Found in a box in my cellar - Jack's boats

I was sorting through some boxes in the old coal cellar (very small basement to US readers) and I came across a box with these two boats/armoured barges.

I bought these from Jack when I was first introduced to him by our mutual friend Stuart Asquith when he still lived in Harrow.

It was a very long time ago and I fell out of love with 54mm gaming only painting one set of crew and they have been in a box for many, many years.  Anyway I thought I would share with you another example of Jack's handy work.  

The boats/barges themselves are made of card.  Jack cast up the machine guns and the sailors come from a range I think he sold to Little Legion but he made them himself.

The roof to the 'steering house' can be removed

and up to 12 figures or equipment can be carried in the hold which also has a removable deck cover.

Jack is 90 this August still making bits and pieces and has just finished gluing together lots of Perry's ACW figures.

Help. Jack's Ship - a Birthday present

Jack's daughter Helen bought him this model ship for his 87th birthday.  She found it on ebay and the story goes that a young couple found it in the loft of the house they moved into.  

  

The ship doesn't have a name on it and Jack would like to find out if it is modeled on a particular ship.  It is very well made and detailed, so whoever built it took a lot of care and effort to get things right. 

 It doesn't have a figurehead so we were wondering if it is French?

The ship has 50 guns above and below beck. 

 If any one has any idea please let us know, Jack would be very interested.

Jack's 28mm ACW gunboat

In his early 80s (now 87) Jack made this model for our 28mm ACW wargames.  She is equipped with two Redoubt Miniatures guns and gunners and figures from their naval landing party.

The flag pole is removal so she can also be used as a Union ship.  Again with the Redoubt gunners and sailors from 1st Corp.

 

HMS Cressy complete

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!

HMS Cressy

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!

20mm unreleased Jacklex figures

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.

Jacklex 20mm Artillery and Sailors

A belated Happy New Year.

Continuing my trawl through Jack's boxes of colonial figures here are some of his artillery and Sailors.  As with the previous posts, these were painted by the man himself nearly 40 years ago.  There are more wagons and machine guns and light guns I have yet to take pictures of, but for now......

These are shown with 4 horse teams, but because of the way Jack set this up horse teams could be as big as you wanted.  The RHA in my British Zulu War army is a six horse team.

Colonial Gun and British crew...

.....and now the same gun with the Indian crew.

More 4.7 inch guns than you would know what to do with.  Gunners are shown in both Khaki and Royal Naval uniforms.

As with the artillery teams, you could add as many pairs of oxen to this set as you wanted. It looked pretty spectacular with 6 pairs of oxen although it took up masses of room on the table.

The great thing about Jack's colonial range was the breadth of it.  He made sailors to go with the infantry, making naval landings and support possible.  My apologies as these are not the best pictures.

Slight adjustments to the arms creates a variation on the running figure

Jack's ship's crew.  I am not sure this was ever produced commercially.  Jack made these a few years ago to go with a paddle steamer.  You can see the origins, the figure designed to hold the ships wheel looks very like it is based on the Boer horse holder and the ship's captain on a British officer with binoculars from the colonial range.