River Gunboats

[eswube]

Cool.

[Novice]

That second attempt look really nice, and hopefully you'll do more Real Life ships.
Thank you for the ships and info and of course the drawing.

[reytuerto]

Thank you, guys! Your feedback is very important for improving the drawings! Thanks!

[reytuerto]

Good evening:

This is a british made peruvian river gunboat, America, depicted as she looks in 1910.

and also as she looks in the late 1790s:

with the armament replaced by single tube Bofors L/60, and twin Oerlikons. As every vessel of the Peruvian Navy in the Amazon basin, it had a very long life, almost all the XX century.
Credits: I tried to mimic the appearance of the fantastic Darth Panda´s riverine fleet, unfortunately America was very spartan in aerials and wires, even in the 1970s. My father remembered the ship with a bell over the bridge, but when I visit the ship in 1978 the bell was absent. Cheers.

[eswube]

Nice additions. Good work with these Peruvian Amazon gunboats. Quite a number of interesting yet relatively little-known vessels served (and still serves) in that capacity.

[heuhen]

excelent work

[adenandy]

EXCELLENT work Reytuerto old chap

I can only echo Eswube's words.... Jolly Well Done sir.

[Hood]

Nice work.
Its amazing how long some of the Amazon river boats have lasted.

[heuhen]

it's amazing,
even here in Norway we can find old steamboats that have been rebuild in to a Diesel powered fishing boats that over 100 years old boats

[reytuerto]

Thank to all you, guys! Your imput and feedback is as important as the vessels depicted here!
Yes, some vessels are astonishing old and still in service. I visited Puno at the Lake Titicaca in the early 90s and there was the Yapura, a steamer converted to diesel, in active service. It was built by the Thames Iron Works, disensambled and shiped to Peru, then traveled in mules across the highlands until the Titicaca basin, and finally ensembled once again and launched in Puno in 1873 ! Now it is a hospital ship and renamed Puno (as its homeport). It had a sister ship, Yavari, which is afloat, but moored at the harbour.

Now, the last of the series (unfortunatelly, no more riverine gunboats until the first trinational amazon patrol gunboat), BAP Castilla.


It is the sister ship of Clavero, head of a class of two. It had a shallow draught of only 2 ft. and a deep draught of almost 1 mt. She is armed with 5 locally developed turrets, each one armed with a MaDeuce and a 40 mm grenade launcher from CIS. She is armoured (but I don´t know if it is armoured with steel or kevlar) and the troopers afloat can fire from behind cover (5 gun ports per side). Originally she was going to be painted with a very striking cammo, but for avoiding confusion (by the FARC gang) with the dark green columbian vessels, they stayed with the standard gray. Cheers!

PS1: I read about the satellite communications for its instalation in 2016, but until now, I have not seen a photo form the vessel with the caracteristic dome.
PS2: It was a pity, but the gunboat was designed with tunneled screws and rudder, instead of waterjets.