Now that I am starting to build up a serious fleet I really need some proper naval installations, first of all a shipshed, no?
Since I did not find a suitable model around, and since I have been playing around with 3d printing a little bit, I designed it myself. It is pictured below. It is 60mm long and 15mm wide, walls are some 8mm high. It is designed to fit appropriately with the Alkedo triremes, it is not a specific 1/2400 scale building, it just "looks good" with the ships. In the picture is protected by a palisade from Irregular miniatures (BG174, with BG177 tents). You can download the STL file here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sijqt3t5ar5bg0v/shipshed.stl?dl=0
I designed a generic shipshed on the basis of the research conducted so far in several sites, mainly Piraeus. You should check the Zea Harbour project for example. These shipsheds were built so that ships could be recovered easily, and also launched easily, so had ramped slides directly on the water of usually a 1/10 gradient inclination (but could go up to 1/6), on which ships could pulled out of the water and then slided back in. Sizewise, they were designed to fit nicely around a triere, with additional width space to keep its gear. They had timber roofs kept up by columns, maybe only the side walls were solid, so that there was circulation of air inside. Clearly, these were sensible sites because they stored the naval power of the poleis, and they were also highly flammable - imagine tarred and pitched wooden hulls with wooden gear and timber roofs... so the shipshed were usually a no-go area, protected by walls. In Rhodes, unauthorized entry in the shipsheds was a capital offence! and in Carthage there was a double wall that did not allow foreigners to see inside. You can see below a design by Sam Manning for the book Lords of the Sea (pretty good btw, I shall review it soon) for a proper representation.
I feel this was a key scenario item to have. Everyone knows triremes cannot really sail during wintertime, so they need to be stored somewhere. Even in the sailing season, they need to be periodically kept out of the water to dry out. This is necessary to keep them fast and agile, to perform maintenance work, and particularly to detect any early sign of the teredo navalis, the terrible ship-eating sea worms, and in case to eradicate it. Left unchecked, the teredo could eat its way within the hull and reproduce itself, weakening the ships structurally to the point that ships could literally break down while in open sea! So, if you want your investment in naval power to pay out, you want your trireme to last some 20 years, you really need a shipshed. The Athenians at the end of the IV cent. had 378 of them, in the 3 different ports in Piraeus! You do not really want to keep your expensive ships on the beach, like this guys below...
Also, given that so much naval combat was actually amphibious in nature and happened in the vicinity of cities and ports, having shipsheds is actually a necessity for many scenarios! I already have the walls ready, so... I do miss some houses, now that I think of it.
