Ships vs Shore Part 1

One of my ongoing projects has been a 15mm ACW ships vs shore project.  I have been lucky enough to visit several ACW forts along the south east United States coast, and I have been collecting 15mm figures and lots of big guns! I am not sure where this project is heading, but I plan on eventually doing a very large game, perhaps on a gymnasium floor.

This is a large rifle at Fort Fisher in North Carolina.  Described as a 6 3/8 inch rifle (Old 32) it forms part of Sheperd's Battery and faces the landward approach to the fort.  Presumably the hill on the right of the gun  would protect the position from fire from ships off shore. This view would be directly towards the ocean.

I started a sand fort project designed to depict a large sand mound and gun positions. The basis is green florist's foam, and as this pre-dates my hot-wire cutter, it was glued down with hot glue in various layers and carved to shape with a knife and "Surform" tool.



Two views of the cardboard and foam sand fort. The ruler is 15 inches, and the highest gun position was about 3 1/2 inches. 

I planned to use my dyed wood technique to stain strips of balsa to line the roadways and create a palisade around an upper and lower gun position.  The size was determined by creating a reasonable slope for the ramps up to the guns.  An internet check of sand forts (Google is your friend!) shows some were very steep. Presumably they would have to haul very heavy guns up very steep inclines.

The final two views show a couple coats of the sand texture paint as used for the brick texture on my Salem Church model.  In this case the sand could probably used as its natural colour.  It was planned to have a palisade around the base of the central mound.  At this point hoverver I just wasn't enamoured with it.  The model did not survive our recent move.

I suspect there will be a project in the not too distant future to revisit the sand fort. I am also toying with ideas for a masonry fort. Maybe something modular?  Somewhere in the boxes I have a modular Vauban type fort for 25mm games. It is decidely not Civil War-ish, and is fodder for future blogs. Next time, a look at a couple 15mm ACW ships.

More on http://www.flickr.com/photos/floating_white_bear/ 

Rodman 10 inch guns look out over the St Mary's River at Florida's Fort Clinch. There is a fascinating history at this very well preserved fort, but its ownership was never contested by fire.
Pulaski however took the full brunt of the Union rifled artillery:

Fort Pulaski, near Savannah in Georgia. Plenty of model building potential here!