Spanish Flag History

To understand better first of all I need to show you the Spaniard flag from the union between 2 crowns Castilla and Aragon . And from 1492 Spain began to use this flag , with different kingdoms symbols included

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For the ships each ship had the flag from it patron or region with diferent flags

Some years later with the Spaniard empire the flag was white with a Red Cross
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You can see this flag still in some ex Spanish colonies like Florida . This flag was still used in land until late xviii

After the secession war in the beginning of xviii century the flag used for the Royal Navy was the Bourbon king flag . Used with some variations in the navy ships . You can see this flag in the SOG model San Agustin. And yes in Spain the Navy is the Royal Navy too as we are a kingdom .
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The flag was white and from far distances it was similar to other white countries flags , France ( before revolution ), Sicilia ...
So in 1785 the king decided to change the naval flag to recognize easily Spaniard ships .
There were some options
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The king choosed this one , one for the navy and another one for the merchant vessels

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This flag was used until XX . This is the flag for the navy on the napoleonic era. And it was used for land in the Peninsulan War in XIX century

In 1936 we had the republican flag

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From 1939 to 1981 the flag was the franquist flag

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And the democratic and actual flag . You can see in the actual coat of arms the different regions flags that were kingdoms in the past .

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Thank you for this detailed account, Ferrante.

Thank you David .

Now I want to explain the actual Coats of arms :

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In the top you have the Crown , symbol of unity .
In both sides the Hercules Columns with the words Plus Ultra . In the past the end of the world for the romans was in Spain and marked with the Hercules columns . With the American Conquest appeared the words plus ultra . It is said that the Dollar symbol comes from that Symbol , as the Spaniard coin was the first used in USA , and first international coin . The crowns are the Imperial crown and Monarchy Crown .

In the shield you have the symbols from the main kingdoms from the Middle Ages . In the upper left side the Kingdom
Of Castille. Down the Aragon Crown one , actual flag from Catalonia , Valencia , Baleares and Aragón regions. Red and Yellow
In top right area , the kingdom of Leon with the Lion. And in the bottom right the Navarra old Basque Area Flag . Red with chains .
At the Bottom the kingdom of Granada symbol , last Muslim area conquered in 1492.
In the center the symbol of the Bourbon royal family that comes from France . Blue with lys flowers .
You know the Bourbon Whiskey that is related to the Bourbon royal family .
I hope this helps to understand the coat of arms

Thanks for this very errudite explaination of the national flag Ferrante.
It exemplifies what a long and distinguished history your country has.
I am glad that you are proud of it.
Rob.

What great explanation on, for me at least , a little known subject, I am afraid my ignorance shows as I only know the red cross type flag from my Napoleonic land games, so the information given here is very welcome...... now as has been stated , we need some new ships

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Originally Posted by Capn Duff

What great explanation on, for me at least , a little known subject, I am afraid my ignorance shows as I only know the red cross type flag from my Napoleonic land games, so the information given here is very welcome...... now as has been stated , we need some new ships

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I'm tryin', shipmate, but I only have so much influence on Ares... and sadly, the ships to go under these flags are hard to find English-language sources on since the manuscript for "Spanish Warships in the Age of Sail" remains unpublished other than ThreeDecks somehow getting a copy and doling out bits piecemeal ship-by-ship. This shows how big a loss JM was, hard to find people who speak the language of naval architecture in both English and Spanish... really wish we could somehow get a connection made with the modelmaker at Museo Naval Madrid.

https://threedecks.org/index.php?dis...source&id=1266

Pardon my ignorance DB but who was JM.
Rob.

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Originally Posted by Bligh

Pardon my ignorance DB but who was JM.
Rob.

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A member whose username regrettably escapes me at the moment, who also joined the research efforts for Ares and vanished around the time Wave 3 released. :(

Great information!!

Seeing the flag history accelerated my interest in getting my animated flag sequence down. Here is a test run using the image from above.
https://youtu.be/vEAoviu2vmE


Attachment 51013

There is always going to be one negative critic Aaron. It is a very nice rendering but with the sound effects I was half expecting some shot holes to appear in it!

:cannonboom:.............:takecover:

Rob.

Rob thank you for your comments , it is great to share my country history
Cap Duff , yes the Red Cross was in use in land in the napoleonic wars and South America independence wars . Today we have still this flag for some military units .
Diamond yes it is hard to find English language books about it . I think I know the book you are talking but Spanish version
Aaron thank you a lot for the animated flag

If you need further info about Spaniard ships please let me know

Ferrante, the manuscript I'm thinking of is an unscheduled forthcoming release in Seaforth's "____ Warships in the Age of Sail" series, probably at least coauthored by Rif Winfield. Need to work on Ye Olde Inbox, but if you can comment on anything like differences between the various designs of Spanish 74, or suggesting a group of 64-68-gun light SOL's or ~38-44-gun medium frigates where at least six were built to the same basic design (or variations on it like how almost all of Thomas Slade's 74-gun designs were just iterations on the same basic hull scaled down from French L'Invincible) those would be HUGE helps for filling out the Spanish fleet. :) (Bonus if there are at least two reflags, both under either British Red/White/Blue Ensigns or French Tricolor, and the more ships can be clustered into the group as reprint fodder the better--this is the kind of work I did on the original ten sculpts helping get the party started.)

The best book about Spanish frigates I known is free By the author but writed into Spanish . It is a technical approach to the construction of the Frigates Here you got different models from frigates not only the Mahonesa or Diana class .

https://es.slideshare.net/egtorralba...om_action=save

Can this book help you ?

Some French ships were taken by the Spaniards during peninsulan war .
And lot of ships were taken by the British not only actual bahama, mahonesa etc
And some great Spaniard ships not on the SOG list like Rayo , Terrible , Montañés ... very nice ships. The montañés class is one of the best builded

Worth a try, amigo. I'll check that out once I get back to the big screen, if it's still running... I do know that different chief designers imposed different design/construction systems nationwide, Gaztaneta, Jorge Juan, Gautier and Romero Landa being the ones of greatest relevance in Sails. IIRC Landa favored more British style structures and design philosophies, while the others had kept Spanish tradition probably closer to French style.

Yes , if you need help with the translation of some part let me know . You have detailed info about the different construction . And nice examples of frigates. I think you can obtain great info there .
From Jorge Juan you have on pág 204 frigates Perla , Águila , Esmeralda , Dorada and flecha . Same frigate made with some improvements into different ports and woods.
Gautier was a French engineer that came to Spain , with not great results as you can see with the designs.

I will follow this with interest!
Rob.

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Originally Posted by Ferrante

Yes , if you need help with the translation of some part let me know . You have detailed info about the different construction . And nice examples of frigates. I think you can obtain great info there .
From Jorge Juan you have on pág 204 frigates Perla , Águila , Esmeralda , Dorada and flecha . Same frigate made with some improvements into different ports and woods.
Gautier was a French engineer that came to Spain , with not great results as you can see with the designs.

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Yeah, French engineering tended to be "glass cannons" built for long endurance and good sailing but not so good in a prolonged fight, while the British designers used much heavier structural members built to take punishment and dish it right back.

I've been trying to work the 74's mainly, but right now my thinking when I go at the frigates is to stick with my standard practice of starting with tonnage and main battery for clustering--say two frigates of 26x12 for main battery, if they're within a hundred tons or so and similar length but the main difference is one has six guns in its upperworks and another has 10, I'm inclined to say the model can work for both and we just make them different with a better gun-stats line on the 36. (One of the Concordes of SGN101 actually was up-armed to 40 guns, but since the main battery was still only 26x12 that really makes it still a lapdog among warships, just with a louder bark.)

For the 74s the best Spanish book is this one

https://www.marcialpons.es/libros/na...9788493930349/

I don’t have it yet bus I hope I can soon