How Do You Say "Unicorn" in Russian?

Today's unicorn comes to us courtesy of the Russian Navy.  In all honesty though, she's not so much a unicorn as she is an odd duck.  I nicknamed my unfinished ships "unicorns" though, so we're sticking with that.

When I first bought this miniature, it was listed as "50 gun (2 deck)," which led me to think it was a ship of the line, just like a British 50.  Some time later, I purchased the book Russian Warships in the Age of Sail 1696-1860 by John Tredrea and Eduard Sozaev.

I've said it here before, but it bears repeating: this is
THE English language work on the Russian sailing navy. 

Not only is this an excellent reference work, but it reminds us that nations do things according to their own logic, whether it makes sense to us or not.  This 50-gun two-decker is an excellent case in point.  To us, it's a small ship of the line, like the famous/infamous HMS Leopard.  To the Russians, it's a frigate.  "Oh, OK" I hear you saying. "So she's just an old two-deck frigate like HMS Serapis."  Problem is, it's just not that simple.

According to Tredrea and Sovaev, these two deck 50+ gun frigates  were a series of one-off designs (unlike the Pyotr Apostol class of 46-gun ships) that were designed for operations in the Black Sea.  Referred to as "battle frigates" or "frigates of the line," the idea was that they could perform the functions of a frigate and then reinforce the line of battle once the engagement started.  You can see this from the armament carried.  Whereas Serapis carried 18 pounders on the lower deck and 9 or 12 pound guns on the upper, these Russian ships tended to be armed with 24 to 36 pounders on the lower deck, and anything from 12 to 36 pounders on the upper deck.  A "frigate of the line" indeed!  To use a more modern analogy: If the USS Constitution and her sister frigates were like a WWI battlecruiser, then these Russian frigates are more like a WWII pocket battleship.

With that bit of design history aside, below are some pictures of my finished model.  After looking at those, I'll talk about some of the issues with this particular mini.

 At first glance, you'd certainly think that he (the Russians call ships "he," not "she") looks like a small ship of the line.  Looking at pictures of this 50 gun frigate together with a 66 gun ship of the line might make you wonder even more about this ship.  So, here we go.

The 66 gunner is on the right of the photo.

The 66 gunner is only about 12 feet longer on the waterline.  What gives?

Interestingly enough, this resemblance to a ship of the line is the best clue as to what ship this mini represents.  As I said before, all of the 50+ gun two-deck frigates were one-off designs, so it can't represent all of them.  So, the "typical" large frigate of the Black Sea Fleet might have looked something like the drawing below:

This is Grigorii Velikiia Armenii [Gregory the Great of Armenia], a 50 gun frigate built in 1791.  He carried 28 30 pounders on the lower deck, and 22 18 pounders on her upper deck.  Note though, that he doesn't have 2 complete gun decks like the miniature.  So what ship was the miniature modeled on?

Personally, I think the miniature represents Krepkii [Strong], a 54 gun frigate built in 1801.  He carried 30 36 pounders on the lower deck and possibly 32 36 pound carronades on the upper deck (Tredrea says the carronades are conjectural).  There are no drawings or pictures of him, but Krepkii is listed as "a sister to the Baltic fleet line of battle ship Skoryi [Fast] (62)."  On Skoryi, the upper deck armament is confirmed as 36 pound carronades, so that does seem reasonable for Krepkii as well.

If I wanted to be uber-picky, then I would go on about some problems with the Langton miniature; however, I'm not going to do that.  Quite frankly, Russian Age of Sail ships are damned hard to come by.  Langton makes 6: a 100, a 74, a 66, this 50, a 44/46 two decker frigate, and a 32 gun frigate.  Red Eagle (formerly Skytrex) make a 100, 74 and a 36.  Navwar makes a 66.  It would appear then, that Russian ships are probably not big sellers.  So, rather than nitpicking, I think it's probably better to be happy with the choices we have.  Besides, the more I look through the book, the more I am convinced that the Langtons designed the 44/46 gun frigate miniature so that it could also do duty as the single gun deck 50s.  I will explain that a little more when I finish building my 44/46 gun mini:  AKA, the third unicorn.

Oh, and the answer to the question in the title?  The word "unicorn" in Russian is единорог, and is pronounced ye-dino-rog.

UPDATE: December 6, 2019.  These ships came up on a recent thread at The Miniatures Page.  A person named NotNelson1 was looking for information about the miniatures, so I pointed him here.  After reading the blog post, he asked me if I had asked the Langtons about what ships these were.  I had not. 😞  He did, and they told him that the 50 and 46 gun frigates were not based on any specific class of ships, but were representative examples.  So there you have it; all my speculation above is just that.  The Langtons did say that my estimations were as good as any, so I guess I've got that going for me. 😌  If anyone is interested, here's a link to that thread at TMP:

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/msg.mv?id=520251