I am not really a builder but a converter of model kits and figures, I like to have a good base model to use and have found one for the 1870 Chinese Armed Transport Fupo. I have found one picture of this ship which is two masted with the bridge in the center of the vessel along with the stack. I was not able to see where the armament was placed though.
Would anyone have an idea where I could find a deck schematic of this vessel? I would like to make it as accurate as possible, I'm not really a museum builder but more of one for gaming and personal satisfaction!
Her specs: She displaced 1,258 long tons (1,278�t), length of 200 feet (2,400�in) long overall, beam of 32.8�ft (10.0�m), average draft of 11.5�ft (3.5�m). In 1870 her initial armament was a single 16�cm (6.3�in) gun and four 40-pounder guns. This varied during her career, when later assigned to Formosa (now Taiwan), her armament was swapped out for six 68-pounder guns.
Using the Cutty Sark 1/350 model, probably with plenty of plasticard and putty. Not sure about the armament though, can't see it on the one picture I did find.
There were four ships in the class: Fu Po, An Lan, Fei Yun, and Chin An. These ships are often found to be classified as cruisers, sloops, or gunboats and were apparently also classified in this way by the Chinese navy. For transports, the armament would be very heavy. I think that at least some of the ships were later used as transports with built up forecastle and poop decks.
It shows the positions of seven guns:
2 before the foremast
1 in front of the bridge (on a pivot mounting) (remains there after conversion to transport)
2 in front of the main mast (remains there after conversion to transport)
2 near the stern
The book lists the guns one 16 cm, two 12 cm, and four 12 cm. Unfortunately the Google translation is not understandable regarding the differences of the 12 cm guns (abrogating vs. wattage??).
I guess I have to be a more regular (Not NEW!!! ) poster before I can submit replies without approval and write PM's to members.
Loads of information, I will go check out that 1/700 kit for more references as well as the link Maxim provided.
From the original build Fupo had five guns, but the armament varied depending on station assignment. Was mainly going to use the model for recreating the 1884/1885 Sino-French engagements. I haven't been doing too much since I retired and moved South, so this is going to be a new "creative juice" project! I would rather convert or build something than build straight from a kit. Might be harder but......
As far as I understand it, she originally had seven guns (as written). But I cannot understand Chinese, therefore I can miss something in the translation (Lost in Translation...).
I can read messages and posts, I just can not reply to them.
YET!
Found a list of ships built in the Foochow Navy Yard,
Fu-po shows launch date of 22 December 1871, class-transport, H.P. 150, crew 100, 1,258 tons, 5 guns (types not specified. A sister ship, the Fei-yun, built the next year, had one 7-in Armstrong, 4-48pdrs and 2 small brass guns. Then in 1873 the Chi-en was launched, she had 1 64-pdr, 4 48-pdrs and two 36-pdrs, all rifled breach loading. The Yuan-kei is listed in 1875, again like Fu Po, with 5 guns.
After "reading" ??????(1855-1911) again with the help of a translation software, I have to change my statement regarding the composition of the class.
1.) Gunboat Fu Po (launched 1870) : 69,6 m length, 11,2 m width
The book classify her as gunboat, other books call her cruiser or sloop - and that reflects that these ships were at the lower end of the cruiser category, which are sometimes difficult to classify. Some navies call these ships cruisers, other corvettes, sloops, avisos, or gunboats...
2.) Gunboats An Lan, Fei Yun, Chi An (launched 1871-1873): 64 m length, 9,6 m width
Apparently the same armament, also designed as cruiser/gunboats
3.) Transports Yung Pao, Hai Ching, Chen Hang, Ta Ya (launched 1872-1874): 64 m length, 9,6 m width
Same dimension and hull forms as the 2nd batch of the class, but built as transports. I found two drawings of Cheng Hang with forecastle, poop and built up structure midships. One without armament (in the mentioned book), one with three guns (one pivot in front of the bridge, two in front of the main mast)
Therefore I am not longer sure, if any ship of the 1st and 2nd batch was rebuilt as a transport, but it is likely that the surviving ships were used and were classified as transports, probably with reduced armament.
There we have seven ships mentioned in the class. Originally built as wooden hulled sloops from 1870 to 1876.
Ships named in this class were: Fu Po, An Lan, Fei Yuan, Chi An, Yuan Kai, Teng Ying Chen and T'ai An. Wooden hulled , fully rigged sloops built at Foochow for the Fukien Fleet. Dimensions from Conways is 200ft x 32ft 9in x 11ft 6in. Armament there (which changed per ship for the availability of weapons) was 1-6 3in, 4-4.7in.
Quite a bit of variety from the different sources!
Yes, but I would not trust the Western sources. They are often very vague and have a lot of small errors regarding Chinese ships. Therefore is it not surprising that one ship is missing, as it is not surprising, that some sources call all these ships sloops and other all transports - they obviously did not realise that there were two very different versions of the class.
There are kits of both, a sloop, Fu Pu, and a transporter, Yung Pao, both by OceanMoon in 1/700. As described in ??????(1855-1911) the first has seven guns and the later no armament. But both kits are obviously used that book or a similar one as reference.
With the links Jim sent me, I can get started at least on the hull. The kit has a pretty thin hull, I do not want to get any wavy or a "banana' style hull going at the start. Too bad it's not a resin kit!
So much information to wade through, sort of like looking for diamonds!
