Shipbucket

Nice design for the Arapiles. One suggestion I have that will help; your superstructure shading needs to be darker than it is, to add depth, especially if it's to match the shading from the hull you've used and modified. I've also noticed the shading on the turrets and barbettes is opposite to what it should be.

Looking forward to seeing more.

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My Worklist
MD Scale, 4 Pixels : 1 Foot
Official German Parts Sheet
German Capital Ship Projects of The First World War

Thanks for the comment Tempest i'll do the changes this weekend.

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kike-92

The Spanish did have access to UK armaments through the Vickers-Ferrol shipbuilding yard at Ferrol in northern Spain. That could have you fitting the UK 15" twin turret Mk.1, which is an acknowledged wonderful bit of kit. Might give you a bit more weight saved to expend elsewhere - more armour / armament if required. Just an alternative choice. Armament is considered 'free' and requires no crediting so your ship would remain yours.

Following Krakatoa's and Tempest's advice here's the modified Arapiles:



The Arapiles class was a class of four super-dreadnought battleships built by the Spanish Navy. The class comprised Arapiles, San Luis, Hércules, and Argonauta. Construction started on the ships shortly before World War I; Arapiles was laid down in 1913, Hércules and San Luis followed in 1914, and Argonauta, the final ship, was laid down in 1915. On 10 July 1910, the National Congress of Spain passed a bill allocating funds to the navy for twelve destroyers, four submarines, and five large battleships. The contracts were allocated to different shipyards in Spain with the main contractor being the Ferrol shipyards which also had a license to build British naval guns. The Spanish Navy had enjoyed a long-standing close relationship with its British counterpart, the Royal Navy, since the 1830s. Arapiles was launched first, on 19 December 1913, in an elaborate ceremony that was attended by various dignitaries and presided over by the Spanish president. The battleship was christened by the president's wife, and weighed 11,000 long tons at the time. After the First World War broke out in Europe, work on Arapiles was accelerated and it was formally accepted into service in September 1914, with the rest of the class following the next two years.

Class overview
Operators: Spanish navy
In commission: 1915–46
Planned: 4
Completed: 4
Lost: 0

General characteristics
Type: Battleship
Displacement: 36,500 tonnes full load
Length: 201.96 m (Total)
Beam: 30 m
Draft: 8.03 m
Installed power: 75,500 shp
Propulsion: 4 × Parsons turbines, 4 shafts, 24 boilers
Speed: 23 knots
Range: 5,000 nmi (9,300 km; 5,800 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement: 1,187–1,271
Armament:
8 × 15 in guns
12 × 6 in guns
10 × 3 in guns
2 × single 60 cm (24 in) torpedo tubes (below waterline)

Armor:
Belt: 170–350 mm (6.7–13.8 in)
Conning tower: 400 mm (16 in)
Deck: 60 mm–100 mm (2.3–3.9 in)
Turrets: 350 mm–100 mm (13.8–3.9 in)

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kike-92

That looks really good - nice big powerful battleships - will be interesting to see the 1930's rebuild.

I like it, looks every inch like a superdreadnougt should.
I would expect some of the casemates would be flush with the side of the hull, rather than the deck and railings in front of them. You would need a lot of beam otherwise.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Thanks for the comments guys.

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kike-92

People's Republic of Central America



History

The People's Republic of Central America was a socialist state in Central America and the Caribbean that existed from 1962 to 1975. A union of multiple subnational republics, its government and economy were highly centralized. The PRCA was a one-party federation, governed by the Communist Party with Managua as its capital.

The PRCA had its roots in the Cuban Revolution that took place from 1953 to 1959, when the communists, led by Fidel Castro, overthrew the authoritarian government of President Fulgencio Batista. They established the Republic of Cuba with the Soviet Union as its main supporter, this event combined with the new governments support and extensive military from the Soviets through Cuba lead other communists’ groups in Central American countries to overthrow their governments beginning a civil war between the communists and loyalists. Nicaragua's fall to communism in 1960 gave the Cuban's a way of putting troops in Central America enabling them to accelerate the "Revolutionary" process. The Cuban forces entered several territories in Central America through Nicaragua and helped local Communists take power. In 1962, the Communists were victorious, forming the PRCA with the unification of the Cuba, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and Haiti.

Following the formation of the PRCA, a troika and a brief power struggle, Fidel Castro came to power in the 1964. Castro suppressed all political opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism, and initiated a centrally planned command economy. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization. Castro also fomented political paranoia, and conducted a Great Purge to remove opponents of his from the Communist Party through the mass arbitrary arrest of many people (military leaders, Communist Party members, and ordinary citizens alike) who were then sent to correctional labour camps or sentenced to death.

Critics of Castro's regime asserted that Castro's administration imposed strict controls over everyday life, and believed that his political campaigns contributed to or caused thousands of deaths, incurred severe economic costs, and damaged the PRCA's cultural heritage. This lead Castro in 1967 to implement a series of economic reforms and policies that began with the de-collectivization of the countryside, followed with industrial reforms aimed at decentralizing government controls in the industrial sector.

Although standards of living had improved significantly in the late 1960s, Castro's reforms were not without criticism. Hard-liners asserted that Castro opened the PRCA once again to various social evils, and an overall increase in materialistic thinking, while liberals attacked Castro's unrelenting stance on political reform. Liberal forces began gathering in different forms to protest the Party's authoritarian leadership. In 1969, the imprisonment of several liberal figures, triggered weeks of spontaneous protests in Managua. The government imposed martial law and sent in tanks and soldiers to suppress the demonstrations. Western countries and multilateral organizations briefly suspended their formal ties with the PRCA's government under Castro's leadership, which was directly responsible for the military curfew and bloody crackdown.

Castro’s response to the protests had not only damaged his position on the international scene but also internally, for some time a group of nationalists officers within the different branches of the armed had become increasingly alienated by what they saw as the Cuban colonization of their countries disguised as a working together policy, the increasing tension between the leadership and the army combined with the rising liberal sectors of the population made the situation more complicated for the leadership which became more authoritarian as the years passed.

The tension finally culminating in the civil uprising of May 1975 supported by the Nationalist wing of the armed forces which succeeded in forcing Castro to flee to Cuba and taking control of the PRCA. The army quickly setup a mixed interim government composed of high ranking officers and civilians to re-establish order in the country and to decide what would be the next step. By October 1975 it had become obvious that maintaining the Union would extremely difficult due to the differences between the member nations and as a result it was decided to dissolve the PRCA, bringing an end to thirteen years of communist rule in Central America.



Military

The People's Revolutionary Army (PRA) were the armed forces of the People's Republic of Central America. The PRA consisted of five professional service branches: Ground Forces, Navy, Air Force, Civil guard and the Strategic Support Force.

The PRA was under the command of the Central Military Commission (CMC) of the Communist Party. Following the principle of civilian control of the military, the commander in chief was the Chairman of the Central Military Commission (usually the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China as well as Paramount leader). The Ministry of National Defense, which operated under the State Council, did not exercise any authority over the PRA and was far less powerful than the CMC. A system of political officers was embedded within the military to ensure party authority over the armed forces so that the primary role of the Ministry of Defense was that of a liaison office with foreign militaries rather than a commanding authority. The political and military leadership made a concerted effort to create a professional military force, the duties of which were restricted to national defence and to the provision of assistance in domestic economic construction and emergency relief. This conception of the role of the PRA required the promotion of specialised officers who could understand modern weaponry and handle combined arms operations. In times of national emergency, the People's National Police and the National Militia acted as a reserve and supported element for the Ground Forces.

The People's Revolutionary Army was founded on 12 August 1962 after the communist victory and the formation of the PRCA. The new leaders recognized the need to transform the PRA, essentially an infantry army with limited mobility, logistics, ordnance, and communications, into a modern military force. The signing of the Treaty of Friendship, Alliance, and Mutual Assistance in February 1963 with the Soviet Union provided the framework for defense modernization in the 1960s.

Large-scale Soviet aid in modernizing the PRA, which began in the fall of 1963, took the form of weapons and equipment, assistance in building PRCA's defense industry, and the loan of advisers, primarily technical ones. The Soviet Union supplied infantry weapons, artillery, armor, trucks, fighter aircraft, bombers, submarines, destroyers, and gunboats. Soviet advisers assisted primarily in developing a defense industry set up along Soviet organizational lines. Aircraft and ordnance factories and shipbuilding facilities were constructed and by the late 1960s were producing a wide variety of Soviet-design military equipment. Following dissolution of the PRCA, the People's Revolutionary Army dissolved and the PRCA's successor states shared out its assets among themselves. The share out mostly occurred on a regional basis, with PRA soldiers from Cuba becoming part of the new Cuban Army, while soldiers originating from other regions became part of the new Armies of their

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kike-92

CAVIM FA-100

The FA-100 is a modular rifle designed and produced by CAVIM to meet the demands of the Venezuelan Armed Forces to replace its aging FA-65 battle rifles. The FA-100 was designed for robust high altitude, all weather combat, capable of functioning in extreme hot and cold weather. The FA-100 is a rifle intended to take abuse and extreme mistreatment and still maintain high accuracy and reliability in order to survive in true battle environments.

Work on a successor for the venerable FA-65/70 rifle series had been ongoing in Venezuela since the second half of the 1990s. Increasing interest in Venezuela for a modern service rifle chambered for the 6mm Venezuelan cartridges led CAVIM to offer the Venezuelan armed forces an upgraded variant of the FA-65 rifle, which was rejected. Design work was then initiated from the ground up on a modern assault rifle designated FA-X. The prototype was then trialed, where the rifle received negative feedback from Venezuelan soldiers testing it who reported that some of the polymer parts weren’t holding up in harsh environmental conditions and that they preferred the 7mm round in certain conditions due to their far greater stopping power and range similar to those of the existing FA-65 service rifles. The final version of the FA-X now called FA-100 was completed in 2007. Production of the FA-100 began in 2008.

The first batch of 200 FA-100s were delivered on April 18, 2007 and received positive feedback. The rifle was reported to be extremely accurate, reliable, and outmatched the FA-65/70 in all categories. The Venezuelan Army started to gradually phase out its FA-65/70s and to make the FA-100 its main service rifle. Serial production began in 2008. The initial phase of the project will saw a total of 45.000 rifles produced mainly for the army. The first batch consisted of 20,000 rifles contracted to state-owned company CAVIM in 2008. The second batch, consisting of 25,000 rifles, was contracted with local company INDUMIL in December 2008.

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kike-92

The armed forces of that People's Republic of Central America think that they should be based on what real life Cuba had in that period. After all, it seems that Cuba organised this socialist republic with back up and support from USSR.

Personally expect to see something more realistic than the other similarly named AU created recently.

Rifle seem well drawn and seem to be very good, based on the description. I suppose that 5.56 Χ 45 NATO variant is for export, right?