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Hi everybody,
your Hamilkar Barkas here,
I shortly want to talk about my newest project.
I have here an old Roman trireme from Zvezda,
disassembled and now a "waterline" model,
because i want to build a sea battle diorama.
I will add a Carthaginian trireme to the diorama and of course many figures,
and i will show you how to make some water effects and so on.
As i said in the beginning this is an old model,
i built it several years ago.
At first i wanted to buy a new kit, but that would have been really expensive.
I think with this one i can still do something good.
I removed the oars,
because i want to show them in inserted position.
Otherwise the boarding bridge would be to short,
and it was common to insert the oars in the last phase of a ramming manoeuvre,
to prevent damage on the oars.
Otherwise the ship would be a sitting duck.
The main mast is also missing,
because it was removed before the battle and stored on shore.
The main mast hightens the balance point,
which is bad if the ship gets a hit from the side.
The ship would capsize easily.
In battle they only used oars to manoeuvre the ship,
to gain momentum for ramming manoeuvres.
This kit from Zvezda includes this boarding bridge,
the so called "corvus" (crow).
The main tactic of the Romans was not the ramming manoeuvre,
but boarding enemy ships,
to have the advantage of their superior land troops.
The layout of the diorama will be like this, the Carthaginian ship in front,
and the bolt, or lets say the beak of the crow, will stick in the deck,
and the legionaries will cross the bridge and board the ship.
This boarding bridge was typical for Roman ships,
but it was only used in the First Punic War.
We never hear of it again in later sources for an unknown reason.
Some assume this has something to do with a big catastrophe.
There was a strong tempest in the First Punic War,
and the successful Roman fleet got destroyed by this tempest.
The reason was the boarding bridge,
which made the ships even more top-heavy,
so they capsized all to easily.
It was the worst defeat of the Roman Army ever.
We always hear about Cannae or the Teutoburg Forrest in this context.
In this accident more than 100.000 people died in the sea.
Now some words about the ancient ship types in general.
Generally there are 3 different types of war ships,
the Bireme, the Trireme and the Quinquereme.
Usually people assume the Bireme had two rows of oars,
the Trireme had three rows of oars,
and the Quinquereme had five rows of oars.
Newer researches and the ancient sources show a different solution.
Polybios (or some other ancient historian),
wrote, that a Quinquereme has fewer oars than a Trireme.
Thats impossible, because a Quinquereme has more rowing decks,
so she has to be a lot shorter, but still higher than a Trireme.
That would be weird.
Probably these names refer to the number of men operating one oar,
which gets weird again if we assume five men operate one oar on a Quinquereme.
The midmost men would have to stand up every time they stroke,
and the guys outmost would have nothing to do,
because the move of the oar is little.
This theory leads to nothing.
Probably the Quinquereme had three decks (like the Trireme),
two men on every oar in the first row,
two men on every oar in the second row,
and one man on every oar in the third row.
At least this makes technically sense.
We know just few things about ancient ships,
despite some archaeological discoveries.
Its hard to find some evidence in ancient sources,
how these things really worked.
Another possibility is a "explosion of terms".
We all know this from cleaning agents.
In the beginning we have cleaning agent "XY",
then we have cleaning agent "XY 2 in 1",
and later we have cleaning agent "XY 5 in 1",
but in the end it is still more or less the same cleaning agent.
One thing i hear again and again about these so called "galleys",
is the statement: They were rowed by slaves and criminals to punish them.
Thats nonsense, you can´t operate a ship with a bunch of famished slaves.
The oarsmen were highly trained professionals, well paid.
Usually they were from Greece or other maritime nations, Illyrians for example.
They were hired because they had the reputation to be the best for this job.
Here a quick view on the Carthaginian Trireme.
Its basically the same kit like the Roman Trireme,
there are only a few different parts on a extra spure.
In my opinion it is a good kit.
It is a pity it is out of production,
it is hard to get one of these kits on ebay.
These kits cost about 40€, but i think it pays off.
Looks simply great.
For the crew i will use these kits,
Roman republican infantry from Zvezda,
i have two of them, you never know!
Fantastic figures.
Roman infantry from Italeri.
They are a bit to late (they are fine for era of Caesar),
but they are useful for conversions.
It is easy to convert them into Triarii with a bit of aluminium foil and instant glue.
Roman cavalry from Italeri,
I don´t need the horses, there are 2 extra infantry figures included,
which are nice for conversions, too.
Of course some Carthaginians from Zvezda,
superb figures, i will show them quickly.
I will need some more Carthaginians, maybe i will get the same set again,
or i buy some figures from Hät.
Three sprues of infantry,
and one sprue with officers.
Maybe you can see it.
Great poses.
It will be a bit exhausting to paint them all,
but i will get it done.
I will make a building review of the Carthaginian Trireme later,
i don´t want to show you techniques on this one here,
because it is only an old exploited model.
I want to focus on the new Trireme and the water effects.
Maybe i will show something about figures,
but only if i feel like doing it.
Meanwhile i wish you happy modelling.
I´m looking forward to see your models!