Terrain Items - A Summer Kitchen & Dairy

From Pensylvania Historical & Museum Commission: "The summer kitchen is a rectangular, one-to-two-story, usually gable-roofed structure that is closely related to the main house. Sometimes it is a wing, but usually it is semi-detached or completely detached. As its name implies, the summer kitchen housed cooking facilities for the hot, heavy processing work of the high season. Sometimes, farm families also ate their warm weather meals in the summer kitchen. Its characteristic features include: a rectangular footprint, about 150-250 square feet; chimney or stovepipe; windows in both the gable ends and eaves sides; human doors in either the gable end or the eaves side; and a relatively high degree of finish for an outbuilding. Sometimes a built-in interior set-kettle occupies one end of the structure. Frame is the most common material, but summer kitchens are also built with brick, log, and stone. In some cases, a cupola with dinner bell adorns the roof ridge." (http://www.phmc.state.pa.us/portal/communities/agriculture/field-guide/summer-kitchen.html)

Colonial Williamsburg notes that the earlier homes featured basement kitchens. But this changed around 1720. "And then something changed. Hugh Jones, a William and Mary mathematics teacher, is an early witness to the altered state of kitchens. Surveying the colony in 1724 in his Present State of Virginia, Jones says that common planters often keep their "kitchen apart from the dwelling house, because of the smell of victuals, offensive in hot weather." He doesn't mention the threat of fire."

Most of these kitchens were vernacular log structures chinked with clay, according to Colonial Williamsburg architectural historian Willie Graham. "Most of those don't survive," Graham says. "It's mainly high-end plantations where we still see the separate kitchen." (https://research.colonialwilliamsburg.org/Foundation/journal/Summer07/kitchens.cfm) In terms of dairies, it seems that it would be determined based on the size of the farm/plantation if one existed. The work of butter churning and cheese making could be accomplished within the house in many cases rather than requiring a separate building for the work. In Virginia, it seemed to be prevelant during the Colonial period but then slowly disapeared as its original use. But could be present through out the period of the War of Jenkin's Ear and possibly to the Revolution. I have not started work on these yet.

I did get some initial prints done. I will be revising the Ukrainian belfry to match how I printed mine. I had to cut the model into three sections to eliminate supports. I printed the chicken coop and it came out well until I moved it and crushed part of it. I will be working some more on these and post pictures of the printed models and later painted ones.

Terrain Items - A Smokehouse

In looking for typical terrain that would have been present during the War of Jenkin's Ear (and the AWI and ACW for that matter) I have found the ubiquitous smokehouse. Colonial Williamsburg has a website that they dedicated an entire blogpost to smokehouses. It is an interesting read. Of the 88 original surviving structures of Williamsburg, twelve are smokehouses. Given the need to properly and safely prepare meat for storage, it was an item everyone would have. Or as the article puts it, "Everyone needed a smokehouse."

This makes it an ideal piece of terrain. It is a relatively small building. The example I am going for would be 8' square. In 1/100th scale that works out to just over 24mm per side. The article describes them as "Typically, these are cubical structures of wood, eight to fourteen feet square, with steep pyramidal roofs for holding in the smoke among the hanging cuts of meat."

These are simple shapes that are easily handled by Tinkercad. I have found numerous examples online. Most are Civil War era buildings. There is a historic Colonial Farm in Maryland that offers a nice one that I discovered on TripAdvisor.

This is the building that I am going to try to model. One interesting point from the Williamsburg article was a real estate notice that they had discovered. It noted that there was a 8' square smoke house listed with a house and the major selling point was the door to the smokehouse to discourage theives.

These tended to be working buildings for only a small portion of the year. Animals were slaughtered in December and packed in salt to dry then smoked. The rest of the year, the smokehouse served as storage for the meat until it was brought to the kitchens.

Speaking of kitchens, most would be separate from the main house. Especially in the South where the summer would turn the house into an oven if cooking were conducted within. They yard behind the house would be divided into a clean and working sections. The clean section would feature the kitchen and dairy while the working section would have the smokehouse and animal pens.

This is having me rethink a couple of scenarios. First with the Jekyll Island Raid scenario for the War of Jenkin's Ear supplement. Captain Carr's Hermitage plantation would have featured thse working buildings. Outhouses, a smokehouse, a kitchen, animal pens, a well, and a corn crib. What it would not have featured in 1742 was slave cabins as slavery was illegal in Georgia during this time. There would have been civilian workers present as well as the members of Captain Carr's company living there as well.

The other scenario would be for an as of yet unstarted campaign book on the run up to the Battle of Cowpens. The scenario is a battle at Hammond's Store. Unlike the previous one, there would have been a possibility of slave cabins near the store. The store would have been the home of the shopkeepers who would have had to have gardens, animals and other amenities necessary for life in the frontier.

Here is the model that I have creatd from this.

Scatter Terrain - Corn Cribs

While I am not able to work directly on the WOJE scenario book, I am doing my level best to work around it. I am trying to figure out what would be useful scatter terrain for it.

One item I decided to attempt is a Corn Crib. These are described as a "long structures are narrow at the bottom with sides that taper outward at the top and are usually sided with narrow slats nailed on either vertically or horizontally. A shed or gable roof, a door at one or both ends, and a couple of small doors high up just under the eaves on one side complete the thing. The building is usually in a dilapidated and run-down condition, teetering on posts set in the ground, leaning one way or the other, and at serious risk of toppling over." (source)

The same post also offers some more useful information on the Corn Crib: "The recommended size for a small corncrib was 4 feet across the bottom with sides about 6 feet high and tapering outward to a width at the top of 6 feet. With those dimensions, one could figure on space for about 25 bushels per foot of length (cribs were built in varying lengths depending upon the anticipated storage requirements). These long, narrow cribs had either gable or shed roofs and sometimes were built with vertical outside walls.

Corncribs were set 1 to 2 feet above the surface of the ground on wooden, stone or concrete piers, each of which was capped with a metal shield to deter rodents from climbing them. Wooden slats measuring 1 inch by 3 inches were nailed to the sides vertically, diagonally or horizontally, and spaced about 1 inch apart. An entrance door was placed at one end and smaller doors were placed under the eaves on one side; corn could be shoveled through those when filling the crib. On really long cribs, the interior was sometimes divided into separate bins and additional entrance doors were required. When mechanical elevators became common, hatches were often cut into the roof for filling. Corn was removed through small doors cut into the side at floor level, or sometimes through the entrance door.

Wide overhanging eaves and the tapered sides kept all but driving rain from penetrating the sides, while the narrowness of the building and the 1-inch space between the siding boards allowed adequate air circulation to completely dry the grain.

The battle against field mice and rats was constant. Sheet metal guards on post tops helped, and some farmers covered the lower side of their cribs with hardware cloth to further deter the pesky little beasties, but some would always find their way in."

The motivation for a corn crib is derived from a statement in Major Thomas Young's narrative of the Battle of Hammond's Store. He desribes an incident where a young rebel is chasing down a fleeing Tory. "the little fellow charging around a crib after a Tory." While it is not definitive that this describes a corn crib, they were common place in the area. I have picked two to model. One is from a post card found on line and another is from a site in North Carolina. The North Carolina one is a larger structure that would be appropriate to a larger farm while the smaller could be used almost anywhere for the AWI or ACW.

These are the two that I am attempting to model.

I have the basics of the small one complete. Once they are done they will be added to the payHip site to download. I am placing the 3d models in a pay what you want bucket. They are scaled to 1/100 or 15mm but can be shrunk or grown as needed in your slicer software. You can check out what I have done so far here on my PayHip Store. This is the work in progress shot of the small Corn Crib.

Church Belfry - Example from St Nicholas Church, Smolyhiv, Ukraine

Again taking inspiration from Roll A One blog, I started Googling belfries in the Ukraine. Specifically, I was looking for something from a small rural church. The building that I found was an interesting wooden structure that dates back to 1743. I have a church that is similar to the one depicted here.

This church is a Greek Catholic church. Thus it lacks the orthodox cross on the steeple and on the belfry. The belfry is an interesting structure with a tin roof. Here is the detail showing more of it.

I found the church on Google Maps and tried to estimate the size of the church. I am not entirely sure it is 100% right but it should be close enough. I will likely make some tin rod to line the edges of the roof. but for now, this is what I have come up with.

3d Modeling and Playing catch up of TerrainTober

With Christmas around the corner, hobby time will be shrinking. I have been very motivated by the Roll a One wargaming blog. His terraintober efforts have been amazing. Please give it a visit. Some are outstandingly simple but very effective. Anyone should be able to build something in there.

Two projects that captured my attention were his Coalburner's hut and furnace. I looked at the final shapes and wondered if I could make something like that in Tinkercad. I spend some time and came up with something workable. They would need to be sanded and flocked but these could work.

The boards on the top of the furnace didn't come out as well as I wanted but I think work alright. I made these on a 50mm round base and a 50mm square base. I will keep tinkering on these pieces and eventually load them up on my PayHip site as a download.

I also made a compost bin that will fix on a small Flames of War base. It will need the debris added to the structure to finish it off.

I have done a Chicken Coop as well. I love the chicken coops that I recevied from Things from the Basement. But they are VERY small. Looking at Roll a One's example, I decided to give that a try. I also attemtped to make it look like it was made from boards. This was slightly tedious. I didn't bother do make them on the egg box on the back of the coop. I might go back and change it after printing it. Or I might try to use a sharp knife and carve them in. That could be a bad idea.

I am not the best modeler. But I think once tarted up with paint, sand and flock, these will all be nice additions to the table.

Messing about with 3d Models

After reading the excellent post on The Raft Blog about Religious Landmarks. He mentions some Lichtsäule that mark significant crossroads or areas. Read his post as he goes into much more detail and it is a very interesting read.

I took to tinkercad and tried to make one that resembled these. In a quick Facebook messenger conversation he let me know that these things vary between 2 to 2.5 meters in height. Changing the size in cura, I saved it. If you are interested in the model, you can get it here. It is also available on my PayHip store.

Now I need to print some of these.

"Walking" the Battlefields of the War of Jenkins' Ear

Last week, I got to go on a family vacation. My son had a Scout trip to Jekyll Island to do some beach fishing.

By the way, if you are feeling generous, please support my son by buying some Boy Scout popcorn (https://www.trails-end.com/store/scout/8DBE0ZRW?share=3S3LB9KZ). He is raising money for next year's summer camp. He just earned his First Class rank and I am very proud of him.

Siezing the moment, I steered some of the activities over the weekend. We did a fishing charter from St Simmons Island. This had a cruise past several important sites for the WOJE. I managed to see the site for Bloody Marsh (slightly underwhelming) and saw Horton's House. I am going to display some things out of order from how I experienced them, but relevant to the narative of the War.

Fort St Simmons, Delegal's Fort and the Shore Battery

From Driftwood Beach on Jekyll Island, you can see the former location of Fort St Simmons and Delegal's fort.

The view of southern St Simmons is rather blurry. In the picture below, Delegal's Fort would have been to the right and Fort St Simmons would have been somewhere near the center and the shore battery between the two. Taking a zoomed in picture in high wind, rarely produces great results.

Nothing remains of these three sites on the island. Their position on the island left them vulnerable to weather and erosion. As such, they are lost to time.

Gascoigne Bluff

The bluff is a small rise near the shoreline. The depth of the salt marsh near the bluff is much smaller than in other places near by. It was a suitable landing site that the British established the bluff as a naval base for the colony of Georgia. Captain Gascoigne of the British Sloop of War Hawk build the base in 1736. Given its suitability as a landing ground, the Spanish choose to land here unopposed after bypassing Fort St Simmons and the other forts on the south side of the island in 1742.

This is a view of the bluff from a Dolphin/Eco tour that the scouts took. The fishing pier in the picture is where we meet our guide for the fishing trip we took. It is possible that a dock of some sort may have been present in 1742.

From the fishing pier, this is a view to the north towards Fort Fredrica. The salt reeds that give the islands name "the Golden Isles" is visible here.

This is another view from further out on the pier. It gives a better idea of how deep the salt marsh extends from the islands. During low tide, the marsh is "dry" and the ground is waist deep mud.

When the Spanish did an investigatory probe up towards Fort Fredrica, they would have sailed from the bluff north along the Mackay River towards Fort Fredrica. In the morning, a thick fog hung over the river. It is only 200 yards from St Simmons across the Mackay River to the mainland. The Spanish Galleys would have had to navigate this shallow river to reach their destination only to be driven back by the fort's guns.

Gascoinge Bluff was also the location that in 1794, the live oak timbers were cut and shipped north to become part of the frigate USS Constitution.

Bloody Marsh Battlefield

The battlefield is a tiny park that is currently surrounded by subdivisions. The field is a small opening in the woods that is bordered to the east by a large marsh. At the time a road ran from Fort St Simmons to the northeast to the battlefield and angled north towards Fort Fredrica. The Georgia troops that ambushed the resting Spanish troops from would have been to the north and west of the opening. Pinned against the marsh, the Spanish troops only would have have the road to retreat down. The pictures make the clearing appear larger than it is. There is parking for about seven vehicles and enough room to turn around and head out of the tiny park. That the park stands at all is likely an accident of needing a minimum amount of greenspace for the surrounding communities.

Jekyll Island and Major Horton's House

Jekyll Island was vital to the overall defensive strategy of Georgia. Nothing remains of the northern fort on the island. It was captured without resistance by the Spanish during their withdrawl from St Simmons. What does remain is Major Horton's house. This is the second itteration of the house. The first wooden structure was burned by the retreating Spanish in 1742. The current residence is the rebuilt farmhouse that was completed in 1743. The structure is two stories tall and built of tabby. Tabby is a strong concrete like material made from oyster shells. Many of these shells came from the discarded oyster shells left in large mounds by the native Americans that had lived on Jekyll prior to the arrival of the Spanish in Georgia. The material is very strong as is in surprisingly great shape after enduring several hurricanes in its over 250 years of existance.

Part of the military significance of the Horton home was that his plantation was manned by indentured servants who worked the property. Among their jobs was to operate the brewery that supplied Fort Fredrica. The loss of the brewery was probably a devestating loss to the British defenders.

Views of the Islands

The Georgia Barrier Islands are beautiful. They are known as the Golden Isles due to the salt marsh reeds that surround their landward sides. They have picturesque sand dunes, marshes, wooded swamps and woods. Many of the trees are shallow rooted live oaks. They are very pretty trees that are draped in Spanish moss.

It was a great trip. I want to go again and take the time to visit Fort Fredrica. There isn't a marked site for the battle of Gully Hole Creek that occured earlier in the same day as Bloody Marsh. It was a great vacation and it has gotten me excited to finish work on the supplement.

A few Steps forward

Today has had mixed results. I managed to get several sails attached to the first of three 10 gun Brigs that I need for the War of Jenkin's Ear book. This just proved to be far more time consuming than I remember it being. I really should do rigging on it but I honestly am too tired today.I need enough rigging to run the headsails and will probably stop at that. Especially as I have not done and glue hardened thread for it.

I have worked on some of the Galliots that I need. I have glued the halves together of two of the ones that I need. I need to add the front awning to them and the additional three Fustas that I had printed. What was fun to work on was a small feluca. It is a tiny boat compared to the 10 gun brig. It is hardly more than a sailed rowboat. I picked up the model on-line and had a friend print it for me. I have one more to complete. I have two more hulls after that but no sails for them. Not sure what I will use them for. I removed the supports from a pair of scout boats in 15mm. I attempted to remove the supports from 4 different piraguas that I had printed but in each case, the vessel split in half as I cut away the supports. That was disapointing.

There is still much to do. I need to build two more of the War Artisan 10 gun Brigs. They are great boats when built. They just really benefit from the added strength of rigging them. But that is a very fiddly task.

I still haven't worked on any more tree sections, but I got a package in the mail today that I think will be some trees that I bought. Here is hoping they are useful.

O Group

While the rules have been out for quite a while, I just purchased them. I am interested in seeing how they work. I am wondering how they would work in concert with IABSM and Chain of Command. It could be interesting to model a battle at three levels.

I am interested in others opinions of these rules. Also how do General D' Armee and Picket's Charge work? I have thought about picking those up as well.

Campaign for Orsha: June 22, 1944 - The set up

With my son's recent acquisition of a Soviet force of his very own, I decided to work on a campaign. I settled on the begining of Operation Bagration with the Soviet attack on the city of Orsha.

I am trying to come up with a creative campaign that will allow him to field his new troops and not involve too much work researching more than the hours I already have. I secured a 1:50,000 scale map of the town that dates to 1937. That should provide a nice basis for the campaign. I have cut away most of the map and made it our campaign area.

With this in mind, I will let him pick an avenue of attack. He will pick his forces and supports based on the map and the terrain shown. I will then pick forces representing the defensive line at that point. If it works out well, we should have some fun games of Chain of Command or possible What a Tanker if he just wants to run with his armor.

Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up of the games.

New Favorite Map Site

I was searching for some maps for June 22, 1944 that correlate to the beginning of Operation Bagration and the Soviet advance on the city of Orsha. I thought this might make a great campaign to play with my son now that he has his very own Soviet force for Chain of Command. (Thank you Jon!)

I stumbled on this site after not being able to get to my normal go to site. https://iu.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=3003eaf8107048aeabd74b74a1481cb4 This has some really cool features and seems to have the most complete collection I have found yet. The files can be downloaded in very large TIF files that you can work with. If you want to look for the City of Orsha, I can tell you that it is in map section N36-049. I picked up the 1:50,000 scale map. Not sure that I could get the smaller 1:25,000 scale map and I am thankful to have found this.

The map dates to 1937 so it is probably not too far off. I can find the rail station. It should be plenty useful to create some scenarios for us. Now to find out some unit histories to flesh the idea out.

Annual Birthday Sale

As we approach October it is time for my annual birthday sale. To take advantage of the sale, simply use the code "Birthday2021" on my Payhip store for 51% off anything in the store. (https://payhip.com/ChrisStoesen) You can take a guess at which birthday it is for me. Readers of this blog get notice of the sale before anyone else. I'll post this elsewhere on October 1st.

Still working on the War of Jenkin's Ear book. Things are going well. Spent time over the weekend to make a large river. It is basically a painted sheet of clear plastic. It was an attempt to wet blend paint to give the appearance of depth. That was largely a failure. There are places where the white paint failed to mix properly with the the Burnt Umber leaving white streaks near the banks. I will likely try to hide that with some terrain or something. Still it should be servicable.

I have prepped two bases for some more trees. I will try to base coat these today. With those two done, that leaves me with four more tree bases left. I found a slightly larger balsa dowel that I like better for the tree trunks. I am using it for the newer tree bases. I find they are easier to drill out than the smaller diameter dowels.

For the naval portion, I finished painting a Galiot. I am having four more of them printed and hope to pick those up this week. I did not put yards on this model. I added the forward canopy with a strip of paper.

I also have several other ships that are being printed that should wrap up the fleets. The only major gap is with 10 gun brigs. The scanrios call for a total of 5 of these vessels. I have one hull completed from a War Artisan kit that I never finished. It is kit 013 for those interested. The kit is nice in that it comes with two color schemes that you can build which gives some differentiation to the models. I printed out some additional models to round that gap out.

I have a few more Indians on the painting table but none are really critical. Three more figures to carry storming ladders and the canoe crews are left. I have other nice to haves out as well. These include six dead British Troops and a gun crew. None are really necessary for the book but ended up in my cart during one of my online shopping trips.

That is it for the day. Enjoy

Editing, Playtests and Ships

I am having several more ships printed for the supplement by a friend with a resin 3D Printer. My printer is still not acting properly. It prints up to the 15% point then decides to stop feeding filament. No idea what is going on. Will reach back out to the Anycubic facebook group later today.

I have most of the ships that I need for the game. What I lack are some 10 gun brigs. Larger ones can be found on-line as STL files, but for the 10 gun variety, War Artisan is the place to shop. I purchased his ship (013) a long time ago. Will be printing out the models on Card stock and making a few more. They are time consuming but don't have to be painted.

I set up the table and had a game with my son. This Indians rushed forward with a lucky run of cards and drew first bloob by killing some civilians. This should give you an indication of how well this went for me.

Anyway, I have been happy with the progress this weekend.

Homeless Woodland Indians no more

The 15mm realator has just shown my tribes of Yemmassee Indians their new homes. They have placed a downpayment on two additional wigwams that are still with the builder.

These are the Acheson Creations buildings I got last week. In all, I am happy with them. I think the Lodge may be a bit small compared to the Wigwam but I am warming to these buildings.

Still have a few Indians for boat crews that are at the 50% stage. Also have another torch bearing one and two running with a ladder from the Blue Moon sets I bought.

For the naval battles, I have some more work to do. I have just paid off a friend with a resin printer to make some more ships for me. I have a 1/300 Galliot on my desk that I have not begun to paint. I also have several more half completed ships that need work on. I have made a checklist for the scenario book and am trying to make sure everything has a checkmark.

I have completed bases for trees that I haven't finished the tree trunks for yet. Who knows? Maybe i will get some more work done this weekend.