Painting and Assembling 1:1200 Scale Napoleonic Ships

by Ray Trochim

An excellent book on the subject is Navies of the Napoleonic Era by Otto von Pivka, which has every major ship of every power, when they were built, their total guns, and what happened to them. The book also covers engagements between 1793 and 1815 in a brief history along with sections on the different navies of the period. The bad news is that the book mentions nothing about a ships appearance.

Painting Schemes
Essentially, privateers and some frigate captains painted their ships any way they wanted, either out of necessity or for deception. Ships could occasionally be all white, all yellow, all red, all black, or all slate gray-blue. The most common scheme for the frigates of war was the back hull and colored stripe which would sometimes be made wider or narrower in the hopes that it would camouflage their size when viewed from a distance Early in the 1700s, ships hulls would be painted yellow orche or had varnished wood with narrow black streaks along the wales of the ships sides (see figure 1), but it is likely that other variations upon this basic theme were used on ships of all navies.

Figure 1 After 1780 British captains were given yellow and black paint for their ships hulls. Its application to the hulls was at the discretion of the captain. If a captain should choose, he was able to add other colors to be used in painting the ship (never white), but this was done at his own expense. Other navies followed a similar practice with their ships with red or maroon and black being the most common colors in the Spanish navy. Several paint schemes began to emerge during this period. Ships would be painted black with stripes that were either solid, one broad stripe along the hull, one wide stripe on the upper or lower hull of the ship, or even no stripes at all (See figure 2 and 3 for two examples). These stripes on the hull did not necessarily run along the lines of the gun ports. Ships that were black with solid stripes along the gun ports would look like they had a checkered pattern when the gun ports were open.

Figure 2

Figure 3 A new checkered paint scheme has been said to have originated in the Royal Navy around the 1790s and was copied by the other navies of the world. When it actually started and who actually used this new paint scheme first is anybodys guess, but the stripes with black gun ports seems to have been referred to as the "Nelson checker" and became more common in the Royal Navy as he rose to prominence (see figure 4). By the Napoleonic wars, this new checkered paint scheme was the most popular among captains of all navies but paint schemes like that shown in figure 2 and others would still be in use.

Figure 4 During the periods of the American and French Revolutions ship colors were not very well defined but by the Napoleonic period, a set of national patterns had started to emerge. The two key elements were the color of the ship's hull, and the color of the stripe that ran across the gun ports. Nation Britain France U. S. A. Denmark Denmark hull black black black black red stripe yellow white white or red red blue Nation Holland Spain Russia Ottoman hull black black green ochre stripe orange red white black

There will always be exceptions to the rule and the chart above should only be a rough guide. French ships for example would not all have white stripes. The use of white was uncommon and did not begin to be more common until about 1810 to 1812. You can still paint French ships with red stripes or even consider a yellow. The Spanish would be the same way but red would be the most common color. A notable exception for the Spanish was the Santissima Trinidad, with painted red hull and white stripes. Other sources suggest that the S. Trinidad had just red stripes and yet another source suggests that the S. Trinidad was actually white, with red stripes! Some Spanish ships like the Santa Anna were all black. A contemporary described the light British yellow used by the British as "baby puke yellow" but most paintings and other sources place it as a yellow ochre or rich yellow, but as this faded I can see how the term baby puke yellow got started. This color was used more and more on ships of the Royal Navy when it became a standard, but the transition didnt happen overnight.

While you are safe using natural wood colors when painting the rest of the ship (the deck being a very light color of bleached wood), the following information offers some alternatives. If you want to the actual source, this information comes from an article in the Jan. 1990 issue of Miniature Wargames magazine. Inside Bulwarks Gun Carriage Outer Bulwarks Fighting Top Armings Masts Masts Tops Mast Bands Yards BRITAIN red or ochre red, yellow, wood ochre dark blue, dark gray FRANCE blue, red white-and-blue OTHER NATIONS red, yellow, green, blue, black, or brown ditto, and green ditto, and red or brown SPAIN green and white

BRITAIN varnished, yellow black black black

FRANCE, USA varnished, white black black black

Again, don't take this information too seriously. Different shades of natural wood colors will probably work just fine. It should be noted that at times the British would paint their masts yellow with black yards and masts tops: the current paint scheme of the HMS Victory. The Americans would paint parts of the ships masts white with black yards while other parts of the mast remained varnished wood. I have never seen any information that points to a ship with masts painted red. Most masts were varnished wood with black yards and mast tops. The bowsprit was painted in a similar way to the masts. The base of the bowsprit would be painted or varnished wood and the far end would be painted black. When building your miniature ship, make sure all parts are trimmed of flash and the pieces fit into the holes or slots. Some assembly might be done before painting like attaching the stern to the ship hull, but paint the masts and hull separately and then assemble the ship after it is painted. Finally, small ship models tend to leave out the "dolphin sticker" and spar on the bowspirit. You have to add this yourself for a completely accurate model but its not necessary.

Some Historical Paint Schemes

Some examples of ships at The Battle of the Nile 1798 taken from a data sheet from Davco. British ships HMS Alexander: Plain yellow sides with a black stroke HMS Goliath: Yellow sides with a black stroke between upper and lower rows of gunports HMS Culloden: Yellow sides with two narrow black strokes between upper and lower gunports HMS Zealous: Red sides with a narrow yellow stripe HMS Minotaur: Red sides with a black stroke between upper and lower gunports French ships Le Guerrier: Dark yellow sides L Aquilon: Red sides with a black stroke between the upper and lower gunports Le Franklin: Medium yellow sides Le Heureux: Very dark yellow sides Le Timoleon: Very dark red sides Le Guillaume: Light yellow sides with black stroke between upper and lower decks Painting schemes of ships at The Battle of Trafalgar 1805 taken from a data sheet from GHQ. All of the British ships were painted in the Nelson Checker of alternating black and yellow stripes and black gunports. To further distinguish the British ships from the French/Spanish ships the British painted their masts yellow instead of having the normal varnished wood. Yards and mast tops were still black. There was no standard color scheme among the French and Spanish ships. Some ships such as the Spanish Santa Ana were painted all black and the Spanish Santissima Trinidad had a deep red hull and a narrow band of white under each of the four rows of gunports

Rigging

The amount of rigging and which type of rigging you want to install depends a lot on your tastes and patience. First of all, I do not recommend doing any of the running rigging. Its too difficult to do and it offers no support to the masts of the ship model. Just do the standing rigging. Second, use only black thread for everything but ratlines where you would want to use tan. While the model instructions may suggest that you can use different colors, they won't look right. I highly recommend using this metallic thread that comes from West Germany (165yd/150m W.GERMANY, Sulky Metallic 142-7051) because it is very strong and it doesnt have that fuzzy thread look. Besides copying the historical rigging, you have to make sure that the model's masts are supported. Adjust or add to the historical rigging to make sure that each mast is pulled both forward and backward equally.

Examples of standing rigging and shrouds When you run the rigging through the sails, don't just glue the thread to a notch you made in the masts... it will pop out later. Wrap the thread at least once around each point where it needs to be glued. To keep the thread from going slack, alternate the direction you rig the ship. Do the first line from front to back, the second from back to front, and so on, alternating with each thread. Overall, rigging is more of a personal thing. You can eat up a whole day installing rigging on your 1/1200 scale ship and have it look terrible. Just the right amount in the proper places can get a good look. The ratlines/shrouds are the trickiest to get right and should be put on the ship miniature first. Don't waste your time trying to drill many tiny holes and running your own ratlines/shrouds one line at a time. I have tried drilling holes and running the thread through the holes and if done right, it can look good but not great. Instead, for each shroud/ratline section, use a mesh-like black cloth or screen (like very thin window screening). Finding the proper screening can be very difficult. Try finding brass small wire screening or go to the fabric store and look into mesh-like materials. You can buy special screening form Langtons miniatures. I have ordered a sample of this, and I have to admit its the best stuff I have found up to date. Langton Miniatures North Trendeal Ladock, Truro Cornwall, U.K. TR2 4QQ Tel/Fax: 01726 882805

If youre like me and you still dont like the looks of the screening material you can either make a jig and produce your own custom shrouds and ratlines or just run the shrouds without the ratlines. Drape the shroud lines over the fighting tops so that theyre flat and adjacent to one another (this will also give the mast the best support) and instead of trying to drill those holes, try just attaching the shroud lines to the channels. I think this looks a lot better then drilling the holes and a heck of a lot easier as well. Currently this is how I rig my shrouds (no ratlines) and it looks great. When attaching the shroud lines to the channels you have to use some care with the crazy glue. I recommend using the end of a tooth pick to apply the glue, otherwise you can get glue flowing everywhere but where you want it. You also may want to use your X-Acto knife to make little tiny notches in the channels to help as a guide in placing the shroud lines evenly. The number of shroud lines to use is all up to you, but the chart below will give you a starting point. When the shrouds are in place, cut the excess thread at the base of the channel with scissors or snips and then apply a little bit more glue with that toothpick. When youre all done rigging your ship, go over the glue points with a brush on flat or proper color paint to take out the glossy effect of the glue.

80 to 100 guns 74s & large Frigates 40 gun Frigates 32 gun Frigates

Fore Mast 5 4 3 3

Main Mast 6 5 4 3

Mizzen Mast 3 3 2 2

Basing and Colors

Make sure that you mount all of your ships on stands that project past the ends of the model. This will help protect the model from damage. Cut stands in sizes that are multiples of half an inch in length and quarters of an inch in width. A typical base for a 74 gun ship-of-the-line would be 3 by 1.25. There are various putty and gel compounds you can use to create waves, but a very nice solution involves the use of lighting fixture panels. Buy a clear plastic lighting fixture panel with the irregular pattern called "Crushed Ice." If you do not want to buy a 3' by 4' section at the hardware store you can go down to McGuckins Hardware (or your local hardware store) and buy small sections. Paint the smooth side of the plastic with your favorite sea color. Then dry brush the very tops of the rough side with off-white. Mount the ship on the rough side. The result is a most marvelous imitation of the ocean. I have also seen many gamers just use plain clear bases. This also looks good because you can see the texture thats under the ship which can be helpful sometimes. This is what I'm currently using for my bases and I have no complaints. For storage, I have specially built racks that secure the ship even if the rack gets flipped upside down. No need for magnetic basing when set up for this. Most of the metal ship models do not come with a flagstaff for the national ensign. Instead, you have to glue your flags to the rigging, or make your own flagstaff. Signal flags may stay on the rigging fairly well, but gluing a large national ensign to a piece of thread can be somewhat difficult and the flag may come off later. Instead, get a tiny drill bit and drill a wire-size hole at an angle in the rear of the quarter-deck. Mount your flag to a bit of wire and place it into the hole. If you don't glue the wire in place, you have an opportunity to avoid locking in the nationality of your ship. Drill the hole deep enough to hold the wire flagstaff up without glue. Then you can make a series of flags of different nationalities, inserting whichever flag you need for a particular battle. Or you can play around with any other removable system like stretchable thread. This will give you tremendous flexibility to play a variety of scenarios with just a few ships. This will also allow your French ships to switch from the Bourbon White ensign to the Revolutionary Tricolor, depending on what year it is. (Some people assert that the frequency with which the royalist French surrendered caused the white flag to become associated with surrender or truce flag.)

The flags

Gamers/modellers will probably want to put some flags on their ship models. Flags on ships not only look good, but identify the nationality for gaming purposes from a distance. Flags are best made out of paper and can be painted or inked in the appropriate colors. I've seen other materials used like metal foils but I find that paper and water based paints are best to work with. The use of flags by different countries and commanders varied considerably. Ships usually went into action festooned with flags flying from every mast, primarily to avoid costly mistakes in the heavy smoke of a fleet action. The ensign which flew from the spanker gaff was quite large (in model 1/1200 scale 3/8"x 1/4 would not be too big). The commission pennant which (in model 1/1200 scale it would measure about 1-1/4" long and narrow) was flown from the main peak. The jack or some personal flag was flown from the fore peak. Older ships had a jackstaff halfway out on the bowspite and this flew the national jack. Now for a brief description of the flags to get gamers started in producing flags for their ships. Two notes though: the French tricolor was often used in the canton on a white field for the ensign. Other countries have been known to do this as well in different forms. Pennants of all countries where fork tailed. The fork tails on the pennants were predominate. France: Pre 1790 flags were all white (ensign, pennant, and jack). Post 1790 flags were the standard tricolor (ensign, pennant, and jack), but sometimes the ensign would have the tricolor in a canton on a white field. The tricolor would be

Blue, White and Red. Here are two examples of French ensigns: Ensign with tricolor in canton Holland: The ensign, pennant, and jack had Red, White and Blue equal size bars running along the flag. Top bar was red, middle was white and the bottom blue as shown. Spain: Like Holland, Spanish flags are in three horizontal bars, Red, Yellow and Red from top to bottom as shown. Denmark: The ensign, pennant, and jack were red with a white cross. Like the pennants, the ensign and jack had fork/swallow tails. Sweden: The ensign, pennant, and jack were blue with a yellow cross. The ensign, pennant, and jack were forked tailed but with three tails instead of two. The center tail was as wide as the yellow stripe of the cross. Turkey: The ensign, pennant, and jack were all red. The ensign had a star and crescent moon in the upper corner at the staff. Russia: The ensign and jack were white with a blue 'X' on it. The pennant had a small square like the ensign and a long white runner.

Tricolor Ensign and Jack Pennant

Ensign and Jack

Ensign and Jack

Ensign and Jack Pennant

Ensign and Jack Pennant

Ensign

Jack

Ensign and Jack Pennant

Britain: The British system was somewhat complex. So complex that the French were mystified by the system of officers flags, but so at times were the British themselves. The field of the ensign and the pennant was in the squadron color of the admiral commanding - red, white, or blue. Unattached ships flew the red ensign and mixed pennant (one red, white and blue stripe running down the runner). Signal ships on patrol tended to fly the white. The Union jack was carried at the forepeak by all but flagships. Flagships flew the admiral's flag at the fore. Admiral - white with red cross, vice admiral - blue, and rear admiral red (Nelson was a Vice-Admiral of the white).

Commodores flew the short swallow tailed flag instead of the pennant.

Admiral flags blue, red and white

White Ensign

Red Ensign

Red Pennant United States -War of 1812: The ensign was the standard stars and bars with the proper number of stars. The pennant had a blue field that took almost 1/3 of the pennant with stars and three red stripes and two white stripes running down the runner. The jacks were all blue square flags with stars or blue forked/swallow tailed flags with a circle of stars in the center. The swallow tailed jack is also know as the commanders pennant. Signal flags of all navies were large and flown from all masts. The signal systems of the navies are far to complex to be discussed here but overall, the information above should get players started. I encourage everyone to look into it a bit more for more detail.

Using magnets

If you are planning to put magnetic material on the bottom of your ship stands and place them in a box lined with metal (or vice versa), magnetic force may become a problem. A 1/1200 scale 100 gun ship-of-the-line typically has a 3.5" by 1.25 stand. It can be difficult to pry this stand loose from its box without damaging the ship. Consider putting the material just on the corners of the stand.

Clear for Action

I hope this article helps you eager midshipmen out there to step up and become captains and commanders. The nice thing about Napoleonic naval wargaming is that you can start playing with just one ship. Try one ship from each manufacturer and examine its quality and ease of assembly before you go out and buy a whole squadron. See you on the high seas. -Ray trochim@rtt.colorado.edu