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View Full Version : Homework, gents! Sorting out the Spanish...



Diamondback
05-07-2014, 23:46
I've been starting to do a little research to identify key sculpts for the Spanish, and... well, it's time to call for help again.

Given that there's been a lot of talk about the Spanish in this game, that raises a lot of questions.

First, what would we consider the key engagements of Spanish naval history from about 1760-1815, mainly emphasizing the Napoleonic era? The clean-sweep capture of Rosily's squadron at Cadiz should count, but I can't find anything on the five Spanish SOL's and one frigate involved other than the 112-gun Principe de Asturias and the 74-gun Terrible. For the French, everything needed except a Tonnant/Bucentaure 80 is already sculpted--frigate Cornelie is a Virginie-class, an improved 44-gun version of the Hebe, and the four French 74's are all Temeraires.

Second move, from there, is to identify the key "must-have" ships of Spanish naval history, then trying to sort out their engineering and figure out what other ships are covered by those sculpts. The Meregildos 112's are a logical choice since they were one of the more widely-produced Spanish designs, and I think if we get a sculpt for the Romero Landa 74's it can also be stretched as Landa's three 64s which were only negligibly smaller. Also, the Landa sculpt gives us three distinct flags: French Intrepide, the Spanish main group and British HMS Ildefonso. Frigates are going to be challenging... I'd bet the six Landa 34's could probably share a sculpt, and that'd give us a full wave worth, but no reflag--the one of those six that was captured by the RN, HMS Florentina, was never commissioned into the Royal Navy but went straight into ordinary upon arrival and broken up a couple years later.

The problem of just FINDING data about the Spanish fleet is another reason why I suggest phasing them in in 2 or 3 "adversarial" waves, maybe one against the British and one against the French. Perhaps something like this...


First wave with Spain:
Spanish Meregildos 112
British Second Rate of one class or another
Spanish Landa 34
British Sixth Rate of some kind, maybe?


Second wave with Spain:
Spanish Montanes 80
French Tonnant/Bucentaure 80
Spanish smaller ship, nature uncertain--maybe either a Sixth Rate or one of their 40's, if a "standard" design of either can be found?
French smaller ship, nature uncertain--maybe a Hebe reprint as a Virginie or Pallas 40-44?

We have some information to gather, so before anybody starts in with the Drooling Fanboy Advocacy can we try to work on filling in the holes and working this with reason and logic? :p

I'll toss in additional data as I gather it, of course.

Ducky
05-08-2014, 02:10
Let us know what data you are missions and ill have a go at finding some answers :drinks:

Nightmoss
05-08-2014, 09:13
I was going to ask if you might be using this website, but unfortunately it appears to have been taken down or is not functioning. http://www.todoababor.es/

I used it for history and as a painting guide. Others have linked it as well. It's too bad if this is gone for good.

Nightmoss
05-08-2014, 09:33
Couldn't resist going to look for more information. While it's in Spanish, of course, maybe you can get some useful data via the Naval Museum of Madrid? Pages load slowly so it may not be worth the effort? And Google cannot translate on top of that.

http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/ArmadaEspannola/ciencia_museo/prefLang_es/

Diamondback
05-08-2014, 11:21
Jim, I've given them a whack, but my Spanish is so rusty I might as well have never even taken it.

I must say for organization and bandwidth, Naval Museum of Madrid's site sucks... Gautier or Landa would smack its architect. The Institute of Military History & Culture in Madrid is another option, but I'm not certain about how useful they might be. I'm building a spreadsheet with all the useful data I can extract from Wikipedia and ThreeDecks; I'll post it to Dropbox and Google Docs once I've finished that so anyone else who wants to give it a go can try to fill in the blanks. :)

Nightmoss
05-08-2014, 11:57
Jim, I've given them a whack, but my Spanish is so rusty I might as well have never even taken it.

I must say for organization and bandwidth, Naval Museum of Madrid's site sucks... Gautier or Landa would smack its architect. The Institute of Military History & Culture in Madrid is another option, but I'm not certain about how useful they might be. I'm building a spreadsheet with all the useful data I can extract from Wikipedia and ThreeDecks; I'll post it to Dropbox and Google Docs once I've finished that so anyone else who wants to give it a go can try to fill in the blanks. :)

Agreed. I had my doubts about how useful the site would be just based on how long it took to load the first screen. I'll keep looking and let you know if I find anything else. It really is unfortunate that the todoababor site is gone. I think you might have found some useful information there, or at least information that could have directed you in other areas.

Well, this is strange. I just typed in www.todoababor.es and got to a website. The main message translates to: This website is inactive indefinitely. The same as the email

However, I can still get to the archive of information on ships?! See if you can do the same?

Diamondback
05-08-2014, 14:54
Jim, once I finish working backward through ThreeDecks, I'll give it a go. This may be an arbitrary cut-off, but for now I'm cutting things off at "extant as of 1760" for a preliminary list, then I'm thinking start with the distinguished "combat veterans," focus on them and then work out to their relatives from there.

Once my eyes get back to normal, that is; I just got back from an eye exam, so my vision's a little wonky until whatever they use to induce dilation wears off.

csadn
05-08-2014, 15:47
First, what would we consider the key engagements of Spanish naval history from about 1760-1815, mainly emphasizing the Napoleonic era?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cape_St_Vincent_%281797%29 -- John Jervis, plus some guy named Nelson, made himself famous here. :)

Spanish OOB:

2nd Squadron / Vanguard

1st Division
Infante Don Pelayo, 74
San Pablo, 74

2nd Division
Purísima Concepción, 112
Conquistador, 74
San Genaro, 74
San Juan Nepomuceno, 74
Santo Domingo, 64
Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, 34
Perla, 34

1st Squadron / Battle Line

3rd Division
Mejicano, 112
Oriente, 74
Soberano, 74
Nuestra Señora de la Paz, 40

4th Division
Santisima Trinidad, 130
Salvador del Mundo, 112
San Nicolás de Bari, 80
San Ildefonso, 74
San Isidro, 74
Vigilante, 12

3rd Squadron / Rearguard

5th Division
Conde de Regla, 112
Príncipe de Asturias, 112
Firme, 74
San Fermín, 74
Matilde, 34
Diana, 34

6th Division
San José, 112
Atlante, 74
Glorioso, 74
San Antonio, 74
San Francisco de Paula, 74
Ceres, 40
Nuestra Señora de Atocha, 40
Asunción (Armed Merchantman), 28
Santa Paula (Armed Merchantman), 20
Santa Balbina (Armed Merchantman), 18
Santa Justa (Armed Merchantman), 18

So: Aside from the one-off _Sta. Trini._ and the odd 80 and 64, we have at least *six* 112-gun 1st-rates, and an absolute s***pot of 74s (tho' how many of those were of a kind, I can't tell). Then there's the brace of 34-gun frigates, and a couple 40s. That's a couple waves right there, esp. with the 74s.

Diamondback
05-08-2014, 22:00
So, here's a data-dump... I quit feeding data in about mid-1753 'cuz that's when I got tired and my eyes aren't coming back to normal as fast as I'd like. Lineage-wise, it appears that the premier Spanish naval architect's position started with Gaztaneta, then passes to Jorge Juan, then to Gautier, then to Retamosa and Romero Landa as rough contemporaries.

I did find these pages in Spanish Wikipedia that helped:
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Fragatas_a_vela_de_la_Armada_Espa%C3%B1ola
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Nav%C3%ADos_de_l%C3%ADnea_de_la_Armada_Espa%C3%B1ola
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anexo:Sistema_de_clasificaci%C3%B3n_de_buques_de_la_Real_Armada_Espa%C3%B1ola

So, I'm going to start with Juan's ships since they're the oldest in my chart.
6th-rate 26-gun...
---Juno class: 1755-87 Juno, 1755-70 Palas, 1756-1817 Astrea
---class unIDed but dimensionally identical to each other: 1755 Industria, 1755 Liebre, 1755 Venus, 1755 Ventura
---unknown, designer N.D.: 1770 Santa Lucia
6th-rate 22-gun...
---Aguila class: 1753 Aguila, 1753 Flecha
---uncertain: 1755 Tetis

The Industria group is three meters shorter than the Junos, but if they can share a sculpt that gives us a Spanish Sixth Rate.

I would assume Retamosa's two 40's, 1795 Flora and 1797 Medea (becomes 1804 HMS Iphigenia) were probably pretty close.

Finally we come to the prolific Romero Landa. Everything I have data on for him is 34-gun 5th Rates:
--Mahonesa class: 1789 Perla, 1789 Mahonesa (becomes 1796 HMS Mahonesa), 1791 Esmeralda, 1793 Venganza, 1795 Ninfa (becomes 1797 HMS Hamadryad), 1797 Proserpina
--Santa Casilda class: 1784 Santa Casilda, 1787 Santa Florentina
--unclassified, and not even comparative dims: 1784 Santa Tecla, 1788 Nuestra Senora de la Soledad, 1791 Preciosa, 1791 Ceres

For a Spanish Fifth Rate, I would do one British flag as HMS Mahonesa (A)/HMS Hamadryad (B), then two as the four most famous Spanish ships.

I have some other designer-unknown uncategorizeds, but they'll have to wait until I upload the file. Sorry, guys, after all that I covered of the British and French for this site, I'm afraid I just don't have quite as much to burn in me as I used to... which means needing to take longer breaks between passes, especially when you add in fighting with languages and wonky Wikipedia formatting.

Naharaht
05-08-2014, 23:37
Do you think Ares might produce a Spanish vs British Starter Set?

Diamondback
05-08-2014, 23:45
One can HOPE, but I wouldn't hold my breath. That sounds like something for Seven Years' War, maybe... could work, pair the existing Bellona sculpt with the older Apostolos 74's (the most common Spanish 74, but almost all gone before the Napoleonic Wars), need to think and check on frigates.

Volunteer
05-09-2014, 07:25
I was going to ask if you might be using this website, but unfortunately it appears to have been taken down or is not functioning. http://www.todoababor.es/

I used it for history and as a painting guide. Others have linked it as well. It's too bad if this is gone for good.

I'm able to pull it up just fine Jim. It has a wealth of information on the Spanish navy and I use it all the time. A good book resource is Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy by John D. Harbron
9809
It covers all of the designs with some very nice pictures.

Nightmoss
05-09-2014, 08:36
DB, the stuff you've pulled together is most impressive. I went back to the todoababor site again last night and found some lists that were primarily of interest to me as they showed where the Spanish ships were 'stationed' at given times? At least that's what I think they're indicating? I don't know the accuracy of this data, but it's interesting to see. Do the British and/or French have similar lists? I'll link 1737 and 1746 as I know you've cut off at 1753.

http://www.todoababor.es/datos_docum/estad_1746.htm
http://www.todoababor.es/datos_docum/estad_1737.htm

Vol, that's a very good book. I've not given it as much time as I should, but it's good for sure.

csadn
05-09-2014, 14:45
It's worth remembering: During the Napoleonic Wars, the Spanish didn't really want to ally with the French Republic -- they figured out what was going to happen to their royals -- but after (unsurprisingly) getting their a**es kicked in the War of the Pyrenees, they joined Napoleon. A few more a**-kickings convinced Boney to take a more-direct hand in Spain, which caused the Spanish to flip sides.