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Showing results for tags 'Barents Sea 1942'.
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Gidday All, I've decided to give a build of HMS Onslow a go, using one of the Airfix "Cossack" kits I have. HMS Onslow was Captain Sherbrooke's ship escorting the convoy JW-51B to Russia. His squadron consisted of five destroyers, two corvettes and a trawler when the they were attacked in the Barents Sea by the heavy cruiser Hipper (Kummetz) and three destroyers. The intention of Kummetz was to draw off the escorts and drive the convoy into the arms of a second German squadron consisting of the Panzerchiff Lutzow (redesignated a heavy cruiser) and three other destroyers. For over two hours Onslow and a sistership HMS Orwell held Kummetz at bay until Rear Admiral Burnett's cruisers HMShips Sheffield and Jamaica arrived and chased the German ships off. HMS Onslow was badly damaged and Sherbrooke severely wounded in the action, which won him a VC. I'll be using a grey hull with a damaged stern for the model. However, in the introductory photo below I've substituted another hull (blue-grey), because I'd already stated work on the grey hull before I took the photo. The drawing is from a book I have, "Sea Warfare" by Ure Smith. I've shrunk and enlarged the drawing to 1/600 and 1/300 scale. As you can see, the Cossack hull will need to be shortened. Due to the superstructures being molded to the deck I'll probably replace the decks, not sure yet. The bow needs a bit of work. AFAIK the Tribal class including HMS Cossack had more rake (the slope of the cut-water or extreme edge of the bow) than most other RN destroyers, including HMS Onslow. So I've started to alter the bow. Unfortunately I've re-inforced the inside of the bow join with Araldyte epoxy glue, which will make this a bit more difficult. I think I'll manage though. The bow of HMS Onslow also has a bit more sheer (the upward slope of the deck) than that of the Cossack kit, so once the rake is fixed I'll have a go at increasing the sheer too. A further complication is that I think the hull is molded about 4mm too deep. This makes the Airfix Cossack model look a little chunky I think, and not so sleek. Shortening the hull will exacerbate this so I'm going to have a go at fixing this too. Otherwise I could simply make a waterline model but I have a preference for full hull model ships. Well, that's it for now. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.