The 1/600 naval shipyards continue to launch new hulls to feed our miniature navy department's hunger for more vessels! The fall season sees things popping up at several manufacturers. Bay Area Yards continues to grow their line, while changes are underway at Thoroughbred. Peter Pig remains dormant, though.

Bay Area Yards

On the West Coast, the Californian company Bay Area Yards (BAY) has added USS Pawnee to their line. This is a great addition as Pawnee served almost continuously throughout the war, first on the Potomac, then later with the Atlantic Blockade Squadron. I've had a chance to acquire several of the more recent BAY castings -- USS Conemaugh and CSS Mississippi. This Mississippi is the casemate ironclad built by the brothers Tift at New Orleans. Though no image survives of her appearance, written records indicate that she was similar to CSS Atlanta in shape, but much larger and with tandem stacks. The BAY casting certainly resembles nothing so much as a scaled up Atlanta with tandem stacks. The casting is a bit plain with no gun ports or gun port shutters provided with the kit.

USS Conemaugh is another in the series of pre-war wooden hulled double ender gunboats common to the United States Navy in the antebellum period. Typical of the type, the Conemaugh casting provides a welcome variety to the fleets of Sassacus and John Paul Jones class double-enders many players field. Keep in mind that it's a one-piece resin hull and you need to provide everything from the stack to any boats and deck guns you need modeled.

Thoroughbred Miniatures

Unfortunately, ships boats and deck guns are going to become somewhat of a scare commodity. Thoroughbred Miniatures, long the producer of an assortment of fine quality deck guns, fortress guns, and ships boats, recently dropped these items from their product mix. In addition, the Thoroughbred mortar raft and mortar schooner combo kit will no longer be available. Deck and fortress guns will still be provided with the various Thoroughbred kits, just not as separate items.

According to Toby Barrett, owner of Thoroughbred Miniatures, the deck guns suffered from "poor sales, (and) they take time and effort away from the other complete kits." On a positive note, the ships boats and mortar craft will be returning at some point in the future, though there is no timetable for their return. Sadly for this gamer, Thoroughbred was my primary source of deck guns for my scratch building projects, as well as filling the decks of my Bay Area Yards castings.

A new item reported by an attendee at this year's Historicon, but I've yet to see, is a new shore fortification from Thoroughbred: TS-70 a two-gun Redan. This fortification is an earthen battery with two guns that both fire forward and one bears to right and left respectively. The battery sits atop a mound of earth with a low ditch running in front of the position. I'm eager to acquire this kit, as new shore batteries add to the variety and visual appeal of our games.

Peter Pig

The changes at Thoroughbred leave gamers with one supplier for 1/600th scale deck guns and mortar schooners (but not mortar rafts) - Peter Pig. Peter Pig's deck guns have the advantage of having crew cast to them, but the detail is not as crisp as the Thoroughbred guns. The PP ships boats likewise have the plus of having the davits attached to the boat, but detail is lacking. Otherwise, the Peter Pig line has been dormant for about the past year with no new ships or castings.

In other news, I conducted a small campaign of naval warfare on the upper Mississippi River. Based on the Anaconda campaign game, I posted after action reports on the Anaconda web site. (http://www.hometown.aol.com/garbee/acwnaval/index.html).