HIJMS "Azuma" 1898

Sorry that some pictures came in twice, cause is, I sharpened some photos. Do not know how to remove the doubeled ones !!

Incredible work!

 Very nice model, John. I wish you had created a build log where we could have followed along during her build. 

Very nice model indeed and I love those sail/steam transition period ships and iron-clads.

When I looked at the pictures, I immediately thought of the French style of warships from the 1860s/70s with their very pronounced ram and the date of 1898 puzzled me. Looking further down the row of the pictures I also noticed the old-style wooden carriage slides for the guns, which would have been very anachronistic in 1898.

So I did a quick search on the Internet to confirm my suspicion: I think you built the KÕTESTU ex CSS STONEWALL from 1864!  The AZUMA of 1898 looks rather different with three funnels:

For comparison the CSS STONEWALL:

Where did you get the detailed drawings from ?

Regards,

Eberhard

What an interesting and beautiful model.  How long did it take? 

Thank you for posting!

-Rich

7 hours ago, wefalck said:

Very nice model indeed and I love those sail/steam transition period ships and iron-clads.

 

When I looked at the pictures, I immediately thought of the French style of warships from the 1860s/70s with their very pronounced ram and the date of 1898 puzzled me. Looking further down the row of the pictures I also noticed the old-style wooden carriage slides for the guns, which would have been very anachronistic in 1898.

So I did a quick search on the Internet to confirm my suspicion: I think you built the KÕTESTU ex CSS STONEWALL from 1864!  The AZUMA of 1898 looks rather different with three funnels:

For comparison the CSS STONEWALL:

Where did you get the detailed drawings from ?

 

Regards,

 

Eberhard

Eberhard,

You are right and wrong. KOTETSU means Ironclad in Japanese. Her name was "AZUMA", the date I mentioned with my model was wrong, not 1898 but 1869. And yes she was the ex. conferated ironclad CSS "Stonewall". She made quite a trip from French, where she was build as "Stonewall" and before the Japanese bought her as first "modern" warship of the Japanese fleet.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_ironclad_Kōtetsu

I was able to download some detailed pictures of the "Stonewall" from the internet and could find many detailed pictures of a model (Museum model ??) of "Azuma", I downloaded many years ago, sadly they are not available anymore on the internet.

The frames I found from Heinkels paper model of "Kotetsu" later called "Azuma"

1 hour ago, ERS Rich said:

What an interesting and beautiful model.  How long did it take? 

 

Thank you for posting!

 

-Rich

Rich,

It took me, as "Kongo", many years, and finished the model together with my "Kongo" model, after some years of absence from modelling !!

I have some interest in this ship, as her sister was sold to the Prussian government because Napoleon III forbid her sale to the Confederates in 1864. She was second iron-clad in the young Prussian navy, but they were not happy with her, as Armand Fréres cobbled her together quite quickly (not to say shoddily) in order to profit from the American Civil War.  

John,

This is an interesting ship and a nice model. Thanks for posting these photos. I had not seen this ship before.

I have always been interested in the transition from sail to steam, and there are many examples from the late 1800s. But this was one of the many experiments from the American Civil War era where naval architects were trying to learn how change from wooden and iron hulls, sail and steam power, and muzzle loading smooth bore cannons with rifled breech loaders.

There were a lot of different ideas and attempts to make these changes, and compared to the earlier centuries of naval history it sometimes seems that the changes occurred over night. However, it took a century to go from the square rigged ship of the line to the HMS Dreadnought. Stonewall/Azuma is an interesting blend of all those features from a time in the middle of the change.

Very well done! This has always been a favorite ship of mine 

Incredible model. Congratulations. And BTW, Wefalk's history comments are always enjoyed.