June 2016 L'ARSENAL long awaited subject is OUT

[bgire]

She had been delayed and delayed again but now she’s OUT:

1:700 scale HMS Jamaica


http://www.larsenal.com/hms-jamaica-1942-1-700-c2x20975184
209 resin parts
270 photo etched parts
29 brass turned parts



Commissioned on June 29th, 1942, HMS Jamaica was the sixth light cruiser of the "Crown Colony" or "Fiji" class of the 1938 Naval Program.



The Colony was the larger wartime class of light cruisers. Eleven ships were commissioned between 1940 and 1943. The Colony was a more compact and lighter design following the "Town" class prewar cruisers.




HMS Jamaica spent most of her eventful career in Arctic convoy protection between Iceland and Murmansk. Convoy PQ18 (1942), detached to cover Operation of the Barents Sea (1942), a refit in Portsmouth (Summer of 1943), Arctic convoys RA 54B, JW 54A, JW 54B and JW 55A. The Battle of North Cape (1943) when she operated with HMS Duke of York against the battleship Scharnhorst, finally firing torpedoes to finish the German ship. Arctic convoys JW57, JW58 and RA58. Operation Tungsten against the Tirpitz (July, 1944), Carried King George VI to the Channel Islands. (June, 1945). Transferred to Colombo (Ceylon) in 1945, refitted at Devonport in 1947, West Indies (1948) and Hong Kong (1949). She took part in the Korean War (1950-1952) and sailed back to the Mediterranean Fleet (1955-56) including the Suez Crisis and playing the role of HMS Exeter in the movie "The Battle of the River Plate". She was decommissioned and broken up in 1960.





The kit depicts HMS Jamaica as during the Battle of the Barents Sea which took place on December 31st, 1942. During this night she sailed with cruiser HMS Sheffield and intercepted a German force which was attacking the convoy JW 51B north of the North Cape.

The German destroyer Friedrich Eckholdt was sunk and the heavy cruiser Hipper damaged. This battle bring a critical outcome for the rest of the war, as following this failure on his operation Hitler almost decided to scrap his surface fleet and concentrate on submarine warfare and led to the resigning of admiral Raeder.

_Bruno