Battlefield Accoutrements - Ship Mill in 6mm

 Ship Mills were an ingenious idea to harness water power by making a catamaran, with the central well containing a water wheel.  These could be moored to catch the strongest flow of the river and avoided having to build dams, weirs etc. associated with land based mills.  These mills were first recorded in 6th century Italy and were common from the middle ages to the 19th and early 20th century in Europe.

Their military use was two-fold.  They could be used as the basis of a pontoon bridge by lashing them alongside each other.  They could also be used as battering rams to break up bridges down stream - as used by the Austrians who sent a series of ship mills into Napoleon's pontoon bridges over the Danube during the battle of Aspern-Essling.

They are usually represented as an off table factor and you don't often see them modelled.  Chris Pringle had mused awhile ago BBB Blog - Ship Mills that they would be a fun thing to have.  He donated a number of wargaming things to me earlier in the year, so I thought I'd make one as a way of saying thank you.

Research:

Here are two of the plans I found on the internet:

Here is the picture from the Wikipedia article - this mill is at Minden, Germany.

As you can see, it is not the most seaworthy of craft.  Colours appear to have been black for the boat parts and light grey for the superstructure.  My guess is that the hulls were painted with tar or pitch to make them waterproof, the superstructure would be weathered wood.  The paddles seem to have been black.

Construction 

I based the model on 2mm mdf, with a cut out in the middle for the wheel if needed.  The hulls were coffee stirrers, shaped to the hull profile and with scribed planking.  The sides and superstructure were card.  The paddle blades were too short and thick on the first paddle, so I started again with a card/plastic tube metal washer combination.  Various ribs and struts were added to give a bit of interest.  It was undercoated with GW primer and painted with GW Acryllics.  I painted on the water and little waves to give some idea of the mill pushing against the river flow.    

photos:

Note the cut out in the roof to accommodate the wheel.

The finished article:

I have not really done water before, I'm quite pleased with the result.  If you have a go, consider making the sides of the pontoons in 0.5mm plastic (I used 1mm card) and if you had a wheel from a Mississippi stern-wheeler, that might work well.  I reckoned that as these were widespread during the Napoleonic and 1848/49 Hungarian wars, Chris will get to use it quite often, so a little chunkiness and resilience in the wheel would not go amiss.

All in all a fun little model to build, it did not take long and was well received by Chris when handed over!

As ever, I hope this encourages yo to have a go at making your own terrain.