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Almirante Miranda (as seen above) was a Churruca class destroyer, operated by the Republican Navy during the Spanish Civil War. She will feature in the Venezuela '39 as having survived the SCW by having left Cartagena in March, 1939 and avoiding the fall of the city. After a short cruise off the coast of Spain, she steamed south and having been denied entry to Argentina, she eventually docked in Uruguay pending a diplomatic solution as to the legal status of the ship and her crew.
When, on the 26th August 1939, the British declared their intention to join the blokade of Venezuela, the crew of Almirante Miranda conspired with local communists to over power the soldiers guarding their ship. The crew retook possession of the ship and for a few days, they also held the quay at which she was moored. This enabled them to refuel the ship and get her ready for sea again. The government of Uruguay decided not to prevent the ship from leaving since this removed the diplomatic problems caused by the ship's presence.
Steaming out of the River Plate, Almirante Miranda sailed north with the intention of joining the Soviet fleet but they arrived too late to join the battle. The destroyer's crew then decided to lurk in the Orinoco estuary and await developments but here they came across the Neo-Prussian submarine; Ägir sitting on the surface undergoing repair work. At first the two vessels did not know what to make of each other. AlmiranteMiranda had no idea who the Ägir was, and the Neo-Prussians, given the Spanish ship's design, were unsure if they weren't actually looking at a British destroyer. The issue was resolved when the submariners saw the communist pennant flying and they immediately brought their bow torpedo tubes to bear. Unable to dive due to a leaking propellor shaft, the Neo-Prussians realised they had to strike first and sink the enemy vessel whilst they still had the chance. They launched all four forward torpedoes in a credible spread and one torpedo hit. Age and mechanical fatigue caused the torpedo which hit Almirante Miranda to fail. Punching itself into the side of the destroyer, just below the water line, the torpedo began to let in water, but it was not nearly enough and the communists sprang into action. They opened fire with their 4.7 inch guns and severaly damaged the Ägir which quickly began to sink. The Neo-Prussians abandoned ship, and the Admiral Miranda leaving the submariners to fend for themselves, headed for the Orinoco River to find a place where they could remove the torpedo stuck in their hull.
Local Venezuelan Communists joined Almirante Miranda and warned them about the mines which the Solidaridad had left in the Orinoco. These had already destroyed two large Venezuelan fishing boats and a small tramp steamer in the preceding weeks. They also informed the crew about the situation in Guyana City.
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The images above show other Churruca class destroyers, but with a better resolution. The ship on the left is the original Churruca, later sold to Argentina and renamed Cervantes and to the right is José Luis Diez.
As the Churruca class were heavily influenced by British designs, they bear a strong resemblence to the Royal Navy destroyers of the period. Below you can see three examples. To the left is HMS Hostile, in the center is HMS Hotspur and to the right is HMS Grafton. Like their Spanish counterparts, they're all armed in a similar configeration, with two 4.7 inch guns fore and aft. In the 1930s, the Churruca class were armed with a fifth gun, amidships, but these were replaced after the CIvil War with an anti-aircraft suite, primarily two twin-mounted 37 mm guns and four 20 mm cannon. For the sake of making our game more interesting, I've decided that the Admiral Miranda already had this conversion done in 1938 so the ship can better defend itself against aircraft.
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See here for Ship building in 1/150 scale. Part 2 Auxiliaries
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Updates.
16 Nov 2018. Cutting the parts for Almirante Miranda's hull. The model's base is 68.5cm long and 8cm wide. I make these models in cardboard, and paint them using guache because they are not designed to last for longer than I need them, and I don't want to use styrene which is both expensive and probably harmful to the environment.
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The picture in the middle shows Almirante Miranda next to Solidaridad/Schönhausen. The destroyer is almost twice as long and as an actual warship, it has to be far more dangerous. I have decided to give her gun turrets at the front, but I'm not sure if I want to have gun turrets on the rear, or naked guns. I have two comparable gun elements (converted from Pithead Miniatures, British 5.5 inch Medium Howitzer). If I give the destroyer two rear turrets as was common with such warships, then I could use the Pithead guns to make a third large warship - such as a corvette?
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22 Nov 2018. Gun turrets.
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Almirante Miranda has four turrets, each with a 4.7 inch gun. The picture on the left also shows the base of the bridge superstructure which is slightly too long and I think I'll remove 2cm from it to make the model look more like the pictures of the original ship.
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23 Nov 2018. I found a diagram of Almirante Antequera today. It clearly shows the type's original armaments and super structures lay out, and I can see that my interpretations from the grainy pictures above leave a lot to be desired. My bridge superstructure is too big and too far back but I guess I'll just have to live with that. I also changed the rearmost superstructure to move the 40mm AA gun platform from behind the second funnel which I think I shall have to do again since an AA battery to the rear of the turret would inhibit its arc of fire. Since all my forward structures are too far back, it makes the whole of the ship's waist too crowded. I'm not sure I can fit in the search light tower. I wish I'd found this diagram before I started the model, but I'll just have to make do I suppose. C'est la guerre as they say.
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26 July. 2019. So the Christmas naval game I was planning last year, never happened due to time constaints, and so the destroyer was put to one side to gather dust for a while. I have not given up on the idea of a big naval battle however and Almirante Antequera lives yet. The new game will be a test bed for my new ship vs ship and aircraft vs ship rules, and probably played outside due to the sheer size of naval warfare.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Churruca-class_destroyer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G_and_H-class_destroyer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-class_destroyer_(1917)
http://www.kbismarck.com/mgl/destruc.htm
http://shipcomrade.com/?p=1186
https://www.balearspotting.com/armada-espa%C3%B1ola/clase-churruca-2%C2%AA-serie/
https://www.the-blueprints.com/blueprints/ships/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BL_4-inch_Mk_VII_naval_gun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMCS_Lady_Evelyn
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