jeffwaynefan
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|  | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #60 on May 11, 2006, 12:03pm » | |
I bought a couple of years ago (still in box) a 1/400th scale kit of the Russian Dreadnought Aurora. It was the only kit I could find at that time of a Dreadnought class. Picked it up from a collector's fair for a couple of £££ with the hope of converting it, but if there is something out there more closer then I would consider that.
![[image]](http://www.oz.net/~markhow/pre-dred/aurora.jpg "[image]")
Aurora
Thanks McTodd, the kit of the H.M.S Duncan looks very promising. I will see if I can get this. . . Thanks again 
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mctoddridesagain
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| | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #61 on May 11, 2006, 12:30pm » | |
Let us know how it goes! 
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Spleen
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| | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #62 on May 14, 2006, 4:14pm » | |
Has anyone been to the Science Museum in London recently?
On the third floor in the maritime section they have a massive collection of model boats. In the military section they have a couple of models of torpedo rams dated around the turn of the century. I took some pics on my mobile but having trouble transferring them onto my computer (phone is a Sony Erissson W800i if anyone can help).
Anyway, had a look around the internet to see if I could find any pictures that match them and found this site.
http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/torpedo_boats.htm
If you scroll down the page there are some nifty pictures of boats dated around the turn of the century.
Would the Thunder Child be similar to any of these?
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mctoddridesagain
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| | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #63 on May 14, 2006, 8:10pm » | |
There are some beautiful old builders' models in the Science Museum. However, the vessels on the page you linked to are torpedo boats, not torpedo rams (the names might sound similar, but believe me, they are very different things  - have a look at the start of this thread where I explain what a torpedo ram was, and that only one was ever built!).
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Spleen
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| | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #64 on May 14, 2006, 9:04pm » | |
I bow to your superior knowledge Mctodd. Do you think the size and general structural design are similar?
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mctoddridesagain
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| | Re: HMS Thunder Child FAQs
« Reply #65 on May 14, 2006, 9:37pm » | |
Superior Knowledge = Nerdity...
Very different design and structure. Early torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers (later shortened simply to destroyer) were quite lightweight vessels. The first torpedo boats were simply fast steam launches equipped with a couple of torpedoes, and the type evolved from that. Torpedo boat destroyers (TBDs) were simply enlarged torpedo boats with better seakeeping qualities, and were originally developed to hunt torpedo boats (hence the name), but soon came to supplant them in the latter's role. Both types were unarmoured in the early days.
The torpedo ram, on the other hand, was a unique vessel developed before TBDs but contemporary with torpedo boats. As the early torpedo boats were so small, many naval men were sceptical as to their effectiveness other than as coastal defence units, so there was a rash of experimentation in the 1880s to develop more seaworthy torpedo vessels, such as torpedo cruisers and the infamous, and singular, torpedo ram 'Polyphemous'. Very fast for the day, she was armoured and the idea was that she would sail with the fleet on the high seas and in the event of battle peel off from the main force and hurl herself at the enemy ironclads, unleashing numerous torpedoes at them. At the time she was built, ironclads' big guns were so slow to load and aim that it was felt that her speed and manoeuvrability would ensure she would escape being hit by heavy shells, while her armoured deck was thought to make her safe against lighter guns.
As for size, the 'Polyphemous' was much larger than any torpedo boat or TBD.
There are so many anomalies about Wells's description of the Thunder Child that she doesn't fit any existing warship of that period. He calls her a torpedo ram, which implies that she's similar to the Polyphemous but not a battleship; but then he also calls her an ironclad, which the Polyphemous certainly was not but which battleships were. He also gives the TC two funnels, as opposed to the Polyphemous's single smoke stack, and it is implied that she has heavier guns than the Polyphemous's Nordenfelt machine guns.
That's why way back at the start of the thread I said that I think Wells created a hybrid warship type because nothing in existence was sufficiently dramatic for his purposes. If he'd wanted to make her a torpedo boat he would have described her as such - he certainly knew the difference as, at one point elsewhere in the novel, he mentions in passing that the crews of torpedo boats sent up the Thames mutinied and went back to sea. Most artists tend to model the Thunder Child on existing battleship types, which is fair enough. But I think that a TBD (as Pendragon used) would be wrong.
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