I thought fellow Mayhemmers would be interested in the latest additions to my fleet, a kind present from my wife.
These two models are very interesting, apparently originating in the 1930s. I have not been able to make a positive identification, though the white and buff livery suggests service on a tropical station.
The angular hull lines, with all their hydrodynamic and production advantages, show a remarkable prescience, being very similar to a present day container ship. Note, too, the main armament. The designers obviously took cognisance of rifles and pistols made to fire round corners and applied this to the big guns. Vertical loading makes excellent sense if the shells are stored that way but, nevertheless, getting a 15” shell to go round a right angle is really quite an achievement.
Motive power is applied to the loop on the foc’sle. I estimate that the maximum speed will be 24 or 25 knots or so for all of a hundred yards.
I may have missed some of the finer points of design, but have every confidence that BY will fill any lacunae.
Despite the lack of a positive identification, ships have to have names. My first thought was Salmon and Gluckstein, after the German battlecruisers. Such idiosyncratic ships, however, are far more likely to be French, so I have settled on the names of two famous Breton sea captains of the 18th century, Bernard Poisson and Jean d’Avril.
