Vlad

Very true, so I suppose if Aoshima wanted to continue the trend they could have had arts of these ships under heavy fire.

Well, one of their issues of the USS Wasp CV-7 also has the ship burning in the background with a submarine very prominent at the front (unrealistically surfaced), and you get the sub as a bonus with the kit. Tamiya did the same with their re-issued USS Indianapolis. I can definitely see the argument for "bad taste", but the Hermes, Wasp and Ark Royal kits are available in several variations and the "sinking" arts are one of at least 3 or 4 box art variations in each case, so that lessens it. Their new Illustrious and Victorious kits have artworks of the ships proudly steaming (although I guess neither of those sank).

The issue with the battlecruisers at Jutland was a combination of poor safety procedures and volatile cordite allowing hits on turrets and barbettes to propagate into magazine explosions. There is an argument that turret armour was insufficient but good turret armour still isn't an excuse for lax safety. Again, even with the smaller guns of that period and ranges that were impressively long for their day, they are still outside the realms of true plunging fire (just look at the low maximum elevations and high muzzle velocities on the German guns). As far as I'm aware, the battlecruisers did not suffer direct magazine penetrations and Tiger shrugged off a hit or two on her 9" belt. So the main part of the armour scheme, at least on the newer ships, was working as intended. Bismarck is over-glorified. The German approach used a low main deck and thick deck slope to deflect short range shots from the ships vitals (incidentally barely any improvement in concept over WWI designs). This made her maddeningly difficult to sink by close range gunfire, but the overall scheme suffered from the same issues as other out-dated schemes: low volume under maximum protection and weight wasted spreading partial protection on both key and non-key systems outside of the main citadel. They ended up a ship that was hard to sink but quick to disable, unable to fight back or do much to prevent her inevitable end. That's not good design in my view. Pretty much all subsequent analysis of her scheme identifies a maze of possible "weak spots" at medium and long ranges, not unlike Hood, including the possibility that medium thickness plate might increase the probability of penetrating thicker plate behind it by unfavorably altering the path of the shell without actually slowing it down enough. Back to plate thickness, surely there comes a point where the plate is too thin (insufficient tensile strength) to deflect the shell before it actually punches through, even at very shallow angles, and it would depend on shell nose design if it digs in or turns away. I'm just wondering whether 1" was below that threshold in this case i.e. was Hood's engine room vulnerable to deck penetration even at shorter range.

I agree with Jamie, the battlecruiser label does not confer any mythical weakness and Hood could be (and has been) called a fast battleship. Her protection scheme is in many ways equivalent to ships of her generation (I only consider the Colorado class strictly superior) but the distribution of multiple armour thicknesses makes it very hard to predict at what ranges and angles which parts of the ship have valid immunity zones. But wasn't Hood's deck slope 2"? Not that it would have actually made a difference in the scenario being discussed. The 1" section is the main deck over the engineering spaces. I don't know how penetration of such thin plate works at very shallow angle of fall of the shell, but isn't one of the possible paths to the 4" magazine via this thin deck and the engine room bulkhead? In any case I'm not sure the slope was due to be upgraded. The additional armour would have extended the main deck outwards to meet the top of the belt and closed off a possible path to the slope, but the slope itself would have still been 2", no? Depending on target angle, the German 38cm could penetrate far more than 12" of belt armour at the ranges involved in the Hood scenario, and 2" of backing slope isn't going to stop something that got past that. The refit would have done nothing to change this path. Arguably, even PoW's belt might have been in trouble at the ranges Holland pushed to in that engagement. The RN obsession with plunging fire and closing the range was based on trials with their own 15" guns that had fairly low muzzle velocity. I suppose they had no way of knowing but charging in was precisely the wrong thing to do against the high muzzle velocity German guns.

Have you checked for 3D printed accessories? https://www.shapeways.com/product/35KPPU8W4/1-96-germany-3m-ha-rangefinder?optionId=61990171&li=marketplace I know that's the wrong scale but that designer lists some things in 1/350 as well and there is a comment on that rangefinder that you can request it in another scale. Might be worth a message.

I'm currently working on a different project also using the colours B5 and B6, I don't have access to primary sources but I've tried to guesstimate based on what I have. At the moment I'm looking at using Xtracrylix XA1125 "Intermediate Blue" for B5 and XA1026 "Azure Blue" for B6. I don't know how much that helps the OP, but what do you guys think of those as approximations?

I hope it's OK for me to post this here, it seems I'm not allowed to post in the "Reviews" section but I wanted to share this for those who are interested. Anyway, I recently bought some very nice 3D printed turrets in 1/700 for a few RN subjects from Micro-Master (https://www.shapeways.com/shops/micro-master). Pictures an more details here: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=85&t=164867

Thank you. I don't plan to branch out into another brand of paint but the FS numbers were very useful. Seems Xtracrylix 1005 Extra Dark Sea Grey is close to Humbrol 112. Humbrol's own Ocean Grey, Dark Sea Grey and Extra Dark Sea Grey to me look too neutral grey but from pictures online the Xtracrylix versions of those colours look like they have a nice blue tint, which is whay I'm looking for (and what I used to achieve with those dull dark blues I listed). The general theme here is I'm looking for medium and dark grey-blues where Humbrol seem to only have neutral greys or straight up strong blues.

Yes, another Humbrol Acrylics question from me. When I was still using enamels, I came very close to finalising a complete (personal, approximate) colour match chart for Humbrol colours to the various kind of things I work on. Unfortunately, switching to acrylics has thrown some of this out of the window because Humbrol don't have equivalents for all their enamels. Do we know if Hornby are actively working on expanding the range to fill existing gaps and any timescales on this? Alternatively, I've bought some Xtracrylics from Hannants and am generally impressed with how they paint on and turn out. I'd be happy to use these to fill gaps, if someone can help me with matches? Xtracrylics don't seem to have a full colour chart and it's hard to guess shade by name. Off the top of my head, some of the key Humbrol enamels that I can't find in Acrylic (and therefore need a substitute for) are: 77 Navy Blue 112 Field Blue 133 Brown 144 Intermediate Blue 145 Medium Grey Thanks!

It does seem that the synthetic "detail" brushes behave better and are easier to clean of acrylic gunk without destroying the bristles. Yet to try any of the soaking techniques because the brushes I was using when I posted were too far gone and the new ones aren't bad enough yet, but thanks for all the tips! I have a good repertoire at my disposal now when I need it and I feel much more comfortable with my paint choice

I use Humbrol Evoco which are not really luxury brushes but are claimed to be natural. I also have a set of their Detail brushes (the ones with the fat orange handle). They are synthetic but I've been treating them with extra care because as the name implies I need them fine. However, usually I only dip the tip a little for fine work and they're easier to keep clean than the Evoco that I use for longer periods and bigger surfaces. Next time I need new brushes I'll buy Coloro and/or the flat synthetic ones. Thanks! If the oven cleaner doesn't do it I'll look for some brush cleaner, acrylic doesn't seem too aggressive though so I'm hoping it will clean easily. Will probably try after my current project.

Alright, I'll give it a try to "revive" some of my brushes. Seems both your solutions don't involve added hassle during actual painting which is a big plus.

Aha, I've used oven cleaner as paint stripper before (Mr. Muscle here but should be equivalent), that seems like a reasonable idea. So do you use water for the immediate post-paint wash? Do you not stop to rinse during painting and how long are your painting sessions? For the alcohol, did you also mean using that as a cleaner only after finishing or also during?

I recently switched from Enamels to Acrylics and I've stuck with Humbrol as they are readily available and I have a catalog of personal colour matches. Anyway, overall I'm impressed with their coverage and general behavior with a brush (I only brush paint). I also re-discovered the joy in painting without the chore of solvent based cleaning or the nuisance of drying times. However, my brushes are suffering. I try my best to rinse them every couple of minutes while painting but even so they very rapidly become clogged at where the bristles go into the metal bit. I end up with splayed bristles and even after a thorough wash at the end (all using water BTW) the whole brush clumps and feels stiff. I'm close to accepting that the brush will just have to be another project consumable but I thought I would ask for tips first.

Interestingly, I found a few tins of 128 of the old Chinese batch at my local shop and bought one for testing. The paint was very badly separated but after a lot of scraping the bottom and mixing I got it to a usable state. The colour has a much more noticeable blue hue than the new UK batches, and it comes out closer to Matt, which I don't mind. To me it seems worth the effort to overcome the paint quality issues to get the colour I actually expect. Also you mentioned Ocean Grey. I used Humbrol 106 on a Spitfire and it looks mostly fine but is also a neutral grey, not a hint of blue that even RAF Ocean Grey should have, never mind USN one. I actually use Humbrol 144 for USN 5-O.