"Firing into the Brown" #82 - Forsyth, the dark side of the shed(s) and stuff...

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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It would ill behove me not to mention the recent passing (reported this week) of that monumental story teller Frederick Forsyth..

Steve the Wargamer has been reading Forsyth repeatedly (since all books should be considered as friends and revisited frequently, and preferably also taken to the pub 😏) since his early years and for the huge amount of enjoyment Mr Forsyth has given me I'd just like to say "thank you"..

The 'triumvirate' of Dogs of War, Odessa File but most of all Day of the Jackal are for me in the top 10 thrillers of all time, Jackal would be in my top 3, and his other later books were no slouches either (Fourth Protocol  especially).. with those three books, written in the early 70's, he undoubtedly influenced generations of future authors to adopt that same procedural, detail driven genre of  thriller..  

I'll be raising a glass to him later..  thanks, sir.

Further reading:

• Frederick Forsyth, Day of the Jackal author and former MI6 agent, dies aged 86 | Frederick Forsyth | The Guardian
• Frederick Forsyth (Fantastic Fiction book list)

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So you may remember a while back I discovered a delightful rabbit hole (yeah, yet another!😏) to dive down while I was doing the mini project on the "Hilsea Lines". 

I'd read about how they'd dammed and dredged Portsea Creek (which is the body of water - still there - that makes Portsmouth an island) at both ends, in order to maintain enough water level at low tide for the operation of gunboats as part of the overall defence strategy. The rabbit hole was that the Navy had then needed a maintenance facility for the large numbers of gunboats deployed at that time [clicky] - not just for those used in the defence of the Lines, but also the large numbers of other gunboats used at the time (and the Navy had over a 100 of them at one time).

I'd managed to get some photos of these sheds (which still exist) from across the harbour, but one of my disappointments was that I had not been able to get up close, because they were on secure property (it's a Joint Services Sailing Centre I think).

Well ... disappointed I am no longer (as Yoda would say), as when I was walking to the pub following a visit to the Submarine Museum in Gosport last weekend I happened to notice that the facility seemed to be open (I only noticed because a lady had just walked out with her dog! 😏) and the security guys hut was shut and empty..

Not wanting to waste the opportunity I walked through, past the old perimeter defence walls and there were the sheds - behind barbed wire so I didn't get to do a close up exploration - but blimey they are big. Remember this is not all of them, originally there would have been enough capacity to maintain 50 gunboats at a time if required (at one per shed!)..

I wonder if this office type building following is original? During the war this was HMS Hornet (an MTB/MGB base for the Royal Navy with boats operating in the Channel) and I wonder if the Admiralty made use of the space?

Note the rails that are still in place...

Those complex roof supports are amazing..  like an iron spiders web...

3 pairs of rails per shed... 🤔

Regrettably the mechanism for pulling the gunboats from the water and then shifting them sideways one way or the other to go into the sheds is long gone

Fantastic to finally get up close to see them almost in the flesh...

Lots more fascinating meat on the bones in this document [clicky] and it confirms my guess about that office building and war time use..

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Firing into the Brown" #49 - Gunboat sheds, Yapton, beer and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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Was out for a cycle the other day and thought it was way over time for me to see if I could get a better picture of the remains of the gun boat sheds that I touched on a few posts ago [clicky]

As a reminder, this was how it was pictured at the time

Patent Heaving-Up Slips' at Haslar Gunboat Yard (from Mechanics' Magazine, 3 January, 1857)

...and here is how it looks now from the closest I could get to them*..  the tower in background is part of the old Haslar Hospital (now "luxury retirement living" 😏)

..the engine room chimney is still intact, as are ten of the original canopied roofs..

*Still MOD property unfortunately, though now belonging to a Services sailing club for on shore boat storage.. either way access is monitored/policed, but the following is from English Heritage and shows their current condition..  amazing..

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 Yet again Yapton Beer Festival has come and gone in a delightful slightly hazy, bucolic, relaxing, errr..  blur...  😏

Not so good on the weather front this year, but good enough to sit outside once a brief shower passed though, and a prime position to watch the Goodwood Spitfire do a low roll over the village hall where the festival was being held..  magic.. 

Brewery (click for more info)	Beer	ABV	Notes (from brewery website)	What I can remember...
Darkland Indie Brew Co	Boardwalk Bliss	4.4%	Combines new hops with classic core varieties creating truly exceptional tropical flavour notes of passionfruit, mango, papaya, lemongrass and melon. Triple Dry Hopping with Citra, Mosaic and Galaxy to further enhance the aromas and flavours. Creating a well balanced ale akin to sliding into a hammock between two palm trees, whilst keeping things soft and light to the palate	👎👎Hideous..  either sour or off..  this one went to irrigate the grass outside..
Arundel	Smash	4.5%	Single hop (Mosaic) and single malt (Chevalier), lovely easy drinking pale ale	👍Had tried this a few weeks before at one of my local pubs so it was a known quantity (unlike most of the ales at the festival it has to be said) - this one has the unique privilege of being the only beer made by this brewery that I like..  and I've tried most of them!
Bristol Beer Factory	Powerslide	4.4%	Bringing the Aussie energy Vic Secret [a hop variety apparently 😏] kicks off with power levels of tropical and pineapple goodness, twisted to amplify the hop power with both T90 and Spectrum. Motueka follows up with fresh citrus depth	👍BBF are safe hands when it comes to breweries in my opinion, so I may not have heard or seen of the beer before but knew it was going to be OK, and so it was..
Goldmark	Citra Smash	4.4%	Single hop and single malt pale ale classic, generously dry hopped with Yakima Valley Citra hops	👍Another safe brewery - pleasant beer, not outstanding..
Kelburn	Jaguar	4.5%	A golden, full bodied ale with undertones of grapefruit and a long lasting citrus, hoppy aftertaste. This beer has bite!	👍Nice beer, one of the better one's, but no, no bite..😏
Magic Dragon	Green One	4.2%	A refreshing Citra hopped IPA with crisp, grapefruit, lemon notes and a slight citrus aroma	👍I drank it but can't remember anything standout or unusual about this brew, other than that like the others it was nice..  😀
Urban Island	Quiver	4.5%	Session cask brewed with Mosaic, Cashmere & Citra hops, pale ale malt & oats	👍One of my local breweries and I have actually been to it for a beer, but again not what I would call a standout brewery - they make OK beers though and despite the fact that this was a hazy style beer it was OK..
Kirkstall	Dissolution	5%	Brewed in memory of the dissolution of Kirkstall Abbey by Henry Vlll, in 1539 AD, and the disbanding of the Abbey’s Cistercian order. This is a classic India Pale Ale, with a resolute hoppy kick and lasting citrus finish	👍Going stronger by this stage of the festival as I was looking for distinct flavour and extra ABV usually helps..
Downlands	Endless Circles	5.5%	After many cycles of discussion we settled on Mosaic, Centennial and Citra for the hop build	👍👍All the thumbs up beers were above average but not outstanding, this was slightly more above average than them, so if there was one - this is my best beer of the festival

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Firing into the Brown" #38 - Gunboats, drubbings, girders and stuff..

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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The girder railway bridge construction has been completed. Just the one span as previously mentioned [clicky] and I also cut down the brick bridge supports significantly as this will be wargame terrain rather than model railway terrain between two fixed, raised, surfaces. 

To help with this usage I also built two ramps, one for each end of the bridge, these were made with foam board, covered with filler, and then with some embossed plastic sheet cut to size for the 'road' surface..  the plastic came from the same stash as the bridge and is printed with a planking type effect. I also used the same to surface the bridge..

As per the pictures they've had a spray coat of an epoxy grey primer, the next step is some paint, but that should be fairly quick and easy as I envision most of it being inks and washes..  bear with..

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The dams (last post) may have just been a brief rabbit hole, but it did lead to another...  got to love local history..  well at least the local history round where I live, which, as a military history fan and wargamer is chock full of places to look at.. 😁

Anyway..  this rabbit hole is to do with gunboats!

I wanted to find out a little more about what types of gunboats the Navy would have envisioned using in the Creek as part of the defence of the Hilsea Lines..  with the best will in the world, the Creek is not wide so any ship used would necessarily be small. Try as I might I haven't been able to find any specific references to which ships would have been used, but based on the location, the depth of water, the lack of space to manoeuvre, and more specifically the period of time the Lines were active, I am drawn to the conclusion that the boats used would have almost certainly been of the classic "flat iron" type [clicky] designed by Rendell (of Sir W G Armstrong & Company) and of which the Royal Navy "Ant class" and "Staunch class" are probably the perfect examples..

'Ant class' plans showing the RML 10-inch 18-ton gun in the bow behind armour plates that could be dropped when firing

HMS Staunch pictured in 1868 - good view of those hinged armour plated 'shields' that provided protection to the gun crew - better still the two crew give you an idea how small these beasts were.. 

All these Royal Navy "flat irons" would have been armed with rifled muzzle loaders, the Ant class boats had 10" [clicky], the Staunch class had 9" [clicky] - the following are (very good!) models but gives an idea of the relative sizes.. the one in the foreground is an Ant Class, with Staunch Class behind

Pictures and models courtesy of this amazing website - those are paper models!! Rendel Gunboats – Paper Shipwright

Bottom line - cheap as chips and nothing more than a floating gun platform, they were designed to float in a puddle so they can get close in shore, and were steam powered - in the case of these two classes they each had two 2-cylinder horizontal single-expansion steam engines powering twin screws, giving 7.5 to 8.5 kn. No masts or rigging meant the crews could be smaller - Ant Class had a complement of 30. In the second half of the 19th Century, the Royal Navy would have had over a 100 gunboats*, but they seem to have been a fairly short technological innovation as there were undoubtedly also downsides (could only work well inshore in sheltered water, they were slow, they made good targets, and had a relative lack of manoeuvrability). Their golden age would have been the 30 or 40 years from 1850 onwards, but they continued to be used in other functions once their primary purpose was no longer required..

The 250-ton/85-foot flat-iron 'Ant-class' gunboat, HMS Kite. Commissioned in 1871 and eventually sold out of the Navy in 1920, but pictured here serving just off the Belgian Coast in 1914 after she had been rearmed with 6 inch and 4.7 inch guns  

Fantastic rabbit hole to dive down - a very evocative design, and class, of ship...

* ...and thereby hangs another rabbit hole - before reading up on "flat irons", I had no idea of the (actual) existence of the 'Haslar Gunboat Yard' in Gosport! This comprised gunboat sheds and maintenance workshops, and was designed in 1856 by William Scamp of the Admiralty Works Department for the housing and repair of British gunboats, and with a design capacity to hold approx. 50 of these boats at a time! 

But thereby hangs another tale, and another rabbit hole, for another day..   and that's more than enough "anothers"

Patent Heaving-Up Slips' at Haslar Gunboat Yard (from Mechanics' Magazine, 3 January, 1857)

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 Safe to say I was soundly, and comprehensively, drubbed...  😂  AI is now 5 to 3 up...

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...