French Protected Cruiser COSMAO 1889

[DrPR]

It is an interesting question. Wefalck is correct that in the "olden days" everyone stood watch in the open weather. But by WWI it was common for the helmsman and lee helm to be inside the pilot house with the Officer of the Deck outside on an open bridge.

The first ship I was on had an open bridge, but we did have a few windows on top of the bulwark in the center. And we rigged some canvas over the windows to the top of the pilot house to block rain and hot sunshine. But in heavy weather when we were taking green water over the bridge it was pretty miserable on the open bridge with cold water sloshing around your ankles and knees. A four hour watch was exhausting! But the helmsman and bosun of the watch were warm and dry inside the pilot house.

During WWII ships like the Cleveland class cruisers had open bridges. When some of these were converted to guided missile ships in the 1950s canvas was rigged over the middle part of the bridge. Then in the 1960s sheet metal replaced the canvas, and by the 1970s doors were installed between the center bridge and the bridge wings to enclose the bridge. It made life more bearable in typhoons! But we still used the open bridge wings when maneuvering or for underway replenishment.

So, were the sailors of the 1970s wimps, or were the sailors of the 1800s just too stupid to come in out of the weather?

Phil

[Fliger747]

As always interesting questions and answers appear! Many things had to change between the days of sail and the Great White Fleet circumnavigation. Sailing the sailing master needed clear view of the sails, quite the dance between sail handling and maneuvering. It took a while for things to evolve. Between WWI and WWI, the interwar period, many USN ships favored closed in, often glazed bridges. RN Cruisers favored open bridges, both Navy's destroyers tended to follow these patterns. Experience of RN, which USN slowly learned from favored open bridges with clear sky arcs because of the aircraft threat. The DE's also favored an open bridge for close in anti sub and escort work. Post WWII the war potentials were for a lot less eyeball direction and increased reliance on electronics. Canvass covers, changing to glazed and covered bridges more reflected a change from eyeballs to sensor technology and weapons with greater range (ie. missiles).

Perhaps the nadir of bridge habitability was a surfaced U Boat, Winter, North Atlantic.

[taylormade]

I'm very happy with the way my Hochkiss deck guns turned out. I do admit to fancying them up a bit with the brass trim. I did leave a few details off as the file is getting very large. I have a stand-alone version with much more detail. With the bridge and the front stack done, I'm pretty much done with the foredeck and can now start on the midship area. I'm probably still using the incorrect terms here, so feel free to correct me.

[Fliger747]

Nice job on the "guns". In Hong Kong, at the base of Kowloon are some old government buildings, including a tower with a mast for hoisting typhoon warnings and whatnot, plus a couple of similar guns (1) symbols of authority (2) used for the noon gun daily and various pomp and circumstance salutes. Quite a bit of polished brasswork on them!

Due to the fast evolution in Naval technology, such ships had limited useful life spans. HMS Dreadnought wasn't so far in the future!

Keep up the nice work and looking forward to actual construction!

Tom

[taylormade]

I've found it much easier to see what will be involved when actually building a model when I build it virtually first. Since I build each part in computer modeling, it helps me see things in three dimensions allows me to figure out the best way to construct it when I build the model. It also allows me to decide if I really want to build her after I see what she looks like.

One thing about the Cosmao is the rather spartan appearance of her decks. There is not a lot stuff cluttering things up and this will make modeling her a bit less complicated than some of the more modem ships. One question concerning this. Was there ever anything under the bridge? Looking at the plans I can see no hint of any structure under there other than the companionway. It seems fantastically barren with the bridge just floating there on its own.

As you can see there is a whole lot of nothing under the bridge structure in the plans.

There are very few photos of Cosmao, but there appears to be something with windows under the bridge of her sister ship Lalande. The quality is terrible and it may be a figment of my imagination. What do you think? Maybe a canvas covering or simply a difference between the two ships?

Some more progress shots.

[DrPR]

The cabin behind the helm is labeled Abri des Cartes ("card shelter" or "shelter from the cards"). It must be a chart house. And there is no helm inside.

It looks like the wide dotted line pipe coming from below decks to beside the port rear side of the chart house is a smoke pipe. The stove-like container in the space below decks is labeled "125 liters charcoal." Notice that the smoke pipe is not dotted below the bridge deck, so the space below the chart house must be open, at least at the rear. In the photo this pipe just might be the wide vertical dark line running up at the port aft corner of the chart house almost to the chart house roof.

Then there is the curved domed line below the binnacle and what looks like a ladder descending below the main deck. That would be a cover over the hatch on the center line that you show in your model. It has an eye at the top, apparently for lifting out of the way.

After sorting out the four very narrow stanchions in the drawing supporting the bridge and chart house, the ladder, tube for the steering cables and the smoke pipe, there is one unexplained vertical line coming up under the chart house just forward of the table, and above a bulkhead between "Bouteilles des Mattres" (translate "masters bottle" or "master's butts") and what looks like a door in the below decks space.

This line could (with a stretch of the imagination) be the aft end of a metal shelter that fit across the stanchions at the forward end of the chart house. In the shadows there appear to be two windows in a bulkhead across between the stanchions. It is hard to tell because the port forward "corner" of this bulkhead is behind what appears to be a small gun with a splinter shield on the port side. But the starboard edge of this shelter comes close to the ladder up to the bridge. That should give and idea how wide the shelter was. I would guess it was wider than the chart house. I would also guess the back was open because we can see light coming through the windows. I have seen weather shelters like this on other ships.

What isn't clear is how far forward this shelter goes. It looks like it goes up to the cross of the bridge "T" platform but not forward of the hatch. So that would place the front edge just behind and below the aft side of the binnacle. If it extended forward of the hatch it would obscure the ladder, which is entirely visible. This structure would provide some support for the bridge deck and pilot house. I would think something more would be needed that the few very thin stanchions shown in the drawing. Without some diagonal support the entire bridge deck and chart house could collapse.

There is a diagonal line extending forward from just below the top of the ladder to just below the front edge of the bridge platform, above the hatch. This could be a trapezoidal support for the bridge deck and binnacle - possibly one on each side.

So there you have my guess. Thanks. Researching details is one of the parts of modelling I like the most!

Phil

[taylormade]

Looking at the drawing, the bridge support poles are in red, the steering controls in green (although I don't know where they go, they seem to end at the deck), the purple lines I believe are cross supports for the bridge support poles, the blue is what you (and I) suspected was a stove pipe or chimney - but it's not, and the mysterious orange line is what you speculated might be a wall or support. Aside from the orange line, there is nothing that looks like a structure under the bridge.

However, in this drawing with the same colors, it's obvious that what we thought was a stovepipe is actually a boat davit for one of the ship's boats. It's marked in blue. Another mysterious orange line turns out to be one of the tall railing stanchions. Again, no structure is shown under the bridge. The chimney error got me, too, as it was coming right out of the stove and made perfect sense. If you look closely, you can see the dotted lines of the davit behind the stove.

This final, very simple drawing shows the same configuration, although the back bridge support (in orange) is shown thicker than the others. I think this is because it shows the communication tubes running down the pole. Again, nothing under the bridge.

From the top view we see the pilot house (in green) and the steering and binnacle above the bridge and the hatch/companionway (in red) underneath indicated by dotted lines. Although the communication tubes confuse the drawing, there is still no sign of any structure under the bridge except the hatch.

This second top view has the pilot house in green and the hatch in red. You can see dotted lines under the bridge showing the deck edges and the front edge of the structure around the stack, but nothing else is indicated under the bridge.

In this really terrible shot of the actual Cosmao's bridge, the gun is again in the way, but i think I can see through under the bridge where a ship's boat is visible. There may be a structure to the left of that opening, under the binnacle, but it's almost impossible to tell. Until I can find a high resolution photo I'm afraid anything is going to be guesswork.

[DrPR]

I agree that the "stovepipe" does appear to be a boat davit, That would explain some of the dotted lines in the earlier drawing.

In the outboard drawing BR3.jpg the orange/yellow line is in a different place! And on BR2,jpg it isn't there at all! Do you have the dates for each of these drawings to see which was done last? Often during a ship's design things change a bit.

The dotted line from the helm on BR5.jpg indicates that the steering cables were routed outboard to starboard and then aft.

The BR6.jpg photo clearly shows something dark/opaque under the bridge behind the gun and shield. There is something to the right of the gun in front of the bridge that blocks the view. I thought the dark area might just be the underside of the port bridge deck, but it is not symmetrical with the view of the underside of the starboard wing of the bridge.

The photos obviously were made after the design drawings. Do you have dates for the pictures? I wonder if the dark thing under the bridge was added after the ship was commissioned? This would not be unusual. There were dozens of changes made to the OK city after it was commissioned, including several new superstructure extensions. Experience operating the ship often revealed changes that should be made.

But this is all guesses.

Phil

[taylormade]

I know one change that was made for sure. The drawings show one gun sponson on each side of the ship, but all photos of Cosmao and her sister ships clearly show two gun sponsons on each side. So the second gun was added at some point after the original drawings were made. Cosmao also had a railed captain's gallery or "porch" at the stern, but her sister ships did not. At times getting too obsessed with trying to figure out every tiny discrepancy between the plans and the ship as built can drive you crazy. In this case I'm going with a representation of the ship according to the original plans as if it was a builder's model for the Navy Board to approve. Thanks for the input - I enjoy discussing this kind of thing.

[wefalck]

On the steering wheel: normally chains and rods were used, rather than cables, as cable has the bad habit of stretching, which would need to be compensated from time to time - normally bottle screws are provided for this in any case. With this kind of arrangement, the chains would be lead over rollers on both sides of the ship to make the starboard and port connections of equal length - otherwise temperature changes would introduce an unwanted 'trim'.
I don't know, when hydraulic steering gear was introduced, which then would permit asymmetric arrangements. I have the feeling that this was at a later time in history, although the technology was there in principle for decades already.
In general, the navies at that time opted for simple systems on which battle-damage could be easily and quickly repaired. This is also why rope steering was retained for surprisingly long time, although geared wheels and chain/rods were used in the merchant navy already for decades.

[taylormade]

Got the gun sponson finished. I plan to have the hatches open with the gun exposed, but I wanted to make sure they fit correctly. This has got to be one of the ugliest sponsons ever put on a ship. it's basically a box with none of the style usually seen on ships of this type. Just opening all those hatches would have taken an incredible amount of time, especially when you were going into battle.

And speaking of hatches, this was the system that was used to hinge up the covers along the side of the ship. Not exactly power windows.

[taylormade]

Whoa, I just noticed I forgot to turn off the old hatch hinges - double rivets peeking through. I have over six hundred different objects in this model and sometimes it's a bit daunting keeping track of everything.

[taylormade]

Correct image. I improved the details on the cover based on a drawing that had better views.

[Fliger747]

Cart is actually the French "mot" for "MAP". So yes the Charthouse. It's fun to have an international community here with unique projects. A lot of the contributors here are interested in or have lived some of the history and are almost universally helpful!

Cheers: T

[setori]

Well done !

[taylormade]

That photo has some interesting information I was looking for. It appears the inside of the hatch doors and the inner frame was painted a lighter color, possibly light gray or pale green? As I plan to have some of these doors open, I was wondering exactly what they did for paint.

[wefalck]

I think the inside is white. Models of French ironclads seem to show white inside port lids: http://www.maritima-et-mechanika.org/ma ... clads.html

White was common to improve the lighting inside the decks, particularly at times, when there was no electric light. The paint was often white-wash, which also has bactericidal properties due to its high pH of about 10.

[setori]

I think it was white too.
Here's another pic

[setori]

maybe you have this pic of Cosmao

[setori]

On this pic you can see a deckhouse under the bridge