Painting Napoleonic Ships
By Ray Trochim

Mounting - Create Waves
Painting Fighting Top Armings
The flags
Painting Masts
Painting National Ship Colors
Painting Bulwarks and Guns
Rigging
Santissima Trinidad
Using magnetics
A Book Note: An excellent book, _Navies of the Napoleonic Wars_ (or something like that), by Otto von Pivka, which has *every* major ship of *every* power, when they were built, what their specs were, and what happened to them. But it does not say one word about their appearance!
Essentially, privateers and some frigate captains painted their ships any way they wanted, either out of necessity or for deception. Ships could occasionally be all white, all yellow, all red, all black, all slate gray-blue, and whalers and merchants were usually under no restrictions.
During the periods of the American and French Revolutions, ship color schemes were not very well defined. By the Napoleonic period, a set of national patterns had emerged. The two key elements were the color of the ship's hull, and the color of the stripe that ran across the gun ports.

National Ship Colors

Nation       Hull    Stripe            Nation     Hull    Stripe
Britain       black   yellow            Holland    black   orange
French        black   white             Spain      black*  red
U. S. A.      black   white or red      Russia     green   white
Denmark       red     blue              Ottoman    ochre   black
Denmark       black   red
There will always be exceptions to the rule. French ships for example wouldn't all have white stripes. You can paint a few with red, light blue, mid blue stripes. You can even consider a buff/pink color. A notable exception for the Spanish was the Santissima Trinidad, painted red. Other sources suggest that the Spanish had white stripes, and that the S. Trinidad had red stripes. Another source suggests that the S. Trinidad was actually white, with red stripes! The Santa Anna was all black. A contemporary described the light British yellow as "baby puke yellow." This color was used more and more on ships of the Royal Navy when it became a standard.
The stripes with black gun ports seems to have been referred to as the "Nelson checker" and became more common as he rose to prominence. Prior to that, stripes were solid, or absent, or did not necessarily run along the lines of the gun ports. Hulls were often natural wood, but appeared black because of the tar.
While you are safe using natural wood colors when painting the rest of the ship, the following information offers some alternatives, if you want to be bold. This information comes from an article in the January 1990 issue of Miniature Wargames.

Bulwarks and Guns 

                           BRITAIN                 OTHER NATIONS
Inside Bulwarks         red or ochre            red, yellow,green,blue, black, or brown
Gun Carriage            red, yellow, wood       ditto, and green
                                ochre
Outer Bulwarks         dark blue, dark grey    ditto, and red or brown

Fighting Top Armings 

                            FRANCE                  SPAIN
Fighting Top Armings    blue, red               green and white
                        white-and-blue

Masts

                             BRITAIN                 FRANCE, USA
Masts                         ochre                   white
Mast Bands                    black

Again, don't take this information too seriously. Different shades of natural wood colors will probably do just fine.

Rigging


Now comes the hard part. First of all, do not attempt to copy the running rigging. It is too difficult. Just do the standing rigging. Second, use only black thread. While the model instructions may suggest that you can use different colors, they won't look right. Besides copying the historical rigging, you have to make sure that the model's masts are supported. Adjust or add to the historical rigging to make sure that each mast is pulled both forward and backward.
When you run the rigging through the sails, don't just glue the thread to a notch you made in the masts---it will pop out later. Wrap the thread at least once around each point where it needs to be glued. To keep the thread from going slack, alternate the direction you rig the ship. Do the first line from front to back, the second from back to front, and so on, alternating with each thread.
Overall, rigging is more of a personal thing. You can eat up a whole day installing rigging on your 1/1200 scale ship and have it look bad. Just the right amount in the proper places can get a good look. The ratlines/ shrouds are the trickiest to get right.
Don't waste your time trying to drill many tiny holes and running your own ratlines/shrouds, one line at a time. Instead, for each shroud section, use mesh-like black cloth or screen (like very thin window screening). Finding the proper screening can be hard. Try finding brass small wire screening or go to the fabric store and look into mesh like materials. I hear you can buy special ratlines form a company in England, but you will have to locate where. I have tried drilling holes and running the thread through the holes and if done right, can look quite good, but it can be very hard and time consuming for most. Also, instead of trying to drill those wholes, try putting little notches in the runner boards and attaching the lines at that point. Looks a bit better I think and a LOT easier then drilling those holes.
Finally, small ship models leave out the "dolphin sticker" and spar on the bowspirit. You have to add this yourself for a completely accurate model.
Mounting and Colors
Make sure that you mount all of your ships on stands that project past the ends of the model, to protect the model from damage. Cut stands in sizes that are multiples of half an inch.

There are various putty and gel compounds you can use to create waves, but a very nice solution involves the use of lighting fixture panels. Buy a clear plastic lighting fixture panel with the irregular pattern called "Crushed Ice." If you do not want to buy a 3' by 4' section at the hardware store, D&J Hobbies has this same type of plastic cut down into smaller pieces. Paint the smooth side of the plastic with your favorite sea color. Then dry brush the very tops of the rough side with off-white. Mount the ship on the rough side. The result is a most marvelous imitation of the ocean.

Most of the metal ship models do not come with a flagstaff for the national ensign. Instead, you have to glue your flags to the rigging, or make your own flagstaff. Signal flags may stay on the rigging fairly well, but gluing a large national ensign to a piece of thread can be very difficult and the flag may come off later. Instead, get a tiny drill bit and drill a wire-size hole at an angle in the rear of the quarterdeck. Mount your flag to a bit of wire and place it into the hole.

If you don't glue the wire in place, you have an opportunity to avoid locking in the nationality of your ship. Drill the hole deep enough to hold the wire flagstaff up without glue. Then you can make a series of flags of different nationalities, inserting whichever flag you need for a particular battle. This will give you tremendous flexibility to play a variety of scenarios with just a few ships. This will also allow your French ships to switch from the Bourbon white ensign to the Revolutionary Tricolor, depending on what year it is. (Some people assert that the frequency with which the royalist French surrendered caused the white flag to become associated with surrender.)

The flags

Gamers/modellers will probably want to put some flags on your ship models. Flags on ships not only look good, but identify the nationality for gaming purposes (from a distance). Flags are best made out of paper and can be painted or inked in the appropriate colors. I've seen other materials used like metal foils but I find that paper is best to work with.
The use of flags by different countries and commanders varied considerably. Ships usually went into action festooned with flags flying from every mast, primarily to avoid costly mistakes in the heavy smoke of a fleet action. The ensign which flew from the spanker gaff was quite large (in model 1/2400 scale 1/4" x 3/16" would not be too big). The commission pennant which (in model 1/2400 scale it would measure about 3/4" long and narrow) was flown from the main peak. The jack or some personal flag was flown from the fore peak. Older ships had a jackstaff halfway out on the bowspite and this flew the national jack.

I will now try to do my best to describe the flags. Two note though, the French tricolor was often used in the canton on a white field. Other countries have been known to do this as well in different forms. Pennants of all countries where fork tailed. The fork tails on the pennants were prodominate. 

France:
Pre 1790 flags were all white (ensign, pennant, and jack). Post 1790
flags were the standard tricolor (ensign, pennant, and jack), but
sometimes the ensign would have the tricolor in the canton on a white
field. The tricolor would be Blue, White and Red.

   --  Canton
  /              B  W  R
________        _________  
||||    |       |  |  |  |
----    |       |  |  |  |
________|       |__|__|__|

Holland:
The ensign, pennant, and jack had Red, White and blue equal size bars
running along the flag. Top bar was red, middle was white and the bottom
blue.

Spain:
Like Holland, Spains flags are in three horizantal bars, Red, Yellow and
Red from top to bottom.

Denmark:
The ensign, pennant, and jack were red with a white cross.
Like the pennants, the ensigh and jack had fork/swallow tails. 

-------
|     /   Swallow tail
|     \
-------

Sweden:
The ensign, pennant, and jack were blue with a yollew cross.
The ensign, pennant, and jack were forked tailed but with three tails
instead of two. The center tail was as wide as the yellow stripe of the
cross.

Turkey:
The ensign, pennant, and jack were all red. The ensign had a star and
cresent moon in the upper conner at the staff.

Russia:
the ensign and jack were white with a blue 'X' on it. The pennant was a
small square like the ensign and a long white runner.

------------------------------------
|\/|                              /
|/\|                              \
------------------------------------

United States:
1812 - ensign was the standard stars and bars with the proper number of
stars. The pennant and a blue field with stars and a red and white
runner.
------------------------------------
|*****|   stripes                 /
|*****|                           \
------------------------------------
The jacks were either all blue square flags with stars or blue
forked/swallow tailed flags with a circle of stars in center. The
swallow tailed jack is also know as the commanders pennant.

Britian:
The British system was somewhat complex. The field of the ensign and the
pennant was in the squadron color of the admiral commanding - red,
white, or blue. Unattached ships flew the red ensigh and mixed pennant.
The Union jack was carried at the forepeak by all but flagships.
Flagships flew the admiral's flag at the fore. Admiral - white with red
cross (like today), vice admiral - blue, and rear admiral - red 
(Nelson was Vice-Admire of the white). Commadores flew the short swallow 
tailed flag in the pennant column.
                                          White Admiral 
------------------------------------     __________      1)Union Jack
|__|__|   Squadron color          /      | 1 |  3 |      2)red cross
|  |  |                           \      |--------|<-2   3)white field
------------------------------------     |___|____|

This should get you started, but gamers/modellers will want to look into
it a bit more for more detail.

Using magnetics

If you are planning to put magnetic material on the bottom of your ship stand and place it in a box lined with metal (or vice versa), magnetic force may become a problem. A 1/1200 ship-of-the-line typically has a 1" x 3" stand. It can be difficult to pry a 3-square-inch magnetic stand loose from its box without damaging the ship. Consider putting the material just on the corners of the stand.

I hope this article helps you eager midshipmen out there to step up and become captains and commanders. The nice thing about Napoleonic naval wargaming is that you can start playing with just one ship. Try one ship from each manufacturer and examine its quality and ease of assembly before you go out and buy a whole squadron. See you on the high seas.

Special thanks to Ray Trochim for providing this information!


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