I'm seriously considering building the Pre-Dreadnought French Battleship Messena as a full blown Steampunk warship. Think a marriage between the Pre-Dread Messena and Miyazaki's Steampunk battleships...totally funky. However I've run into a slight problem; trying to figure out the exact dimensions to enlarge the copy of blueprints downloaded from the French Archives. I don't read French so I've searched online sources and have come up with the following: Example A. Length: 110M (360'-11") x Beam: 22M (72'-2") x Draft: 8.84m (29'-0") 1/144 scale: 30.08"L x 6.01"B x 2.41"D Example B. Length: (369'-7") x Beam: (66'-6") x Draft: (29'-0") 1/144 scale: 30.8"L x 5.54"B x 2.41"D * this source lists the 369'-7" measurement to be "between the perpendiculars" Would that be an OVERALL measurement? I know it doesn't seem like much, but I do want to try and be as accurate as possible even on this fantasy build. Are these Length measurements Overall or at the Water Line? Is the Beam measurements at the waterline or the main deck? Does anyone have any other - possibly more accurate numbers to work with? I also have a copy of the French scale drawings for the sister ship Jaureguiberry, but the two differ quite a bit especially in the bow structure. The other thing I noted what that this particular class of Pre-Dreads are rather small, more like the Cruisers in size even though they appear to be classified as battleships. Is this correct? Ideas, clarification, suggestions, sources, advice?
Can't much answer your questions, but one thing I might observe is that if you're planning on building to the Steampunk rules I believe they currently call for a spec hull below the waterline. So your draft, beam and length at waterline are already fixed in this format depending on the class you are building.
Double checked, here: Steampunk Flotilla Rules | R/C Warship Combat Spec' hull up to 1" above waterline. But one of the reasons behind this is that Steve discovered that 98.77% of the ships built in this era had the same basic shape and size within the three classes. IE, all the protected cruisers of the various nations were all virtually identical in length, beam, etc. Same for the other two classes. So for your purposes, enlarge / shrink blueprints to match spec battleship hull length. Beam should wind up damn near dead-on. Build spec hull up to waterline. Like Spudsy did with his, you're free to modify the above-waterline vertical profile (tumblehome) so long as the 1" penetrable remains. Build to match your plans above that.
