? Battleship Bretagne - France - Design & 3D printing 1:200

[Iceman 29]

Tks Todd.

Not much to present, yesterday was a very complicated and time consuming day for digging the hull at the front because of the hawse pipes integrated in the hull. The front part is well advanced.

I can now drill the portholes.

Drawing of the small deck accessories.

Tomorrow, I'll take over the SS Delphine project, alternately, for one week.





Drawing of the anchor chains just for the drawing, but I'm also thinking of printing some. The shape of the forestay mesh is rather oval, I drew them a bit big, to be reduced.

Drilling of the starboard portholes, port is a little different.

The door you see under the waterline is the door of the starboard front torpedo tube. There are 4 of them. 2 forward and 2 aft.

[mikegr]

very nice

are you using a resin printer?

[Iceman 29]

Some accessories added on the foredeck on Sunday.

The third windlass has no clutch, the lowering protections to the windlass chain wells for the sea packs, sheaves for maneuvering the anchor fouled by the arm (make a turn of chain around a leg of the anchor), I have others to draw double for the front cables of the anti-torpedo nets, the front fairleads (The model varies between the plan and the photos), the flagpole that very specific to leave free the fairlead of towing, it supports the removable anchor light.

[Fliger747]

The bell on the muzzle of the main battery rifles is interesting, harkens back to the old time cast cannons of the days of sail. Certainly there is some historical reason for this configuration. Many muzzles of naval canons will have some minor belling at the muzzles, perhaps the cast canons of old would tend to crack at the muzzle?

Continues to be an interesting project!

Cheers: Tom

[Iceman 29]

Indeed Tom, well seen.

I already modified them, but I will do it again, it was much more tuliped at the base style 18 th century. because the plans did not correspond to the photos of 1915. Then I found a note about the 140mm canon in the numerous plans of the class , indicating that it was necessary to modify the mouth of all the guns, a plan is drawn there.

The guns were modernized as they were refitted or the plan is not good.

I drew these guns according to a plan dated 1915.

Since then I have received other plans with a different shape at the muzzle of the gun, more modern.

Base of my drawing:

Dated 1915:

Bretagne



Dated 1916:

Sistership Provence



The note about the 140mm canon approuved in 1924 :

[Fliger747]

Pascal:

I wonder if she was rebarreled at some overhaul period. For some reason they modified the muzzle profile, I wonder why? Perhaps there was some issue with differential thermal expansion at the muzzle that was causing an issue? Perhaps it has something to do with barrel harmonics, a very complex subject?

Cheers: Tom

[Iceman 29]

For the 140 mm lateral guns, it corresponds to the refit of 1924. Cosmetic design?

Second refit:

The battleship underwent a major modernization between May 1st 1924 and September 18th 1925.

As in the first one, the main artillery was modified to increase the elevation from 18� to 23�, which allowed her to reach a range of 23,700 meters. It also received two new rangefinders for its flak.

[Fliger747]

Increasing the elevation was a common modification to the earlier vintage Battleships, though not always easy or actually carried out. Though some 25,000 yards was really practical effective range of the era, beyond that few if any hits could be expected. However in the case of a list developing from damage, the greater elevation might be required for shorter ranges.

This ship spans almost the whole period of the supremacy of the big gun.

Cheers: Tom

[JIM BAUMANN]

what an beautiful and most worthy project this will be ! BRAVO

I built my model back in 2002/3... back then my ref material was all printed matter-- and for this ship...no plans ...
no ' quick and easy access top references in another country, and also no internet model ship friends to assist..(!)

info by mouseclick ==> as no -internet for me back then for me

( Haha ! I am told that I said.... ""-...it will never catch on..."" ) --!!

and thereby no access to the very enviable images you have posted already,

a few ( mainly poor) images in Breyer and Conways and similar books ( Dumas etc )
and this very fine view encs
from a book by Hough--called DREADNOUGHT-dated 1928 ( with black turrets )
-I encs a partial low res scan herewith
My model based on the 1/700 resin kit by a now defunct firm called Delphis ( italian)
--and I believe my model may have a glaring error ...( if viewed from above only ... )

the decks by the stage I modelled then were steel and partially linoleum on steel... so I was told around 15 years later (arghh!)
(which seems to be confirmed by your images where the deck in visible...!) arghh again!
anyhow--this is what I based my bridge on...

best wishes and I am 'awatching!

[Iceman 29]

Thanks for the picture Jim, I don't have it.

All photos are very precious, even if they are insignificant sometimes, which is not the case with this one, details can be hidden in them.

I thought the whole bridge had its exposed steel.
Valuable information.

[Iceman 29]

To complete my documentation, I bought this book from 2017 that was highly recommended to me across the Channel, there would be quite a few plans etc.. I should receive it tomorrow.

I did not find the French edition that the description speaks of, but it does not matter. Maybe this book is written in both languages, I would see.

"When the war broke out in August 1914, France had only two dreadnoughts in service, and a second pair being tested. The main body of the elite Arm e Navale consisted of the eleven battleships of the _Patrie_ and _Danton_ classes, both of intermediate design with two main gun calibers. Among the older ships were the survivors of the famous _Flotte d'�chantillons_ of the 1890 program and their successors designed in the 1890s. This book traces the development of French battleships from 1890 to 1922, and also covers the significant modifications made to the survivors during the interwar period.

The structure of the book follows that of previous books in this best-selling series, with John Jordan's first part devoted to the design, followed by Philippe Caresse's historical chapters covering the years 1900 to 1945. The book is profusely illustrated with line drawings and labeled diagrams, as well as photographs from Caresse's extensive collection, many of which are previously unpublished."

https://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/184832 ... UTF8&psc=1



This is the most comprehensive book on these ships published in either English or French, and is destined to be the reference for many years to come.

[Iceman 29]

I continued to draw the hull, the 47 mm gun, the deck plates. I'm halfway through the hull, at 10 out of 20.

[taylormade]

I probably missed it, but what program are you using for the 3D modeling? You're doing a fantastic job!

[Iceman 29]

Thanks!

Fusion360 from Autodesk.

There is a free version.

https://www.autodesk.com/products/fusio ... bscription

[Iceman 29]

A few more sections have been drawn, the stern is coming soon, hopefully it won't resist me too much!

[Iceman 29]

The hull is well advanced. As usual, some defects have to be corrected after finishing the blocks, but it's not too bad. Some mistakes on the drawing of the rear couples, the same drawing of the Lorraine is more accurate. When you put the two drawings on top of each other, there are a lot of differences in the drawings... �

Yet they are theoretically the same hulls. The propeller shafts are not placed at the same places etc. So be careful when using the 3 sets of plans.



Lorraine:



Bretagne:

[wefalck]

Do you have any information on what stage the available plans actually represent. Obviously, there is then a differnce to what was actually built ...

[Iceman 29]

In my opinion, some of the plans are simply diagrams to show the ship as a whole. Not very precise therefore.

The kind of plans that are taken on board the ship after the fitting out of the ship for the officers, deck, engine, armament.

Others are real detailed construction plans, with indications on the size of the rivets used, the thickness of the metal, etc, like this one for example:

Others are real detailed construction plans, with indications on the size of the rivets used, the thicknesses of metal, etc, like this one for example on which I work:

Propeller shaft bearings

[JIM BAUMANN]

@ Iceman-- Remarkable progress ....

on one of my favourite Battleship classes-- they have a 'flair!

@ Wefalck ahhh..-- plans indeed... ( a favourite debate of mine with friends! )

this is my view for the purposes of modelship creating..

I hit that dilemma on a much smaller scale and less complexity
when building the Schelde Tugboat-- I had a beautiful set of GA plans and lines as built 1906

and a very pretty wee thing it was--but for my purpose @ the end of WW1 the vessels external appearance
and secondary structures, even Funnels etc had all changed considerably

I reckon that dimensions, beam loa etc , bulkheads sheerline etc usually remain the same on most vessels
( unless comprehensivly rebuilt--as opposed to refitted..)

but for the itty gritty bits of detail ( winches, portholes doors etc-- )

nothing can beat accurate photo interpretation and extrapolation of...
( Iceman Pascal is an expert in this field ! )


The hitch in this statement is the availability of photos... �-the older/more obscure the vessel the bigger the issue

I sometimes marvel at the claims of " accuracy " for models
of sailing ships of the 11/12/13/1415/16/17/18 Century...

I am sure so very much of this on-deck detail is based on " usual practice of that era "


meanwhile--
the Bretagne is a splendid looking ship !
and I think the model is a mighty undertaking in 1/200...

[Iceman 29]

I couldn't have put it better myself!

Drawings of the propeller shaft lines.



Inserting the layer with the perfectly fitting plane in Fusion360.



Drawing the propeller shaft line axes, in magenta at the bottom, I'm only doing one side of course, it's symmetrical.





Once this is drawn, I use the detailed plan of the starboard support to draw the bearing and the arms. The layer is of course positioned on a plane perpendicular to the shaft axis.





New arm profile layer, positioned perpendicular to the axis of the upper arm. The two arms do not have exactly the same profile, the upper one is thicker, maybe because it supports the weight of the shaft line and also of the heavy propeller.













Drawing of the bearing, which seems to be lubricated with sea water, guaiac bearing? �Guaiac (ironwood) is a very hard, very heavy wood, with a density greater than 1, so it doesn't float, with a very high resistance to wear. On the propeller plane, if you look closely, the coded representation of this industrial design of the material used seems to correspond to wood.










Drawing of the arm fixings.









Projecting the sketch of the magenta bracket onto the hull, a multitude of 28mm diameter rivets attach this piece to the hull:





The outer shaft line support still needs to be drawn, then it's time for the propellers.



The conical part attached to the shaft is probably a zinc anode for galvanic protection. It is removable because it is made of two half-cones. It is fixed by bolts to each other. The form avoid the drag and turbulences.