The Battle of Pacocha 1877

The original action 1877

Recreated in 2020

I continue to tick along at a snail's pace on my challenge, and have here the three participants from the Battle of Pacocha in 1877.  These are 1/2400 scale ships from Tumbling Dice from their Victorian Era range.

First up is the instigator the Peruvian turret ship Huascar.  The Huascar was seized by rebels in the wrong side in a failed coup by the former finance minister (and future Peruvian President) Pierola.  With the coup defeated on land Huascar took to piracy and boarded some British flagged ships, triggering a Royal Navy response.

Note that the model shows Huascar cleared for action with bulwarks lowered to allow the turret to fire and thus showing the white interior. 

The Huascar was built by Laird's in the UK in 1866, she has armour of up to 7.5" and carried two 10" rifles in her turret plus a couple of smaller guns.   I used the present tense intentionally as she is still afloat as a museum ship in Valparaiso Chile, one of a few ships afloat from the Victorian era.  Her full history is impressive.  Built to fight the Spanish in the Island War she got to Peru during the war but didn't see action.  After fighting the Royal Navy she surrendered to the Peruvian government and served in the War of the Pacific against Chile.  Captured by the Chileans after a heroic action, they refitted her and used her against the Peruvians.  Finally she was involved in the Chilean Civil War of 1891. 

A famous ship with a proud history under two navies flags.

Britain's Imperial might c 1877

The predictable RN response came from the Pacific Station based in Esquimaux, British Columbia.  Rear Admiral de Horsey's flagship was the iron frigate HMS Shah.  Shah was big, fast and well armed but unarmoured.  She carried 9" rifled swivel guns fore and aft and a broadside of 7" rifles.  She also carried early Whitehead torpedoes and fired one at the Huascar, which outran it!  She proved expensive to run and this was her sole commission, although her iron masts can be seen on HMS Victory, having replaced the more fragile wooden originals.

I rigged the Amethyst as a barque.  It turns out that she was ship rigged in 1877 but changed to a barque rig on her return. 

HMS Shah was accompanied by the wooden corvette HMS Amethyst, name ship of the last class of wooden cruisers built by the RN. Typical of the small cruisers the RN used to patrol imperial waterways, she was armed with 64 pounder rifles on broadside with swivels fore and aft.  She served from 1873-1887.   

The battle of Pacocha was a tactical draw but a RN strategic win.  The RN hit the Huascar multiple times but didn't have armour piercing shot so did no damage.  In return, the Huascar was undermanned and fired slowly and badly causing only splinter damage to Shah's rigging.  The Huascar did avoid the Shah's torpedo, hampered the RN attack by staying in the shallows where the Shah couldn't go and avoided an attack by torpedo launches the next day.  However, the crew gave up the piracy gig and surrendered to the government 2 days later.

I added black funnel smoke from cotton batting soaked in black paint.  This took me back to my University days of carving 1/1200 scale pre-dreadnoughts out of balsa.

If you're are keeping score this is my second project using 1/2400 scale ships from Tumbling Dice and I have been very pleased with their models.  They are clean cast, relatively easy to put together and paint up well.   I had intended to work on my Anglo-Dutch fleets first but their rigs proved fussier to get right so plowed ahead on the ironclads.  I don't have the skill set or patience for fiddly sail rigs in general and have suffered great heartbreaks with past efforts at modelling sailing ships in 1/1200.  So far these TD ships are much easier to rig and appear much less fragile although we'll see how they stand the test of table top battle.  I should also point out that in action, these ships would furl their sails or even strike top masts altogether to reduce clutter.  However, I couldn't resist doing them fully rigged.

I added Canadian quarters (about the same size as a 5p piece) for comparison.  I also included the correctly named Windhond!

I've got a variety of odd naval projects underway and am beginning to regret not setting up a Sandi Cheek aquatic squirrel side duel for the most naval projects!

Points wise, I think it's typically 3 points for a 1/2400 scale ship, plus what ever points the 4 flags net me.  At about 9 points a post,  my challenge will definitely be the slow boat to China.