PeterB

Actually Rob, you have just reminded me I have the old Airfix version somewhere, together with an early Mig 21 - I suppose they are both potential "Nordics". I might just dig them out if time permits. Pete

Thsi is my build of the Heller JA37 Viggen fighter. It is a reboxing of their original 1/72 Viggen which included the attack, recce and trainer versions and has a few new bits such as a modified tail and a gun pod. As was kindly pointed out to me the JA37 version also had an extra fairing under the wing - covering a flap actuator I suspect, but Heller missed that so I scratched them. I also added the missing warning beacon under the fuselage, and added pylons and Rb 71 Skyflash missiles to supplement the 4 Rb 24 Sidewinders. To brighten things up a bit I painted them as training rounds in bright green. As I was adding the finishing touches, Christer suggested I should add the belly drop tank as well. Heller provide this for the earlier versions and the gun pack replaced it on their JA37 instructions, but by changing it from 3 to 4 finlets, I was able to model the correct version for this plane and fit it. As we are in the middle of second major storm in just over a week, I was unable to take any outdoor shots, but these have come out quite well. It was an easy enough kit to build, though the decals were a bit shot, so thanks to Tim and John for the various spares they let me have, and thanks to the other modellers for their help with colour schemes and details. I make no claims as to accuracy, but it looks like a Viggen to me though the deflector plates for the thrust reverse are cleary moulded fully closed! That is another one I enjoyed in this GB, which seems to be heading for a pretty substantial number of builds already after only 4 weeks. Cheers Pete.

We have been having problems this weekend with the weather. Fortunately I am 200ft above the valley bottom so I haven't had the problems with the river overflowing unlike the poor souls in town, but the run off from the hills above me has left a couple of inches of mud over my steps and path. Look out over in Scandinavia, it is a nasty one and heading your way! Anyway, I have sprayed the Viggen and taken some indoor pics for the gallery. Here is one sample. It has gone together pretty well and is almost OOB. I have added the missing underside warning beacon and the fairing mentioned earlier, modified the tank so it could go under the gun pod, and added Rb 71 Skyflash and pylons. The Master probes are on and are amazingly unbent after the spraying. So 4 down and just the Gripen to go. As ever thanks for all the help. Pete

Hi Graham, Yes, they even went one step further and converted the back end of the Battleships Ise and Hyuga to carry 22 float planes, However I gather it was a waste of time as at least one of my sources says they did not have enough pilots and the "special float planes" whichever they were, were not ready in time. The also did it on the one and only "improved Agano" class light crusier Oyodo which was apparently built to carry 6 "large reconnaissance bombers" which again were never available. I am unclear exactly which floatplane these 3 ships were meant to be using - possibly the Seiran, but that was intended for use on the I-400 class subs AFAIK so perhaps they were hoping to build another type - any ideas? Later - the Osprey book on Japanese Battleships says that Ise and Hygua were intended to carry D4Y Judy dive bombers but they were in short supply. They were meant to supplement the carrier force with 44 dive bombers which could not land back on board so had to find a carrier or shore base - that or do a Kamikaze. Clearly they were getting desperate by then. Pete

Hi Jeff, Know what you mean. Even these small light cruisers had at least 1 plane, originally operating from a platform built into the front of the bridge. Eventually a more normal catapult was fitted at the back. Pete

After a short delay whilst I finished off my Viggen, the Gripen is back underway. I am going to have another try at spraying the border between the 2 greys on the nose - hope it works better than my attempt on the Viggen! I have started building and painting the missiles as well so this should not take too long to finish I hope. I have sanded down the bulge in front of the windscreen, but will have to do a little filing around the canopy by the look of it. I have used Xtracrylic "AMC Battle Gray" for the uppers as it is supposed to be FS1673. The unders are Light Compass Grey FS16375 as that is the nearest I can get. The instructions show the actual nose as being in Light Gull Gray FS36440 but looking at pics I cannot see any difference between it and the normal underside colour. The kit markings are for the same machine as the one Tim built, except for the fancy anniversary tail and upper fuselage ones. I may see if I can build a different machine if I can find a suitable pic. I note that the stencils are the Nato ones, though I have an aftermarket sheet with Swedish ones as well. Anybody know if and when they would have been changed on the JAS 39A? Cheers Pete

Hi Jeff, As you say the Japanese Light Cruisers get very little mention compared with the heavies. They were mostly used as flagships of destroyer flotillas and so were involved in a lot of the night actions, particularly around Guadalcanal. However, their relatively weak gun armament meant they did not deliberately get into the big shootouts that most people read about. Most of the early types I have mentioned survived until 1944 when they were effectively wiped out. Only one survived the war to be scrapped. The IJN seemed to be more impressed with the heavily armed 8" cruisers, and unlike the RN and USN did not build many more light cruisers - 5 "proper" ones, one experimental "oversized destroyer" (Yubari) and 3 curious "training cruisers" (Katori's) and all were seriously under gunned compared with their western counterparts, with a maximum of 6 x 6.1". Pete

PS, I came across a review of this kit on a website which I thought you might find interesting - the site has not been updated since 2017 and I suspect this review is somewhat older. "Historical Note: This British battleship had a surprisingly short career as a warship. Put into service in 1897 and scrapped in 1914 before the outbreak of WW1 she spent most of her time in service as a Royal Yacht and a tender to HMS Victory. She must not have filled the Admiralty with boundless confidence as to her capabilities. However, this ship is a great opportunity for the RN modeler to add a great looking black, buff and white battleship (or just buff and white as a Royal yacht) in immaculate condition to the great gray fleet! Kit Parts: this is an all resin kit with no photo etch. All parts are molded in light gray resin. The hull is a one piece casting that incorporates the lower superstructure. Once again Combrig has produced not only a beautiful, clean casting requiring no preparation other than washing, but they have again created a total gem with superfine detail. The other pieces are cast on pour plugs and extremely thin wafer and are also highly detailed and flash free. There are an incredible number of tiny, highly detailed parts in this kit. It is NOT for the beginner in resin. Careful handling is a must to get these tiny parts off of their stubs without damaging them. All parts necessary to construct this kit are included in the resin castings but I would suggest, at a minimum, substituting metal rod or tubing for the upper masts and yards. I know I'm too clumsy for these delicate pieces to work with them in resin and I know I'm not alone in this. This is an outstanding kit. As more pre-dreadnoughts appear on the market the PE makers are beginning to respond to their specific needs. You can now obtain ratlines for these ships from White Ensign Models and I'm sure more PDBB specific things will come out soon. Combine the ratlines with rigging and rails and a truly exquisite model can be built". This is the site link. http://www.modelerjoe.net/shipmodellist.html#Intro Pete

Hi Robert, Having built a good many 1/700 ships in my earlier years, I know that the light AA armament is always problematic. On the Japanese Waterline ships like the Jintsu I intend to build they are always a bit chunky with a scale barrel width far too great - the twin 25mm barrels should I guess be around 0.1mm diameter when in fact the kit ones are at least 0.5mm. The alternative PE sets are probably better but I imagine they will be a pain to bend into shape and then they will, as with the PE aerials and the like on planes, be somewhat 2 dimensional. I suppose I could try Gauge "0" piano wire which would look a bit better but it will be a real fiddle. As to the triple 13mm mg in front of the bridge - forget it! I seem to remember using lengths cut from pins on and least one of my old US battleship builds, though whether they were supposed to be 20mm, 40mm or even 0.5" I can't say. Best of luck with them. Nice to see a DE/Frigate as they are/were never very common kits although they did form a large part of the convoy escorts towards the end of the war. The nearest I got back then was a pair of the small wartime "economy" destroyers of the "O" class boxed by Skywave who are now Pit Road I believe. Pete

Hi Robert, Ship design, like most things is a compromise. In crude terms bigger means you can carry heavier armament (and/or more of it), but you need more materials, it takes longer to build and you need a larger crew to man it, therefore more cost. Also, the increased weight needs more powerful propulsion and that in turn increases the weight as does the larger amount of fuel needed - just like a plane really. I think the limiting factors initially besides cost were that they had problems producing big enough sheets of armour to avoid weakness caused by a lot of joints, many of the shipyards were not able to handle really large ships, neither were docks and in the some cases such as Germany canals were too narrow (their shipyards were inland as they had very little coastine) - that would later cause the US problems with the Panama canal too. Hydrodynamics of large ships were not fully understood, which added to the problems as they had to learn as they went along to a large extent as size increased. Won't go on as it is a complicated subject. Let's just say that the RN 1890 1st class battleships were around 400' long and displaced around 13500 tons, by 1900 this had risen to around 14500 tons, and by 1905 15700 with no significant change in length and speed around 18.5 knots. In 1906 Dreadnought came in at 527', 18000tons and the extra length enabled her to get 21knots. Iron Duke was 622' to carry 26770 tons at the same speed and the Queen Elizabeths were about the same weight, 25' longer and did 23 knots due to better propulsion systems. Projected post war designs would have been in the 45000 tons 800'+ range but the Washington Treaty killed them off. The "economy version" King George V class was around 38000 tons and 725' and did 28 knots. The progression in size was very fast and the length to beam ratio changed as they got longer and narrower. Your"2nd class" battleship Renown was about 390', 14000 tons and did 19 knots apparently AFAIK. Incidentally there are a number of ways of measuring length and displacement so other sources may disagree with my figures. End of lecture! Cheers Pete

I know it goes against common sense but the instructions say put the gear in before you close it up, and unless you want to indulge in surgery they are correct, as one of our colleagues discovered in a recent GB. Pete

Hi Rob, Apologies for hijacking your Belfast thread. Must be my computer but I cannot see NARN 34 on Jamie's site. Pete

Must be a computer thing Jamie as it is still not coming up when I search your web site. Not to worry. Better let Rob have his thread back - sorry mate!. Pete

Back in around 1970 I came across the Japanese 1/700 scale waterline ship series, which was a collaboration between 4 of the main Japanese kit makers – Aoshima, Fujima, Hasegawa and Tamiya, intended to produce examples of just about all classes of ships operated by the IJN during WWII. Initially each company was allocated a particular class and built at least 2 - one early and one late version. In the case of smaller classes such as Carriers and Battleships they usually built the whole lot. Later they introduced a small number of British, German and US ships, and other companies joined in such as Trumpeter and Matchbox. I built a lot over a 10 or so year period then gave up. However, there was one ship I needed to complete all the main IJN light cruisers – a Sendai class, and about 10 years ago I got one. I now intend to build it as part of this GB. There is not much in the box but it will give me something to do in between the various stages of my EA-6A. A little background seems appropriate. In very general terms, before WWI cruisers fell into 2 groups – large, heavily armed “protected or armoured” cruisers and the smaller “unprotected” cruisers with little or no armour and smaller guns. By the end of the war they mutated into 3 groups. The armoured cruisers generally were reduced in size and restricted by treaty to 8” guns max – these were the Heavy Cruisers. However some countries also built even larger versions which were Battlecruisers. The unprotected cruisers became Light Cruisers with max 6” guns. One of the more successful wartime classes of light cruiser were the British “Town” class and the follow up C Class, and the IJN brought out their own versions starting with what I will call the Tenryu Class – there is some debate about class naming with authors varying on which ship name to use! All the following data is from Anthony Watts Ian Allan book “Japanese Warships of WWII” of 1966 – length is between perpendiculars (pp) not waterline, displacement is standard not full load, ie no crew, stores, fuel and ammo. The 2 Tenryu's of 1918 were small ships of 3230 tons, 440 ft long pp and armed initially 6 single 5.5” guns and 6x21in Torpedo Tubes (TT) – I say armed initially as armament changed on all ships over a period of time. They were followed a year or so later by the 5 ship Kuma Class – 5870 tons, 490 ft pp, 7x 5.5” and 8x24”TT, and a couple of years after that the 6 ship Nagaras – 5170tons, 490ft pp, 7x5-5” and 8x24inTT. Following the one off experimental Yubari the last of the “Town”/C Class variants was to be the 6 ship Sendai class, but only 3 were build due to a combination of tonnage restrictions in the Washington Treaty and the decision to build something more modern. Their particulars were 5195 tons. 490ft pp, 7x 5-5in and 8x24inTT. The rearrangement of the boilers and turbines meant that they had 4 funnels instead of the three in the preceding classes. More once I start. Pete

Thanks for clarifying that Jamie. Might be worth having a look at your web page because there seems to be a gap between NARN 33 and NARN 36, which is why I could not see NARN 34! Of course both my computer and I are getting old so perhaps it is just me. Cheers Pete

Hi Kir, Never built any of these but I did try one similar one from I think Eagle - a short lived UK company who only existed for 4 years I believe - I built their KGV. In fact according to Scalemates they made a very useful range of 1/1200 warships based on the River Plate, Bismarck and Cape Matapan scenarios, including everything from destroyer escorts to battleships and carriers, and also merchants. Must really have been churning them out. There are still a few about on auction sites but some are at very silly prices - £450 for example! Good luck with the build - not sure my hands and eyes would be up to that scale - 1/700 is bad enough these days. Pete

Hi Rob, As Jamie says, working from B&W photos can be a problem. In the Morskie profile it looks like there are 4 colours - a very light grey, a medium sort of grey and a very dark grey (almost black) together with what I assume is B5/B15 blue. However Jamie's profile only seems to have dark and light grey plus one blue, though the blue on the bow may be a bit darker so maybe that is B6 as I am unclear what colour that actually is, and it may not be available anyway. I must confess I have not built any ships for a good few years so I thought he was still revising the range - usually only look at his aircraft and tank paints! At least if I do my Sendai Class IJN light cruiser Jintsu it will just be in a dark grey, though there again which arsenal version to use is unclear as Jamie stocks 4 variants. Her last refit seems to have been at Kure so I guess they would have repainted her in their dark bluish grey version. Best of luck with the build. Cheers Pete

Hi Orso, Don't know about your boxing but in my original Italeri one they seem to have got the numbering for the main undercarriage legs the wrong way round. Part 39 is the left one not the right as in the drawing - that or I am going mad which is always possible! Pete

Thanks for that Reini. So technically my Italeri JAS 39 should also be a recce version, but as the pod provided never went beyond the prototype stage it should really be a JA 39! One of our latest cats is named Jak but he is not a very good hunter (I am pleased to say) Don't mind them killing rats, but my wife prefers them not to kill birds. His brother Dax is however getting to be a good mouser - more slow and stealthy whilst Jak is a "charge at everything" type. Cheers Pete Pete

Quite right. The pre-dreadnoughts tended to be relatively short and wide in the beam which gave them plenty of internal space for propulsion and ammo etc and it made them more stable and therefore steadier gun platforms. In fact due to some curious thinking in the design department, some of the Armoured Cruisers such as Warrior and Minotaur were actually longer than the battleships of the period - they needed to be long and narrow to get higher speeds I think - less hydrodynamic drag. Similar sort of thing to Dreadnoughts vs Battlecruisers a bit later. Years ago I built a lot of 1/700 ships, and was surprised how relatively tiny the kit of the old Dreadnought USS Arizona was compared to later designs such as Washington and Alabama, but again that was a case of lengthening to allow faster speeds I think, amongst other considerations - the Iowa's being perhaps the ultimate expression. Pete

Interesting choice indeed. I wonder if this was the last "new" design to use the RR Merlin, though I believe it was originally intended to fit a Mamba turboprop engine. I also believe it was the last production aircraft designed and built by Boulton & Paul, as the P111 and P120 were both delta wing research aircraft. I will watch this with great interest. Cheers Pete

Hi Rob, Jamie is certainly the way to go for the paints but I gather he is in the middle of revising his RN colour range based on current research. His website shows both the dark and light greys - 507A and 507C to be exact, but watch out as he sells them in several different versions depending on the date - you need the ones covering late 1942 to mid 1944 when she was in that scheme. In July 1944 she went in for a refit ready for the Pacific, and did not re-enter service until I think April 1945 in a different simplified scheme. The Blues B5 and B6 may be a little more difficult as the site says B6 is discontinued so I don't know if he has any in stock or if he has replaced it with a different paint. As to B5 his research info on the site says it is now considered that this was the same colour as B15 and he sells it as NARN33 B5/B15. I dare say he will let us know if I am wrong. His articles on camo in the information section are well worth reading - nice one Jamie! Pete

Hi Reini, Thanks for that. I think this is the first time I have deliberately not modelled "war shots" but it was easier than all the bands and stripes on live missiles and I rather like the green against the grey. Just a quick question - is the Swedish "Jakt" from the same root as the German "Jagd" as in Jadgpanzer? Looking at the box in the above pic made me wonder. JA37 = Jaktviggen = "hunting/fighting Viggen" I presume. So busy building it the though only just occured to me! Cheers Pete

Shouldn't that be 3 trainer versions Enzo - normal NMF/DayGlo, , Red Arrows and Yellowjacks?😀 Pete

Hi Mate, Not normally but I am retired which helps a lot, and this time of year my other half can't find too much for me to do in the house and garden, so I try and get as many kits as possible out of my stash. I will no doubt have to slacken off before too long, once the weather improves - if it ever does with another storm inbound this weekend I see. Having said that, 4 in as many weeks, and possibly the Gripen by the end of next week is rather unusual even for me, and no doubt a tribute to this GB which I am enjoying enormously! I suspect my projected build(s) in the "In the Navy" GB will be rather slower as the kits are more complicated. Cheers Pete