Phil pulled a late one (or two) over the weekend and has come up with no fewer than ten moulds of new stuff, most of which we’re hoping to have at Salute on Saturday. To accompany our new Spanish Aeronef aircraft carrier, we have this neat little monoplane fighter aircraft called the Halcón. It also means that we can release a Spanish Carrier fleet pack, with a Principe de Austurias, fifteen Halcóns and five escort ships.
It’s been a busy week … the slight downside of going away for a few days is that there tends to be a bit of a backlog of orders when I return, so I’ve been ploughing through those this week. I’ve pretty much caught up and everything should be back to normal by the end of this week.
We also missed out on a release last week – we were all primed and ready to go when a flaw was spotted in one of the new moulds at the last minute, so we held off until it could be remade. All is good to go now, so if you’d like to settle down, we’d like to present the latest new releases in the Aeronef range…
Years ago, Phil came up with a single Aeronef model for the Chilean aerial fleet – the Santiago, a battleship with two massive quadruple turrets and not a lot else. This was later joined by a single small escort vessel, and that has been the extent of it for the Chileans.
Today the Chilean fleet gets a boost to become one of the better equipped South American aero-navies. The Santiago has been replaced by a new resin-hulled design with separate turrets and metal fittings, and there are several new cruiser and escort designs.
The Santiago’s all-big-gun layout gives it massive firepower to take on enemy capital ships but, apart from two small support turrets, it’s pretty much unprotected against smaller vessels and aircraft. For this reason, the Chilean fleet features a lot of escort vessels equipped with small rapid-fire guns and AA turrets. There are also torpedo and patrol boats to complete the mix.
VANFP-1601 – Chilean Fleet Pack – £22.00
VANFP-1611 – Chilean Torpedo Flotilla – £4.00
VAN-1601 – Santiago class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-1602 – Encalada class Escort Cruiser – £3.50
VAN-1603 – Chacabuco class Light Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-1603a – Pinto class Light AA Cruiser – £3.00
VAN-1604 – Esmerelda class Torpedo Frigate – £1.00
VAN-1605 – Serrano class Frigate – £1.00
VAN-1605a – Condell class AA Frigate – £1.00
VAN-1606 – Anchova class Patrol Boat – £0.50
VAN-1607 – Riveros class Torpedo Boat – £0.50
Today sees the final part of stage #1 of our programme to update all of our older Aeronef models. The final one of the big six major powers, the USA, has at last received the planned overhaul of their three older capital ships. The Texas, Maine and Lincoln battleships have all been replaced by new resin and metal designs, joining their counterparts in the other aero-navies of the world.
The Texas is the oldest of the three (the original Texas sculpt was the oldest original Aeronef battleship model remaining in production) and the design reflects a vessel of an earlier era, with a secondary broadside battery in casemates in the superstructure. We’ve also taken a cue from early US naval battleships with the superimposed main turrets – these aren’t able to rotate independently, the upper turret is fixed to the lower one.
The Maine follows a similar deck layout to the Texas but with updated turrets and superstructure. It also has a more conventional superstructure and like the Texas it has a fire control and steering bridge at the top of its bipod masts.
The Lincoln is a much more up-to-date vessel with multi-layered armament in turrets and casemates. Its secondary role as a carrier escort is reflected in the pair of anti-aircraft turrets amidships.
The three new vessels are available individually or in fleet packs – each pack has two battleships plus escorts. The US Grand Fleet pack has also been updated, with one each of the new battleships plus a Lexington battlecruiser and eleven escort vessels. The four new types of turrets on these ships are also available in our Aeronef Accessories range.
VAN-205 – Texas class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-207 – Maine class Battleship – £8.00
VAN-212 – Lincoln class Battleship – £8.50
VAN-7023 – US Twin Square Medium Turrets (x12) – £1.50
VAN-7024 – US Twin Round Medium Turrets (x12) – £1.50
VAN-7025 – US Superimposed Heavy Turrets (x5) – £1.50
VAN-7026 – US Twin Heavy Turrets (x10) – £1.50
VANFP-022 – US Grand Fleet Pack – £48.00
VANFP-201 – US Fleet Pack #1 – £22.00
VANFP-202 – US Fleet Pack #2 – £22.00
VANFP-203 – US Fleet Pack #3 – £22.00
Stage #2 of the upgrade programme – replacing all of the smaller vessels – begins soon, with the British fleet the first to get new cruisers and destroyers.
And finally, as always, a shout-out to Dom’s Decals for the tail markings.
The sale is sailing serenely on – Yesterday I took another big batch of parcels to the post office, however, there was a big burst of orders on Sunday, prompted no doubt by the fast-approaching end of the sale next weekend, so that will slow me down a bit.
In the meantime, I’ve spent the odd hour or two working on further new releases – more Aeronef, following on from last week’s British smaller vessels. This time I have a pair of larger vessels – the first is a new version of the Chilean battleship Santiago. The old model (out of production for some time) was notable for it’s two huge quad gun turrets, so I’ve kept that aspect of the design, although it’s also been given two smaller light gun turrets.
The second new vessel is a Spanish fighter carrier. One of the aspects of the Spanish capital ships that I really like is the raised front-to-back walkway on both vessels, so I’ve taken this and enlarged it to make a narrow flight deck. Below this at main deck level is an aircraft handling area with an anti-aircraft turret at each corner. The fighter models on deck are British Fitton Scouts which I used for sizing purposes. It remains to be seen if the Spanish get their own aircraft design…
In between stints at the workshop I’ve been doing a little bit of design work. One of our goals for next year is to start replacing all of the cruisers and escorts for the major powers now that we’ve finished the capital ships (well nearly – the USA will get their new models first thing in January). We’ll start with the British, with the aim of having those ready for release at Salute in April. There are seven models to be replaced, and we’re also hoping to squeeze in a couple of new designs as well.
As you can see, I’ve based these new ones on the existing designs but with the addition of separate turrets on the larger vessels (which then gives us the option of offering an AA version of the Arethusa by swapping out the gun turrets for AA ones). And they’ll generally just be slightly better overall with more details and little touches like windows that are inset rather than proud of the surface.
