We’re currently working hard on the redesigned Brazilian and Argentine fleets for Imperial Skies. They’re almost ready to go in fact, with the first samples waiting to be painted, and production moulds lined up at the workshop in anticipation.
But we’re getting into the swing of our South American adventure with a brand new aerial fleet. Ecuador lies in the north west corner of the continent, bordered by Colombia to the north and Peru to the east and south. During our research (yes, we do research things, we don’t make everything up – well, not all of it…) we learnt that the Galapagos Islands, 1000km out into the Pacific, are part of Ecuador (which, incidentally, just means ‘Equator’ in Spanish). And that, because of the way the planet bulges, the Chimborazo Volcano is the closest point on the earth to the sun.
All that aside, militarily the country is not the strongest in the region. When we were initially assessing the countries to determine the size of their air fleets, Ecuador ranked quite low, coming in just above Paraguay. As a result, the largest class are the Tunguruhua heavy cruisers, supported by a number of smaller craft.
The Ecuadorian airships are all armoured dirigibles, with their self-sealing gasbags supplemented by small Loewe Graviton Engines for additional lift. Only the Tunguruhua class have rotating turrets, with casemate guns on other ships plus flotillas of torpedo-armed small craft. Vessels use the prefix DAE; Dirigivel de la Armada del Ecuador.
The fleet has five models, and there’s a mini fleet pack and torpedo flotilla pack. We’ve also provided two flag sheets – the national flag changed in 1900 so we’ve drawn up before and after versions.
VANFP-3201 – Ecuadorian Air Guard Squadron Pack – £13.00
VANFP-3211 – Ecuadorian Torpedo Flotilla – £4.50
VANF-3201 – Ecuadorian Flag (1860-1900) – £0.50
VANF-3202 – Ecuadorian Flag (1900-2009) – £0.50
VAN-3201 – Tunguruhua class Heavy Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-3202 – Zamora class Light Cruiser – £1.75
VAN-3203 – Chimborazo class Destroyer – £1.25
VAN-3204 – Isla class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-3205 – Isabela class Torpedo Cutter (x3) – £1.50
Today we take to the skies in unprecedented aerial luxury, with the release of three flying passenger liners. We have newly designed versions of the Majestic, Stirling Castle and Kaiserin Elizabeth class ships, all with resin hulls and metal parts. The largest, the Majestic, even has a small swimming pool on the afterdeck surrounded by sun loungers, for passengers who wish to swim in the sky!
And representing the more grimy, utilitarian face of merchant shipping, we also have a new version of the French Rochefort heavy merchant, featuring a deck festooned with cranes and cargo hatches.
VAN-5001 – Majestic class Passenger Liner – £8.50
VAN-5006 – Kaiserin Elisabeth class Liner – £4.00
VAN-5009 – Rochefort class Heavy Merchant – £8.00
VAN-5010 – Stirling Castle class Liner – £5.00
We’ve made it – our final new release of the year, and the last leg in our epic quest to redesign/resculpt the Aeronef models of the six major powers. Today sees the release of the Russian cruiser and escort forces, with six redesigns and two brand new models. You can see all of the new models below, along with the two smaller vessels released last week.
The two new craft are the Kronshtadt Heavy Cruiser, an enormous beast the size of a small battleship with new twin turrets. The other vessel is the Burnyi destroyer, fitted with a forward barbette and torpedo tubes.
There’s a new Fleet pack with a Poltava Dreadnought, an Admiral Nakhimov battlecruiser plus escorts, and a new Russian Escort Flotilla pack with eight destroyers (although I’m afraid we still have no flying stands so the packs are without these for the the moment).
The small Russian barbettes have been redesigned and are available in packs of 12, as is the new cruiser turret on the Kronshtadt. There are even some new flags, the Imperial flag and Naval Jack.
VANFP-502 – Russian Fleet Pack #2 – £21.50
VANFP-513 – Russian Escort Flotilla – 10.00
VAN-501 – Petrapavlovsk Class Cruiser – £2.50
VAN-502 – Archangelsk Class Dig Cruiser – £3.50
VAN-504 – Dobrovolets class Destroyer – £1.00
VAN-505 – Derskyi Heavy Destroyer – £3.50
VAN-507 – Smolensk class Seaplane Tender – £2.50
VAN-511 – Strashchni class Destroyer – £1.75
VAN-516 – Kronshtadt – £4.50
VAN-517 – Burnyi – £1.75
VANF-503 – Russian Imperial Flag – £0.50
VANF-504 – Russian Naval Jack – £0.50
VAN-7051 – Russian Single Barbette (x12) – £1.50
VAN-7052 – Russian Twin Batbette (x12) – £1.50
VAN-7057 – Russian Twin Cruiser Turret (x12) – £1.50
Having finished with the major powers, we’re off in a completely new direction with Aeronef in 2021.
News of this coming soon…
That’s it for new releases this year – next Friday is of course Christmas day, and we have better things to do then, as we’re sure you all do!
At the start of the year we had this grand plan to finish upgrading all of the models of the major powers of the Aeronef world. All six had already had their capital ships replaced by new 3D sculpts, and we’ve also added plenty of new designs – but we had all of the escorts and cruisers still to go. We did most of the British, French and Germans in 2019 (not quite all, there are one or two to go), which left Japan, USA and Russia for this year. The Japanese received cruiser and escort replacements earlier in the summer, and now it’s the turn of the USA to be re-equipped. It’s turned out to be one of the most extensive releases of all of the fleets – we’ve replaced nine existing models and added no fewer than six additional cruisers, destroyers and frigates, plus a new fleet pack.
You may notice one or two re-classifications amongst the ships; the US fleet had some anomalies (largish vessels termed as Frigates, etc) which have been corrected, although all of the names remain the same.
The largest vessel is the Kentucky dirigible; this has a new one-piece resin hull with metal bridge, mast and turret.
Three of the new vessels are designed in the same style as the Lexington class battlecruiser, and form a Fast Pursuit fleet – these are the Raleigh cruiser, Augusta destroyer and Huntsville torpedo destroyer. There is a fleet pack containing two each of the Lexington, Raleigh and Augusta.
Another new ship is the Olympia class Light Cruiser, seen below with the redesigned Maryland model.
VANFP-205 – US Pursuit Pack – £21.50
VAN-201 – Tallahasee Class Patrol Nef – £1.00
VAN-202 – Des Moines Class Destroyer – £2.50
VAN-203 – Michigan Class Light Cruiser- £3.00
VAN-204 – Kentucky Class Dig – £4.25
VAN-208 – Brooklyn class Destroyer – £2.00
VAN-209 – Maryland class Cruiser – £3.75
VAN-210 – Decatur class Corvette – £1.00
VAN-211 – Saginaw class Corvette – £1.00
VAN-213 – Baton Rouge class Cruiser – £3.25
VAN-218 – Olympia class Light Cruiser – £3.25
VAN-219 – Nashville class Frigate – £1.25
VAN-220 – Raleigh class Fast Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-221 – Augusta class Fast Frigate – £1.50
VAN-222 – Huntsville class Fast Torpedo Frigate – £1.50
VAN-223 – Scranton class Torpedo Corvette – £1.00
And we should get to the Russians by Christmas – the moulds are done, the sample models painted for the website so barring unforeseen events (global pandemic, anyone?) we’ll hit our target. And we then we’ll tell you our Aeronef plans for 2021…
