeff.
Jeff,
ReplyDeleteFrom what I can remember about the DBSA session that Phil Barker ran at the Conference of Wargamers some years ago, you are correct.
I like the size and look of these models. They are very obviously made for wargaming, and not just for collecting. They are robust – unlike most 1:1200th/1:1250th ship models – whilst not being too small. I find that in 1:3000th scale ship models lack the sort of detail that makes them easy to identify – which is why I scratch-built the somewhat exaggerated or cartoon-like models I used for the Jane’s Naval War Game. The Minifig models are recognisable as to type and class, and are large enough to individualise if you so desire. At the same time, they are not so large that they will not fit on to a reasonably sized wargames table. They are, in many ways, a perfect wargaming compromise between detail, size, and practicability.
I understand that Ogrefencer might have some of the models that I don't have, and I hope that he will make pictures of them available so that we can build up a dossier. Perhaps we might even be able to persuade a manufacturer like Irregular Miniatures to make a range of similar model ships at some time in the future.
Bob