Collecting & painting 'pre-Dreadnought' warships (part 1)

I got interested in pre-Dreadnought warships. What are those? First there were sailing warships (wind powered).. Then in the 19th century steam engines and propellors were used, first in wooden (war)ships and later in armored (‘ironclad’) and steel warships. During the second part of the 19th century and first part of the 20th century developments went fast: better guns, better armor, fire control/calculations, faster warships, radio (instead of flags) for communication, steam turbines instead of simple coal fired boilers, etc. Result: warships became obsolete 10-15 years after they were build! Imagine: HMS Dreadnought, an all 12-inch battleship, was build in 1906 but was considered too slow to participate in the battle of Jutland in 1916….
As most of you know, I have collected a lot of 1:3000 scale modern and WW2 warships for Naval Wargaming. Next to a smaller collection of 1:1200 scale warship models. So, what to search for pre-Dreadnoughts? Which timeframe (remember, within 10 years they are obsolete…), which scale, which nations, etc? On the internet a great help is the 'Wartime Journal' (WTJ). Looking at additional history & naval books, I decided to collect within the time frame of pre-Dreadnoughts, with a possible extension to WW1. Ironclads (with or without sails) and American Civil War seemed to be a little bit too old. I really liked the time frame 1890-1905. With their (almost) steam-punk vessels and yearly little Imperialistic wars in Europe, South America and Asia.
My first focus was the Japan-Russia war period of 1904-1905, resulting in a couple of naval battles. The next best thing were the multiple European skirmishes: the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913.
I really needed to read about all these wars and naval developments! So I browsed the internet and bought several books, technical and with pictures. Problem 1: most pictures of this periode are black & white… Problem 2: between 1903 and 1910 most navies changed from bright painted ships (white hull, yellow funnels and wooden decks) to variants of grey paint. I even laid my hands on a Jane’s Fighting Ships 1905-’06 (as usual with black & white pictures).

As the time frame was determined, the collecting phase started. First: which scale? Assuming that naval battles would be fought at the range of 10,000 yds or less, I could go for scale 1:1800 at my 4 x 6 ft table. However, not many companies have 1:1800 and 3D-printed these models were expensive (I only was accustomed to NAVWAR 1:3000 miniatures prices of 2-4 GBP). Some British firms (including NAVWAR) had 1:3000 miniatures available, but pre-Dreadnoughts are in scale 1-to-1 smaller than WW2 or modern warships, so I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to recognize (and paint) them in scale 1:3000. Scale 1:2400 seemed to be the best compromise with regards to price, size (recognition) and availability. 

Which war & nations to collect first? Russia vs Japan in the timeframe of 1904-’05 creates a lot of historic naval encounters: several attacks on Port Arthur, battle of the Yellow Sea, battle of the Japanese Sea (all 1904) and the battle of Tsushima (1905). Future ship collections are possible for the timeframe of the Spanish-American War (1898), the Balkan Wars (1912-’13) and WW1.
I found on the internet the following 3 companies which could provide me at a reasonable cost 1:2400 Russian and Japanese warships: 3D decks (license to 3D-printing of WTJ miniatures; UK), Tumbling Dice (metal printing; UK) and Historical Board Gaming (3D printing, USA). So I ordered several different ships at those companies. 
The next phase was the painting phase. You remember problem 1 & 2? That was still not solved!

A lot of books have no information of the year a picture has been made… There is even insufficient information when navies changed from bright ship colors to ‘wartime’ grey colors. The British changed in 1903; the Russian changed probably at the start of the war with Japan (1904) but it is unclear when the Japanese changed to grey. Some nations, like the Spanish, changed much later (as they were neutral in WW1). I don’t know when the Netherlands (also neutral in WW1) changed to grey. Black & white pictures are helpful to determine of a ship is painted white or black… and yellow/ochre funnels are a different ‘grey’ in black & white pictures than white… but how to determine which grey I should use? The internet provides some sites with color information: the sites of 'WTJ' (USA),  'GM Boardgames' (Poland), 'Tumbling Dice' (UK) and also my copy of 'Jane's' provided some information...  And I tried to find official paintings of these naval encounters. However I run into the same problem as problem nr. 2! Most of the time there is no information when a painting was painted. So for the battle of Yellow Sea, I see at those paintings fully dark grey Russian Battleships, or dark grey battleships with yellow ochre funnels or Japanese paintings of Russian battleships with dark grey hulls, light grey deck houses and yellow funnels. Who is right? To make matters worse: each Russian Fleet (North, Baltic, Black Sea, Pacific) had its own colors… The same problems I had with actual ship scale models in Museums: contradicting colors. I even used a Russian post stamp (icebreaker picture) to determine the colors of the first Russian icebreaker (Yermak), which sailed with the Russian Baltic Fleet towards Tsushima! The good thing with this problem is that everybody may be right… so I will not get many complaints. Anyhow, I liked very much the research on which colors to use for these ships. And as a general rule, those ships have brighter colors than modern warships.

Anyhow, I've painted for Russia 1 Armored Cruiser (AC; twice: 1 in bright colors and 1 in wartime colors), 2 Protected Cruisers (PC), 1 Armed Merchant Cruiser (AMC) and 1 icebreaker (AGB). 

For Japan I painted 1 Battleship, 2 Armored Cruisers and 1 Protected Cruiser.

Which rules to use? If you visit WargameVault on the internet, you will find lots of rules. I started with 'White Bear, Red Sun' (in which the rule system 'Broadside & Salvo' is included) from David Manley in order to play the battle of the Yellow Sea between Russia and Japan.