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The recent Fairmile craze has got me interested as well. I've been waiting for a kit of the 'B' and it duly arrived from NeOmega in the last few months. @Faraway has done a nice writeup of the contents on his build thread and I also posted them a while back here, so won't repeat. Suffice to say, it looks fantastic and I can't wait to get stuck in. Another in the (tedious for everyone but me) 'My Grandad's ship' series. He served on ML129 as part of the 3rd ML flotilla through 1941, rather ineffectively patrolling the Straits of Gibraltar. He was fortunate to return to the UK in December, as she was sadly sunk enroute to Malta in March '42, by which time he was in the escort destroyer Bramham; but he was able to catch up with his former flotilla in Malta at the end of the Pedestal convoy. These are the photos of her I could find, a couple from his collection and one IWM: fitting out at Mashford Bros, Cremyll, Devonport: Underway, captioned only 'ML129, 1941'. Those in the know that many of these early fairmiles were shoved out the door with whatever odds and sods could be found and you can see that it was hardly bristling with armament. And there is IWM A 7565, which could very well be taken at the same time; the Pennant flags and Ensign appear to match. I'm not quite ready to get started but I could do with information and help if anyone has it, so I figured the earlier the better. The first question is how to pose her. I'm not hugely fond of or good at the process weathering and sea bases (although modelling in waterline-centric 1/700, find myself doing most times), and models of this size can be quite nice as full hulls built 'clean' on stands. It'd be nice to show of the 'B's distinctive rounded hull and all the gubbins below that I usually don't have the chance to do. Having said all that, I do have the photos above and these below: Which would make for a nice little diorama I think given a match to the photos. The diorama option however, would need some figures. So, question 1: Anyone know of good RN figures in 1/144 scale? The kinds of figures, clothing I'd want are as you see above. I'd also need to find some pennant flags and a means of achieving a nice bow on the halyards. I think @robgizlu has some unobtainium wonderstuff wire, that I'll go and trace back. If anyone knows of such products I'd be very grateful for pointers. The next question is what colour is she painted? The obvious options, 507A, 507C (she was at Gib after all), perhaps a mid shade mix of the two; and the last wild card, could it perhaps be Mountbatten pink? My entire lack of any knowledge on this would lead me to believe any of those based on the range wide range of shades in the three photos; if anything I find 507C the hardest to square with what I see. As for the wild Mountbatten pink suggestion, here are I suppose the arguments that might support it: - Before moving to Gib, they appear to have been based at Plymouth at the same time that Mountbatten and the 5th DF were. I'm sure I've read it being referred to as 'Plymouth pink' somewhere whether thats a different thing or not. - Mountbatten and the 5DF escorted them to Gib and in fact seemed to put them through their paces. I've added some of his relevant writings to give this context below: - It's more of a disconnect, but I've seen posts that reportedly have researched evidence into some Fairmile Bs being painted mountbatten pink rather later, during the St. Nazaire Raid. So I'm not trying to push for Mountbatten pink per se, just presenting what I know, and wondering if anyone has suggestions. Anyway that's it for now, I'll get to actual modelling someday, but in the mean time, thought I'd throw those questions out earlier rather than later. Thanks for looking in. Andy

MGB 40 awaits a paint job and I'm awaiting parts for a defunct compressor. So...inspired by Kev Longshanks and his Dog boat build MGB658 I'm going to kick off my attempt at a Fairmile B. They were in many ways the unsung work horse in motor launches and were deployed in a miriad of roles including acting as navigation leaders to mark channels for landing craft to use in their approaches to the D-Day beaches - as represented by ML 196. Pictures of these comparatively rare types are hard to come by. I am indebted to Christian Sheppard-Capurro for passing on some pics This pic portrays ML or Q196 as she was on or about D-Day... Mark Smiths "Coastal Craft History Volume 3 - Motor Gun Boat, Motor Torpedo Boat and Fast Patrol Boat depicts Q196. It's an indispensible volume for anyone interested in British Coastal Craft of WWII as our volumes 1 and 2. Volume 4 is due and will specifically detail Fairmile As, Bs and Cs. Further references will include And unlike the Dog boats there are still a few extant originals of which RLM 497 is probably the best well known having served as a ferry and pleasure day boat around the Dartmouth estuary for many years, she now resides in Portsmouth and I believe will become part of the Naval museum Th hull comes courtesy of Christian at MTB hulls and is truly a thing of beauty. if you have any interest in coastal craft - check his site out - he does a huge number of different hulls in different scales and here it is against the HDML that he also supplied ( this is approximately Vosper MTB sized) As Longshanks reports with his Fairmile D - the moulding is superb with barely a blemish. The deck is loose and will need epoxying down which fits with my plans I'll also be using Coastal Craft Model products Coastal Craft Models from Martin Blundell which are uniformly excellent. And Thanks Also to Longshanks for his encouragement and help to date. If I make half as good a job as MGB658, I'll be delighted. More soon Thanks for looking Rob