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With the completion of the Batch 1 Type 42 destroyer, thought I'd jump to a Type 23 Frigate - HMS Westminster before doing a Batch 2 Type 42. Usual stuff... Box art Plastic, no waterline here . Instructions, clear sprue for helicopter, decals and some PE. Unfortunately, there are no railings which is a little disappointing. White Ensign do a set PE but the cost to get it be more than the kit and that wasn't cheap, so no railings . 'Cos I'll want to put her onto a sea base, not sure if I'll cut the hull down to waterline or make a hole in the base . Stuart

Here is my recently completed HMS Sheffield using the 1/700 Dragon/ Cyber-hobby kit. Built mainly OOB with a couple of corrections and was an experience to use 1/700 PE that was included in the kit. Paints were from Colourcoats, kit decals and was depicted in her final scheme before her demise during the Falklands Conflict. Build log here: Stuart

Hi All. I thought it was about time to do a couple of maritime builds before giving attention back to my scratch build of the Fushimi Maru. So what do have? The subject will be the Type 42 Destroyer, HMS Sheffield using the 1/700 CybeHobby kit. First, the stuff: The box. I will be building her as the waterline version. The plastic. Instructions, decals and PE. This will be an OOB build but like life, things are bound to be either incorrect or missing and will need to be remedied. I know very little of this type, so if the 'collective' spot something please tell and I will give it some deliberation. Stuart

My second build for this GB will be the Matchbox USS Indianapolis; 20220715_082939 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr In contrast to the subject of my first build thread, the relatively unknown USS San Diego, Indianapolis is a very famous (perhaps even infamous) ship, though sadly for very tragic reasons. A Portland class heavy cruiser (Indy and Portland being the only ships of the class), she was launched in 1931. Main armament was 9x 8in guns in three triple turrets. Indianapolis served with distinction right from the start of the war, escaping damage at Pearl Harbor as she was conducting a mock bombardment of Johnston Atoll. She served in most of the major campaigns in the Pacific, before, after an overhaul, starting down the path that would lead to her tragic end. She was selected to transport the enriched uranium (then half the world's supply), plus other parts for the Little Boy atomic bomb, destined for Hiroshima, to the island of Tinian. These were successfully delivered on 26th July 1945. Indianapolis then set out for Guam, where some (unknowingly lucky) crewmen who had completed their tours of duty left the ship. She set sail from Guam on 28th July, heading for Leyte. Sailing alone, en route she was spotted by the Japanese submarine I-58. Two torpedoes struck her on the starboard side, one at the bow, and one amidships. The vessel went down in only 12 minutes, taking with her 300 of her crew. This was tragic enough, but 900 or so crew survived to enter the water and await rescue. Unfortunately, due to the secret nature of her mission, the ship was not reported as overdue, and it wasn't until three and a half days later that the survivors were spotted by the crew of a PV-1 Ventura. Not being a flying boat, all the crew could do was drop a life raft, report the position and radio for assistance. By this time, out of the original 900, only 316 were still alive, due to a combination of dehydration, exposure, and, most famously, shark attacks. Although this aspect definitely was a factor, it may have been exaggerated over the years. The number of men said to have been killed by sharks ranges from a few dozen to 150, and it may well have been that sharks were mainly attacking sailors who had already died. Whatever the real circumstances, it must have been absolutely horrific to be floating in the water, desperately cold and thirsty, only to see shark fins appear, and it is this that most people now think of when the topic of the Indianapolis comes up, helped no doubt by Quint's memorable monologue in Jaws. First to arrive at the scene was a PBY Catalina, which, against orders, landed on the sea and took on board 56 sailors. Not being able to take off in this condition, the Catalina became a lifeboat until rescue ships arrived. The plane would end up too damaged by her ordeal to take off, so once the survivors and crew had been removed, it was sunk by gunfire. Two survivors would sadly die later in hospital. USS Indianapolis would remain undiscovered until 19th August 2017, when she was found at a depth of 18,000 feet (5,500 metres), well preserved, but with her bow broken off. Just hoping I can do this great ship justice with my model!

Hello all, this will be my main entry into this GB. My good Lady Wife very kindly bought me this for last Christmas, how she knew I wanted it I know not, but when the parcel arrived from Starling Models she was very quick off the mark and grabbed it out of my hand and said "that will do for your Christmas present. How much do I owe you?" Well, I was honest and truthful and did not make a fast buck, and did not charge her for the postage, only the kit. I knew it was going to be a complex kit when I ordered it, but, upon opening the box on Christmas Day 2021, I thought "Gulp!", put it away in one of my stash places, and waited for a suitable GB to rear it's wonderful head. The reason is that I find if I try and build anything too complex, I can easily get bogged down and go under, but if my friends here on Britmodeller keep chiming in with encouragement, help and advice, I can usually pull something out of the bag and am more adventurous. This is what I have chosen to build: A good, solid start, very well packaged. There was bubble wrap and folded tissue paper inside to protect the components. It has a high quality instruction guide with colour coding to show etched or resin parts. It also shows you to build in sub-assemblies which I will try to follow. It may well make painting and attaching the parts easier, but I am a little concerned about crushing the delicate etch when I try to fit the assemblies to the hull. There is a superb etched frame, and all the parts are numbered and lettered to correspond with the instruction guide. That is not a sample bottle, but it does contain some goodies, notably turned brass mast uprights - I will need to make my own ancillary parts for masts and cranes. The hull is very well detailed, but has some very delicate detailing, which I hope I will not break. The superstructure parts again show very nice detail, there is just a hint of resin flash here and there but nothing untoward. And finally, A myriad of small, delicate components which were the main contributors to me putting the kit away! Some parts had broken off the pour blocks, but they are all in a plastic takeaway box with the lid firmly sealed for safety. Well, that is the introduction, roll on the start! I am so looking forward to starting these builds. As usual with one of my complex builds, I may well say what I am going to do next to the kit, but if I say something which would be a serious boo-boo, please let me know, any advice and help will be greatly appreciated. Good luck with all of your builds, Ray

To complete my trio of Matchbox ships, I will be building the Matchbox USS Fletcher, a kit I actually received for Christmas. Its a noticeably smaller box than for San Diego and Indianapolis; 20221228_111834 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr USS Fletcher was the name ship of a class of destroyers that would eventually consist of 175 vessels, with some claim to being the best all-round destroyers of WW2, due to their combination of armament, range and speed. They would perform every task undertaken by destroyers, from anti-submarine (sinking 29 Japanese submarines), to anti-aircraft to surface action, with many of the ships having long post war careers, not only with the US Navy, but also with the navies of, amongst others, Greece, Brazil, West Germany, Argentina and Turkey, with 2 even seeing service with the Japanese. The last one in service left the Mexican Navy in 2001. Nineteen were lost during the war, with 6 more damaged and not repaired. Four Fletcher class destroyers still exist, three in the US (The Sullivans, Kidd and Cassin-Young) and one in Greece (Velos, ex-USS Charette). Fletcher herself was launched in May 1942 and would serve throughout the war in the Pacific, eventually earning 15 battle stars, plus another 5 in Korea. Whilst conducting shore bombardment off the Philippines in February 1945, she received a hit which killed 8 of her crew. One, Elmer C. Bigelow, would posthumously be awarded the Medal of Honor for his efforts in fighting the fire. During the Korean War, she participated in the Inchon landings. Fletcher actually appears in the 1960 film "The Wackiest Ship in the Army" starring Jack Lemmon, and also as part of some stock footage used in "Down Periscope". She was eventually decommissioned in 1969, and scrapped in 1972.

OK, so it's not actually Christmas Day, but we are still very much in the festive season, plus one of the aforementioned ships was a Christmas present. So, I would like to do a triple build of these three Matchbox US Navy ships; USS San Diego USS Indianapolis And to round off the trio, USS Fletcher No idea when I will actually get started on these, as I'm in the middle of 2 half tracks plus I have a thread in the KUTA build, but I'm really looking forward to getting them underway!

Well, it seems I have well and truly caught the shipbuilding bug! I've been enjoying my trio of Matchbox US Navy ships so much, I have been looking to add more from the Matchbox marina! Won this off the Bay of E at the start of the week for £7. 20230126_204031 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr Not exactly the 99p that it has obviously sold for previously, but still a good price! Can't say I am too familiar with German destroyers, though having done a bit of obligatory research, it seems that the Z23 class (Narvik was the name the Allies knew the class by) was notable for having relatively heavy armament for a destroyer, in the form of 5.9in guns, with one twin and three single mounts. The subject of the Matchbox kit is Z38, which seems to be mostly well known for having been taken over by the Royal Navy after the war, and renamed HMS Nonsuch. It was used for testing of the effects of underwater explosions, and contrary to what was expected of her, she broke in half during the first test. Here is the back of the box, showing a rather plain scheme; 20230126_204042 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr Two classic Matchbox sprues: 20230126_204109 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr And 10 stages of construction; 20230126_204135 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr Same as with my other three ships, got the two hull halves together, and dry fitted the deck; 20230126_205630 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr All four turrets done, 1 twin and 3 singles. These are slightly more of a faff than with the other 3 ships, as you actually also need to attach the turret bottom, once the barrels are in place. The turret bottoms for the single guns are extremely small! 20230126_224745 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr All superstructure sections assembled; 20230126_224759 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr And here she is with everything dry fitted; 20230126_225127 by Dan Hardy, on Flickr That is her pretty much at the same stage now as San Diego, Indianapolis and Fletcher.

It was always my intention to try and squeeze a cheeky little destroyer build into this GB if I was able to finish my first one, but the it occurred to me I'd stand a better chance of getting it finished if I were to start sooner! Since I'm already building HMS Hermes, it seemed fitting that the destroyer be HMAS Vampire, who while escorting the carrier during her final voyage, was also sunk. Vampire was a flotilla leader of the old V class, produced at the end of the first war, and while old, these ships were capable and contributed throughout WW2. Vampire herself had been transferred to the Royal Australian Navy between the wars and served in the Mediterranean initially. However, by mid 1941 her age was beginning to show and was released to Singapore for a full refit. I suspect that is when she was given this scheme: Vampire was present at the sinking of the Prince of Wales and Repulse, and continued to serve in the Indian Ocean until her final voyage alongside Hermes in April 1942. I'm fortunate that Tamiya make a relatively new kit of this very ship, and while I haven't got on top of how much her final configuration differs from that in the box (the camo scheme at least is for an earlier period), I don't anticipate a lot of modifications. This is a 'proper' Tamiya tool, rather than a repop like the o class. The kit looks really nice. The moulding is sharp and the masts are remarkably slender. I may even opt not to replace these. Tamiya have done that propellor thing they do, with the main armament locating into pliable sleeves to allow them to rotate. Flags (which look rather large) appear to be printed on tracing paper, which may look a little cartoony, but we'll see. There's something very satisfying to me about these simple little kits and their nice compact boxings. Limited start has been made, the bottom hull is trimmed and glued, I think I'll leave the deck dry fitted for now before I decide whether it will be easier to paint in isolation Ships are so satisfying to build, none of this misery of having to fuss around with cockpit painting right at the start. Andy

Finally decided on this one, despite having amassed a small hoard of reference material on escort carriers, which was the other option. I've always been quite taken by the pointed flight decks of the Hermes and Eagle, and the fully enclosed and flared bow is particularly striking to my eye at least. Unluckily for Aoshima, Flyhawk released an (apparently) much better kit at about the same time, but this one caught my eye at the LMS and I figure it's better to buy local. The plan is to be pretty lazy and build it OOB from the instructions, in the hope that it might free up some time for a second build in this GB. A little background for those who know as little about her as I did at 9am this morning (apologies for any errors for those who actually know what they're talking about, I'm very happy to be corrected). HMS Hermes was the world's first carrier to be built as such 'from the ground sea up', rather than as a conversion. Owing to the experimental nature of ship based air operations at the time, the RN didn't have a great idea what they were doing, and construction took until 1924 with many changes of configuration along the way. Some artefacts of the bygone era remained though, including the rather anachronistic 5.5" anti-ship guns built into her side in a style evoking the pre-dreadnaughts, along with a massive battleship-style gunnery control tower to direct them. The open stern and quarterdeck is also a result of intial designs being focussed on recovering seaplanes straight in through the aft hangar doors, with a flexible deck that could extend below the waterline. Her small size and lack of petrol storage limited the size of her air wing, and she saw wartime service in the Med and Indian Ocean before her sinking in April 1942, when caught without her aircraft, and trying to flee Trincomalee in anticipation of the raid on Ceylon by the bulk of the Japanese fleet carriers. The kit is for her configuration at her sinking in 1942. The later wartime camouflage appeals to the modeller as both adding visual interest and being easier to 'hide behind'. A certain part of me would prefer her in a pre-war configuration on the China Station, but I don't have the aircraft for that, nor I suspect the skill at pulling off those acres of white paint. Still, having avoided work most of the morning by looking at various sites and the flyhawk instructions, it doesn't seem to be a massive change in configuration, since it seems that most of her planned wartime refits were never started. EDIT: Right so a first foray into the box and what to do we have? First impressions are actually pretty good. I had expected (given the unflattering comparisons with the flyhawk kit that I'd seen made; along with some similarly unflattering comments about Aoshima ship kits of the past), some vague outlines with a few simple nondescript styrene dumplings to stand in the correct position for various guns, masts and whatnot. Really though it looks a fair bit better than that. The satisfyingly deep box has a nice picture of a PE fret on the side, but my Kanji-fu wasn't up to realising that it's an advert for the upgrade kit. Not that it would've changed my purchase but heyho. You can just see a big metal plate under the box which is clamped to the waterline base for some stability. A nice touch. The hull detail is a little textured but sharp enough. Print sharpness, gate design and so on seem pretty good to me at first glance. Guns are always a bit of a weak point in 700 scale ships but these little 5.5" and 4" look pretty sharp for IM styrene. What I suspect are Oerlkons to the right are a little marginal, but I think I have some nice Starling resin ones, or indeed some leftover PE origami versions from IBG destroyer kits. A random solitary pair of swordfish included on these frames. Some madcap slide moulding went into the crane, which is hard to believe was cost-effective, but it looks pretty nice for styrene. Then oddly there are two copies of a frame from their Ark Royal kit. From what I can make out, they don't seem to be used for much more than a few lowly carley floats in this kit. The detail looks a little less sharp on these and the gate design is noticably less well defined. Still, lots of nice serviceable 4.5" turrets, directors, octo pompoms, quad .50cals, anchors and outriggers. Possibly my perspective on this kit is somewhat influenced by the unholy reaction of asian-scottish genes to the sight of free stuff. Roundels look a little fried eggy. I think I might have some better AM ones lying around. The final bag contains a couple of frames with 4 more swordfish; two folded and two unfurled. I also have a copy of Flyhawk's WW2 Royal Naval Aircraft I (only partly obtained with this build in mind). The Flyhawk stringbags have some excruciating looking PE props and struts, where the Aoshima are rather simpler, and while the plastic also looks a little better, the comparison is not horrific from Aoshima's perspective. Flyhawk to the left, Aoshima to the right. Given my history with these nutty flyhawk superdetailed addons, the Aoshima ones will probably look the better once I'm through with them. 13 pieces for a wee 1/700 aircraft is getting pretty silly. So looks pretty good so far, I'm raring to go but with the weekend comes kids, kids' birthday parties, playdates and all the excurciating things that go with it. Still in the post are some Eduard crew figures that I've never tried before, and some more reference material. Andy

Trumpeter is showing a 1/700 Queen Elizabeth class carrier in their latest catalogue, item 06751.

My latest finished model. Is a beautiful detailed kit, even if it isn't the deluxe version which should be even more detailed. One anchor disappeared on the carpet never to be found again.

My latest finish is this tiny 1/700 coastal defense ship used by Thai navy just before WWII. HTMS Thonburi was built in Japan for Thailand. She and her sister, HTMS Sri Ayutthaya, were commission in 1938. Together, the two sisters represented the largest surface units of Thai navy until long after WWII. Packed with 4 7.9inch guns on such a small hull, they had a very respectable fire power. They had such an aggressive appearance that the local people called them battleship. Thonburi was engaged by a French light cruiser at the battle of Ko Chang, during Franco-Thai war, in January 1941. Caught nearly unprepared, Thai navy lost two torpedo boats sunk while Thonburi was heavily damaged. She later capsized in shallow water. Although salvaged later, she was never returned to combat ready status, serving as a floating headquarter until decommissioned. Her superstructure and fore turret are preserved as a monument. Seed hobby released a resin kit of Thonburi in 2020. The resin parts are very well-cast and easy to assemble. The supplied PE and turned gun barrels are also very good. However, the deck is lacking in detail. I tried to add deck as many deck fittings as I could based on limited reference. Overall, this is a quick and enjoyable project. I can recommend it to anyone looking for a ship model from a lesser known navy. Nanond

My last finish is this 1/700 IJN Shimakaze from Tamiya. Good kit, it's been fun making her. A pre-painting shot first. Nanond N.

Hello all, Firstly, my apologies for disappearing off the ship scene for so long. I’m really an aircraft modeller that caught the ship bug some time ago but, although I was pleased with what I produced, I was always disappointed with my rigging at the end. I could never really get it to the same standard as the rest of the build. I’m also a perfectionist - that doesn’t mean I build perfectly - just I’m always disappointed at the end of a project! Anyway, it left me falling out of love with naval subjects and my FlyHawk Bismarck and Scharnhorst kits were left gathering dust in the stash. However, I recently saw a link for the upcoming FlyHawk HMS Hood and that re piqued my interest as the whole ‘Hunt the Bismarck’ story has always fascinated me - then I saw the recent build on here of the FlyHawk Bismarck by Haneto. I was super impressed by the rigging! Anyway, I’ve suddenly got my Naval mojo back and I’ve dragged the Bismarck out of the stash! And here she is - FlyHawk 1/700 FH1132S Deluxe edition: I wanted to finish her in the Hood encounter scheme, but when I got the kit originally I had some masks made up for the deck swastikas and I really want to use these (love a bit of bling), so I think I will have to build her as the ‘Operation Rheinübung’ version with the Hull stripes. Another reason to build is the imminent arrival of a display cabinet. I’ve never had that before and all my previous builds end up in a box, then the bin, but I’m now determined to actually keep my finished models, dust free(ish) and on display. As ships are so susceptible to handling damage it will be nice to know all the effort expended in building will actually have some meaning for once (well that’s the plan anyway ). With previous builds I made them waterline, but I think this will be fully hulled for the cabinet. I’ve got a Blue Wox deck… And the usual heavy tomes of slightly daunting instructions.. massively complicated by the PE! These FlyHawk kits are real modelling gems aren’t they? I have brass stands but, on reflection, I think these are too big for this scale, so I may just sit the finished model on a simple black Perspex base, luckily it’s flat bottomed. Here’s the intended colour scheme… And I’ve found a nice set of computer generated images online that show lovely detail and colour…. Any pitfalls I should be looking for? When is the Hood deluxe model available and from where? I did email Mike at Starling Models but had no reply? Any tips, criticism welcome, I always want to improve my modelling - I’m not proud! Can’t wait to get stuck in! I hope you’ll have me back Thanks for looking in, Guy

PSA poor attempt of the PALLISER....need some extra photo etch from somewhere especially for the Omni directional HF ? Antenna. Please critique all welcome

Having gotten the Titanic for Christmas and not being too keen on modelling a subject that so many lost their lives on ( generally I don’t like to model subjects where I know someone died). I’m going to convert the kit to the Olympic, the only one of the White star trio to have a long career before being scrapped in the thirties. With the added distinction of having sunk a German submarine. I’m going for the Dazzle camouflage the Olympic wore while serving as a troop transport. Sprues. Even with the small scale it’s a fairly large kit. Step one will be to figure out the best way to modify the A Deck ( the most obvious difference between the two ships) then get a proper handle on the rest of the modifications needed.

Ever so steadily, Flyhawk is working through the list of ship kits they announced in 2021. It appears the HMS Iron Duke is now available in 1/700. The model looks like it will be spectacular.

This is my Soviet submarine project 701 NATO name Hotel III from OKB Grigorov in 1/700 scale. Very nice kit, the only bad thing was that the build finished very quickly, as they were only few parts but I enjoyed all the 2 minutes of it

Hi, this is a build of HMS Bramham, a Hunt type II destroyer in 1/700 scale. This has been built from the IBG kit, in this case entirely from the HMS Zetland boxing. I had intended to have this finished in time to commemorate the 80th Anniversary of Operation Pedestal, the crucial supply convoy to Malta in August 1942, in which she played a significant role. Unfortunately I've overrun by a few weeks, but better late than never! It's a personal build as well, as my Grandfather was serving on her at the time as young Sub-Lieutenant. He would sketch the ship for me on occasion, and it would make regular appearances in my childhood drawing books, no doubt each time diverging further from reality to sprout missile launchers and lightning bolts down the side. I feel a bit strange talking self indulgently about this model first when really it's of no importance compared with the gravity of the subject matter. However, this being a modelling forum, I suppose I should start with the model, but for those interested in the history and some of his writings on the subject, I've opted to put that in the next post, so please feel free to skip that if it is of no interest to you. So specifically the build, this is my first ship build since returning to the hobby (although I know I rather roughly glued together without paint some old Airfix 1/600 kits back in the day). It being a relatively simple kit and an important model to me, I had intended to go the whole hog and upgrade it with the Shelf Oddity PE and various Flyhawk gubbins. However it quickly became clear first that my embryonic modelling skills were not equal to the task, and second that all the constant planning, checking references, making notes and apprehensive stalling were unlikely to yield any finished kit this side of the next ice age. I'd also put a little entirely unnecessary pressure on myself to get something out for the aforementioned anniversary, which was unlikely to lead to a enjoyable experience. So instead what we have is a mostly OOB build, completed with a deliberate lack of care, attention or sense of shame! A first attempt or prototype, if you will, built to the mantra of 'rubbish but fun'. There are many things that didn't turn out quite right and were I wanting to do a job to my satisfaction, I would go back and change or redo. So my apologies for putting such a rough model up for RFI! My hope is that, having thoroughly enjoyed carelessly bulldozering straight past any mistakes, and having learned the lessons from this build, I'll one day go back and update this thread when I've made version 2 with rather more care. With that in mind, it's an open invitation for any and all criticism, this being a learning experience and a model that I set no great store by; being a total beginner to ship modelling, I'd rather know what doesn't look right or hasn't worked so I can do it differently in the future. So yes mostly OOB, with addition of some rather nice Starling Models 4" turrets, pom poms and Oerlikons. There's a little scratch here and there, most notably a steel rod replacement for the oversize mast and some rather dodgy Type 285 radar aerials from chopped up PE bits. The kit is finished with a combination of Gunze primers and matt varnish, Tamiya and Colourcoats paints, and some rather over-enthusiastic oil paint washes and weathering, which turned out to be impossible to claw black without repainting entirely (turns out the matte varnish just ate the wash up and spread it indiscriminately around). Any pointers how to do a detail wash onto matte without just wicking the whole surface with grime? Anyway, it's my intention to practice building a sea base for her, but that being so far beyond my skills, and with time ticking, I will leave that for another day. The RFI can be found below, and some writings about the Operation by my Grandfather in the following post. Thanks very much for looking in! Cheers, Andy A little escort destroyer in this scale really is tiny. I was amazed on opening the (rather large) box. Here's it next to generic 1/72ishness

My entry for this GB is Trumpeter’s 1/700 Liberty Ship, the SS John W. Brown. Launched in 1942, the SS John W. Brown made 13 voyages to the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean. Was present at Anzio and part of the invasion force of southern France. After the war carried cargoes to help rebuild Europe and returned American troops to the US. After serving as a training ship, the John W.Brown is now a museum ship in Baltimore. More information can be found here. https://www.ssjohnwbrown.org I will be building this OOB as a waterline model using the Great Escape Option, due to having a number of activities planned across the weekend.

Converted to the D-Class HMS Daring with a bandstand cut from scrap plastic card. It was necessary to fabricate the two 2pdr guns on the signal deck and searchlights atop. Pavanes are moulded into the stern deck. I removed them with a sharp scalpel. I used some left-over etch in my spares box. I scratched the 3in. AA with circular platform. I applied 8” serial letters from Ventura Decals sheet V7252 and added some railings left over from the Niko kit.

On 10 February 1940 HMS Daring joined the Third Destroyer Flotilla in Scapa Flow, which was assigned to escort duties. On 18 February 1940 she was escorting Convoy HN12 from Bergen, Norway to Methil in Scotland, commanded by Commander Sydney Alan Cooper, RN. At 0354 hours (Berlin time) Daring was approximately 40 nautical miles east of the Pentland Firth. German Submarine U-23, commanded by Otto Kretschmer, torpedoed HMS Daring at 58o39’N 01o40’W. HMS Daring capsized and sank very quickly after her stern was blown off. 157 of the ship’s company were lost, including Albert John Clarke, service number C/JX 137478. He was either a Leading or Able Seaman and was 19 years of age. He was my mother's uncle. HMS Thistle, a British submarine, witnessed the attack and rescued five men from the sea, they were the only survivors.

Dear Fellow Modellers I completed the Flyhawk HMS Legion earlier in May but was not satisfied with the results, so did some more photos today. As some of you may know, HMS Legion took off many of the crew of HMS Ark Royal when she was torpedoed in the Eastern Mediterranean on 13th November 1941 Hope you like it? Andrew

Dear Fellow Modellers I finally completed the Graf Spee. The Panzerschiff Admiral Graf Spee needs no introduction in the community of Naval historians, nevertheless the inter-war Panzerschiff concept remains one of the most radical of the pre-war period. . The design was extraordinarily radical with two battleship turrets carried aboard a light cruiser hull and powered by 8 MAN diesel engines. The design was so tough on weight that the ships were slightly underweight and needed ballast. MAN wished they could have been allowed more weight to have produced heavier, more robust diesels. The result was a ship with extraordinary range potential, and with the help of auxiliary supply ships, to operate distant ‘cruiser warfare’. In the new era of radio direction finding, signals intelligence, aircraft reconnaissance and radar, cruiser warfare turned out to be not viable. The Trumpeter 1/700 kit is now rather old and shows its age. This model has 3-D printed turrets from Micromaster, barrels from Master, ships boats, searchlights, light AA, paravanes, reels all from Flyhawk. The characteristic shuttered scuttles on the upper deck have been laboriously added from a Lion Roar set. The masts are all scratch built brass Hope you like it? Andrew