by Peter Fulgoney
1/700 Volya, Black Sea dreadnought (Combrig)
Here’s another interesting subject from Combrig, a Black Sea dreadnought named Volya, by the Soviet State of 1915. This ship, of the Imperatricia Maria class, was laid down during the Tsarist regime in response to the Turkish deployment. The original name Imerator Alexandr 3 was changed as were other ships of the Russian fleet to reflect the new order. Volya, “freedom” was the adopted name for this majestic and powerful looking battleship.
The ship, had a short but interesting history, being taken over by the Soviets, then being captured by the Germans at Sevastopol, and subsequently flying the White Ensign, under the British victors. Eventually she was taken to Tunis by the French, and was broken up.
The build of this kit may be one of the “easier” resin models to complete, as there are a number of references available including the two books available from WEM, one of these is “Gangut” but shows some good close ups which the Imperatricia Maria book does not. Also why not look at Jim Bauman’s build of this ship for otherwise indiscernible detail.
I’m still in “training mode” as to how rig should look. On this build it’s WEM lycra which gives a nice thin line but needs sorting out at the ends because of the inherent fraying problems. Some of the other rig is 0.1 wire where I can’t hide the end of the line. The torpedo net is from the haberdashers as with the ends which is fine net curtain, if you look at contemporary pictures, the nets don’t appear to be stowed very tightly. I’ve also used invisible thread, again from the haberdashers, for line which doesn’t need to be tight, into the torpedo net booms.
The rust, a bit overdone, is by MIG as is the smoke effect. The painting is also not straight forward as I originally coloured the hull black, and the funnels yellow, the lighter grey overcoat which I decided to replace these with gave the kit, fortuitously, more realism. See also Jim Baumann’s tips for painting white, and dark hulled ships, it works!
