Possible New Ship MOdels from Zevezda (sp)

If this kit is in fact a repackaged Occidental Replicas version of a Portugese 50 gunner, it could be a blessing in disguise . . . a hitherto unavailable sailing ship kit of a ship currently in existence.  Let us hope!

Bill Morrison

kapudan_emir_effendi Joined on 01-23-2006 istanbul/Turkey Posts 243	Re: Zvezda "Acheron" !?!?!
	This is a reboxing of Occidental Replicas' (a defunct Portuguese company) 1/200 "Dom Fernando II e Gloria", a Portuguese 50 gunner from 1830s and now a museum ship in lisbon. Don't surrender the ship !

JTilley

  Getting back to you . The 1966 Bounty has the yards in the raised position,like the Beagle. Whats funny all three models. The 1956 Bounty with molded on badges, the 1966 Bounty,and the 1961 Beagle all have 1956 Bounty copyright stamped on the inside of thier hulls. I would have thought when they removed the badges from the Bounty moldings to be able to do thier Beagle it would being just as easy to create new hull sides. Since they created a new deck and deck furniture along with the ships boats for the Beagle,and they did that much much redo to make the Beagle they might as well have gone the distance,if you know what I mean.

Rod

I seem to recall the 'Acheron' in one of the O'Brian books as being essentially a very heavily sparred pirate frigate, not any sort of American warship at all, which Aubrey captures along the Pacific coast of South America somewhere.....

A few thoughts 

I recall some where in the novels something like "Surprise was is fine little frigate, but it would never do to take her across to fight the "Heavy Americans".

Recall also that Jack was a gun captain aboard Java when Constitution  shot her into Match Wood.

Surprise was an 8 pounder French corvette however the British stocked her with 32 pound carronades.  The Essex was about 40 % larger than Suprise and carried more 32 pound carnonades and a few 12 pound long guns.   Porter's crew would have been at least as well trained as Auberies.  Henece although close the American would likely have won.

 

 

That's fascinating, Millard.  I've never seen one with the quarter badges cast integrally.  I wonder why the change was made.  I suppose it's conceivable that the molds for the hull halves were changed at the time the "Beagle" kit was first produced.  According to Dr. Graham's book, the "Beagle's" initial release date was 1961.

According to the same source, the first reissue of the Bounty was also in 1961.  The initial release didn't have sails.  The 1961 version had "furled" sails.  (I'm no fan of vac-formed sails in any form, but that particular set has always struck me as one of the worst.  They might - just might - be made to look reasonable when viewed from the front, but the "bundles of canvas" are hollow and look ridiculous from the back.  If I remember correctly, the driver was made in two parts - port and starboard - that made it look a little more reasonable.)  Dr. Graham notes that "some issues of this kit [the 1961 reissue] have end panels announcing the new MGM movie starring Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard."

I'm fairly clear in my recollection that at least one later reissue of the Bounty had unfurled, "set" sails.  Revell Europe's website contains a reproduction of the box art for the current version.  It shows the ship in the process of taking in her sails; I have no idea what sails are in the box.

Dr. Graham's kit list doesn't mention a reissue of the Bounty dated 1966 (though it does list a "Beagle" reissue for that year).  The list says the Bounty was reissued in '61, '72, and '78 (the book's coverage stops with 1979).  Dr. Graham might well be interested to hear that there's a Bounty with a 1966 copyright date out there.

I just remembered another change that (I think) resulted from the "Beagle" scam.  In the original, 1956 Bounty kit, without sails, the yards were designed (correctly) to be placed in their lowered positions.  That arrangement is also correct for the version with furled sails.  But for the "Beagle," with sails set, the fore and main topmasts and topgallant masts were slightly revised, with locators for the yards in their raised positions.  (The mizzen mast lost its yards altogether with the conversion to the bark rig.)  The locators at the lowered positions were still there; the modeler who understood the difference could take his pick.  If I remember correctly, the Bounty kit on which my model is based had both sets of locators.  (I'm not sure of that; I replaced all the spars with wood ones.)  I'd be interested to know how the yard locators on millard's 1966 kit are arranged.

Trivial stuff, but interesting.  Bottom line:  under its original name it's not a bad old kit.  I'd certainly welcome new plastic sailing ship kits to that standard.

Regarding the quarter badges on the Bounty depends on what kit you get.Kit H-327 with a copyright date of 1956 which was the orginal mold,has the badges molded on the hull sides.Also the box has a price of $2.98 on it. The H-326 kit with a copyright year of 1966 has the badges as seperate parts the price is $4.00. The Instruction sheet from the 1956 model has a more detailed rigging drawing with rigging from the ships wheel to the tiller shown. The 1966 version has vaccum sails. Five figures come with the both versions.

Rod

I also found two older threads on this topic:

/forums/770736/ShowPost.aspx

/forums/579920/ShowPost.aspx

i've looked this kit up on a couple of different online shops. some say that it was released in 2006. other 2007. i've seen pre-orders for about $38.00 on average.....weird.

I didnt realize that the quarter badges on Revell's Bounty were seperate pieces, I thought they were molded on. In that case, its completely unnecessary to use "Beagle" to build a generic variation, the Bounty will do much better.

The Revell "Beagle" deck does break at the stern. I got the kit a long while back, my first plastic ship model, and junked it when I realized the fraud.

Jim

I haven't seen the inside of a Revell "Beagle" box in many years, but I think I remember some parts of it, at least, fairly clearly.  And I got thoroughly acquainted with the Revell Bounty kit when I was working on my little model based on it ( http://www.hmsvictoryscalemodels.be/JohnTilleyBounty/index.html ).

I'm pretty sure the hulls of the two kits are identical.  The quarter badges (including the windows) of the Bounty consist of separate parts that are to be cemented to the hull halves, with the aid of tiny locater pins (which the "Beagle" hull also has).  The transoms are different, and the figurehead got changed from the Bounty's "woman in a riding habit" to a simple billet head.

The decks of the two kits, as I remember, are quite a bit different.  The "Beagle" has an oddly-shaped part that incorporates "bulwarks" for the forward part of the ship.  (The Bounty only had bulwarks around her quarterdeck.)  The Revell designers, for some reason, added a pair of completely spurious chest-high pinrails to the sides of the Bounty abreast of the foremast.   The instructions for the "Beagle" tell the modeler to slice them off, thereby making room for the "bulwarks" that are molded integrally with the deck.  (Those instructions to chop off part of the model were among the first hints that started me thinking there was something odd about the kit.  I was eleven years old when my mother bought it for me and, as is probably obvious, I'm still more than slightly pd off about the experience.)

I think the "Beagle" may have had an additional part to make a raised poop deck.  (I say that because the Mamoli wood version - which quite obviously is an enlarged copy of the Revell one - has a poop deck.  But I don't remember for sure.)  I do know the Revell "Beagle" had boat davits, and a couple of new boats in addition to the one borrowed from the Bounty.

The designers somehow missed the indisputable fact that the Bounty's hull was copper-sheathed.  (So was the Beagle's, for that matter.)  That's really a shame.  They did a remarkably good job on the sheathing of their first Constitution kit, which was originally released in the same year (1956). 

The "Beagle" kit retains some of the deck furniture and other fittings of the Bounty - and adds some strange-looking, waist-high objects that look sort of like undersized deckhouses.  These, like many other features of the kit, have nothing to do with reality. 

The one characteristic of the real Beagle that Revell got right was the basic rig.  Most of the spars in the "Beagle" kit do duplicate those of the Bounty kit, but the "Beagle" does include a new mizzen mast to give the model a bark rig.  (Maybe the ship-rig spars of the Bounty are in the "Beagle" box too; I don't remember.) 

Those are the differences and similarities between the kits that my senile brain remembers.  Maybe somebody who actually has them in hand can elaborate.

I agree with woodburner:  either kit will provide a generic, late-eighteenth-century merchant ship hull.  The knee of the head is badly misshapen for the Bounty, but if one were using the parts as a basis for a generic vessel that might actually be an advantage.

The original Bounty kit represented the state of the art in 1956, and still holds up reasonably well against the admittedly meager competition.  In many respects it's better than the Airfix version, which is more than twenty years younger.  The "Beagle" kit is one of the more disreputable marketing scams in an industry that's been responsible for far too many of them over the years.

Any new ship model that references the Battle of Sluys is a welcome addition, even if its a repackaged Hanseatic League cog.

Think about it - a major naval battle of the Hundred Years' War, twenty thousand dead and fought with near hand to hand combat from ship to ship. It doesnt get any tougher than that, or support Tuchmann's point about 14th century politics more elequently.

The cog itself appears to have a painted sail in the style of a model reconstruction in the London Science Museum, so its clear they are doing some homework, and in respectable institutions. The cog type is also of the period, and honestly, the more versions of the cog, the better.

Who knows what the fictitious Archeron will be made from, but given its alternate American/French "history" a rehashed Connie would be poetic justice. And in either account, its a new plastic sailing ship, at a time when the costs of tooling or retooling molds for such ships are extremely prohibitive, a welcome addition. Perhaps success here can lead to a entirely new Surprise model.

Regarding Revell's so-called Beagle, there is a surprising (oh, sorry) advantage to the kit - it provides an 18th century merchantman hull without the signature side windows that scream "Bounty." I think the masts and the deck furniture are shared with Bounty, so anyone willing to build a new deck can get a generic merchant ship as a result, which is pretty nice.

(By the way, I was onboard Surprise twice in the past few weeks, in San Pedro and then again in San Diego. She sailed on her own both legs, and her crew calculated extra time for the return voyage to get a few hours' pure sailing time.)

Jim

Interesting....The only representation of the "Acheron" I can find on that site is a drawing, which shows what does look like an American frigate - flying what appears to be the ensign of Imperial Russia.  It doesn't have enough gunports to be the Constitution, and it has a single dolphin striker (unlike the double one in the old Revell kit).  But I suspect Jake's right:  if it isn't a reissue of that particular kit it's probably a reissue of something else.  I'm not getting my hopes up.

Those determined to look at the issue optimistically can, I suppose, cite "historical" precedent.  We're told in the movie that the "Acheron" was built in Boston, and that she was a big frigate.  (I really liked the scene in which the sailor claimed to have built a plank-on-frame model of her, with "accurate frames," entirely on the basis of his memory of having seen the real ship under construction.  And what fun it was to watch Russell Crowe casually toss said model across his cabin!)  In the O'Brian novel, the ship the Surprise is chasing is an American frigate; the story is clearly based on the cruise of the U.S.S. Essex (though by the time the Hollywood scriptwriters got done the connection was hard to detect).  We probably ought to consider the possibility that the person responsible for Zvezda's advertising copy literally didn't know that the story in the movie was fiction.  (I have no idea what the Russian public schools teach about the Napoleonic War.  Most of the college students I teach don't know those conflicts took place.)

If Zvezda starts reissuing old Revell sailing ships, I won't complain (as long as it avoids the notorious "Beagle," "Stag Hound," and "Seeadler," which we've surely plastered with sufficient invective in this Forum already).  A Zvezda-boxed Morgan, Flying Cloud, Golden Hind,  Mayflower, Batavia, or America wouldn't bother me in the least.  At least the company is showing some interest in plastic sailing ships - as no other manufacturer is at the moment.

Maybe this "Acheron" will turn out to be a decent representation of...well, something.  (If it turns out to be a brand new, scale reproduction of the frigate Essex, I'll drop my teeth.)  But I'm not optimistic. 

RedCorvette wrote:

I love the description of the "Acheron" on the Zvezda web site that recounts the plot of the movie like it was historical fact.  I guess that probably sounds better to the marketing guys than describing it as "a model of a fictional computer-generated ship from a movie that was supposed to be French but was really American" Mark

What is it about ship kit manufacturers that cynically recycle old kits as something else, they surely can't seriously believe that most of the now adult market for these kits, even on a superficial level can't see thro' their pathetic marketing hype. 

Still this aspect of the hobby is so starved of anything new I suppose they think ship modellers will accept whatever they dish up.

Here you go:

http://www.zvezda.org.ru/?lng=eng

Direct link to:

«Acheron»: http://www.zvezda.org.ru/?lng=eng&nav=10&nov=3&set=9034

«English Medieval Ship»: http://www.zvezda.org.ru/?lng=eng&nav=10&nov=3&set=9038

Best regards,

Chris

Rod, can you post the link to their site?  I'm having a bit of trouble finding it.

 

Also, would aby body have a extra Adm. Chang Chinese warship they want to part with, I'd like to buy one for my collection.

Thanks

Jake 

I suspected as much, oh well one can always dream?

Jake

I love the description of the "Acheron" on the Zvezda web site that recounts the plot of the movie like it was historical fact.  I guess that probably sounds better to the marketing guys than describing it as "a model of a fictional computer-generated ship from a movie that was supposed to be French but was really American"

Mark 

Jake

   I went to Zvezda site.The Thomas is a varation of their Hansa Cog. they add a couple of different parts to change it a bit. They did that with their Greek Triera and ended up doing four ship kits Roman warship,Roman emperor,and Carthagenian warship.All the same hull but with a some little bit different masts and deck fittings. The drawing of the Acheron looks like its the old Revell 1/196 USS Constitution Model. Zvezda has re-poped a few of the old Revell molds under different names.I thing their getting the molds from Revell-Germany.I wished they were doing new it would be nice.

Rod

i'm guessing that it's supposed to be the other ship in master and commander. now if they'd only do a plastic HMS surprise.....