Sorry about the absence of posts, I keep this page for articles and pictures about Jack and his models. When we get together for an actual wargame, I post them on our sister site abcwargamers.blogspot.co.uk.
As part of a further reprise of the range of Jack's models he has made for our games. A year or two ago, Bob and I were talking to Jack about getting out ACW/Wild West train back into action and the lack of scenery. I showed him a paper model of a water tower from the White Wash City set. Whilst he liked it, he felt that he might be able to make something.
Here's the result!
As you may recall from posts elsewhere on this blog, Jack has been working on a model of the WW1 Armoured Cruiser HMS Cressy.
Although it was due to have been completed at Christmas, as is almost always the case at shipyards the construction suffered some delays, not least when his son showed him a picture of HMS Cressy with an Admirals walkway on the stern which Jack didn't have on his picture! Whilst not many people probably knew about the walkway, it had to be retro-fitted.
Anyway, he finally finished this week and I thought I show you some pictures of the finished article.
The model is made from cardboard, foam board, coffee stirers, bits of wood, wire rods and home castings. All the lifeboats and the steam launches are also hand built and all the guns rotate!
Not too bad for a lad of 86 years young!
Some pictures of Jack's 54mm collection of Landaus which he produced and are now sold by Little Legions.
The Royal Landau
Finally, the 2 British Colonial Standard Bearers that Bob discovered the moulds for on Jack's workbench.
Like them so much might get him to run off a couple more to make command stands and unit standard bearers. I know that they stopped caring flags into battle in the late 1870s, early 1880s, but they look nice.
In an earlier blog, I mentioned that Bob had found some moulds for 3 figures we hadn't seen before, a mounted Naval Officer, a British Infantry and a Highland Infantry standard bearer.
I promised to paint them up so you could see what they looked like. Sorry I have been sidetracked with the painting of my S range Franco Prussian War figures and converting a number of figures. I have finally got around to painting one of them.
Here is the Mounted Naval Officer
I have often wondered why Jack never made 'Generals' for his colonial armies so I repainted the Naval Officer as a Russian General.
Although the figure has a coat with lapels, the paint job sort of disguises it and fools the eye.
The Standard bearers are on the 'paint table' and I'll posted pictures when the are done.
Jack recently discovered that a friend of a friend had a grandfather who served as a Royal Marine on, and survived the sinking of, HMS Cressy in World War One. As he enjoys making mode;l ships, Jack offered to make a model of the Cressy for the family.
HMS Cressy was a four funnelled armoured cruiser built around 1900. She was placed in the naval reserve in 1909 and then recommissioned at the start of the First World War. She played a minor part in the Battle of Heligoland Blight a few weeks after the start of the war.
On the morning of the 22nd September 1914, she and her sister ships, HMS Aboukir and HMS Hogue were on patrol with any destroyer escort. The destroyers had had to return seek shelter because of bad weather.
The three ships were not expecting submarine attacks but had lookouts posted and one gun manned on each side just in case.
U-9 commanded by Captain Otto Weddigen had been ordered to attack British transports of of Ostend but had been forced to dive and take shelter because of the storm. On surfacing he spotted the British ships and attacked. He fired one torpedo at HMS Aboukir which struck on the starboard side. The captain originally thought he had hit a mine. As HMS Hogue approach the Aboukir to help rescue survivors and stopped to lower boats she too was hit by torpedoes from U-9. She too capsized and sank.
HMS Cressy opened fire on the U-9 but with no success although it is reported that they thought they had hit the submarine and also attempted to ram U-9. HMS Cressy then went to the aid of the other two ships, only be torpedoed in turn. From all three ships 837 men were rescued and 62 officers and 1,397 enlisted men were lost, 560 of those were from HMS Cressy.
Jack's model is about 4 feet long. This is the progress to date.
The tertiary guns all swivel.
Hull and Superstructure
Jack himself helping to give the model scale.
Then he fitted some of the handrails all around the deck and large air vents and masts,
He still has to make the ships boats and put more stanchions (each individually mounted!)
and a repaint/touch up.
Watch out for more pictures - but not bad for a young lad pushing of 87!
Jack in his garage workshop casting up some figures for Bob and I.
You can see all the moulds on his bench and the draws are full of them too.
It is always a voyage of discovery trying to work out what the moulds are. Some are marked but others you guess at a bit. As you can see from the reflected glare my hair is very fine!
Here's a bit of a teaser, Bob and I visited Jack today to take some more pictures of his collection. I have been having a bit of difficulty casting some figures from the moulds I had and asked Jack if he could have a go.
Whilst we were in his garage and he was casting, Bob had a hunt through all the moulds on his work bench and draws and came across three 20mm Colonial Jacklex moulds which neither of us had ever seen before:
a Mounted British Naval Officer,
a British Colonial Infantry Standard Bearer and
a Colonial Highland Infantry Standard Bearer.
Jack couldn't remember making the standard bearers - never part of his original range as he points out the British never took flags into the field at that time. However, I do remember Jack saying to me that many years ago our mutual friend Stuart Asquith asked him to make a standard bearer for his armies. These may be them. Anyway we got Jack to cast some up. I'll be painting them up and the Mounted Naval Officer in the near future, so watch this space.
In the lastest reprise of Jacklex figures I thought I would share his 20mm camel troops with you.
The mounted 'Sudanese' camel is available from Spencer Smith Miniatures, although it is listed as Egyptian Camel Troops (E6/E7), but it works for either.
Jack and I were playing the Fire and the Sword Campaign and he decided he wanted to have some British Camel troops so he made the British Camel Corp figure. I remember him agonising over the sun galsses on the helmet and trying to get them right. Having made them, we then both decided that being able to dismount them would be fun. So off he went and made the kneeling camel and a British and new Sudanese dismounted figure. I know that firing over the heads of camels was not on, but they look fun.
Unfortunately, Spencer Smith do not list these British figures and dismounted camels in the range.
Sudanese Camel troops
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| E6 and E7 |
I still have more 20mm Jacklex models to photograph, but I thought you might like to see some of Jack's 54mm work.
This is a British 54mm gun crew and pom pom gun. I think they are available from Little Legion.
