OIS Cagafuego, South American ironclad

This is the first post celebrating SYWPY2016, and I've added a label to denote this. 

By the 1880s the constant war between Tropezonia and Ortosilia has been affected by industrialization. Yet the two countries were poor compared to the real players - they had to use what they had. 

Similarly to the funds of the Ortosilian Imperial Navy, mine were limited to build this model. It is scratchbuilt from cardstock, cardboard, printing paper, broom bristles, match sticks and a plastic phone card I found. 

The idea is that a heavy duty cargo ship was converted to a warship, generously dubbed "battleship" by Emperor Alejandro VII. It is nonetheless the strongest man-o-war in the area with reinforced hull plating (a little crude solution), a 5" quick-firing barbette gun and four casemate 6" guns. 

The hull is actually hollow, its bottom two layers of cardboard and the top one, the space between them filled only with a few strips to hold the deck in place. I'd like to add some 3mm figures as crew at a later point. The funnel is paper soaked in PVA and rolled up. The rest of the build is quite ordinary, complete with a white primer, block, wash, highlight paint scheme.

The rest of the two navies will consist of armed cargo ships and older style broadside ironclads. There will only be a handful so I can start gaming sooner.

I'm also thinking of resolving conflicts on land using match stick armies and the One Hour Wargames rules. I'm not currently sure how many match sticks I have though!