HMS Manchester

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

1 hour ago, Graham Boak said:

Just realised that the reason why I'm having so much difficulty with the forward superstructure on Newcastle is because I didn't narrow the deck of Belfast to fit the Tiger Hull, but let the hull spring out a bit.  That means that the superstructure does not reach the sides of the hull, as on the earlier ships.  I'm considering cutting out the deck and starting again on that bit, but that doesn't seem too likely without damage.  So for anyone else following this route, narrow the deck (which means sacrificing some detail) or completely rebuild the forward superstructure.  Bad language.

 

Hmm.  What's the L'Arsenal resin kit of Sheffield like?  I have their Colossus, so I suspect it is gorgeous.

 

I've not seen it, so I can't comment from experience. I suspect Sheffield is highly likely to be done in plastic in the next few years, most likely by Flyhawk and if they do that, there's no point in getting a resin one! I'm prepared to wait for things as I've got loads to build anyway. Flyhawk's Penelope is keeping me busy for now.

 

thanks

Mike

[dfqweofekwpeweiop4]

3 minutes ago, Chewbacca said:

I'm slightly confused what you're trying to do.  From a quick check of Wikipedia (saves digging the better reference books out but I do concede they may be inaccurate, BELFAST's beam was 63ft 4 in, while TIGER is 64ft, so in effect TIGER is broader in the beam in 1/600 scale by 0.3mm.  Of course the earlier Towns were slightly narrower in the beam at 61ft 8 in but even that's only 1mm.  That of course assumes that the Airfix hulls are accurate (should be 32.5 for TIGER and 32.2 for BELFAST)

 

But the key thing is that the Batch 1 and 2 Towns had a very different fwd superstructure to both the Batch 3s (BELFAST) and TIGER in that the earlier Town superstructure came right out to the edge of the hull, the later ships both had a waist.  I think you are looking at rebuilding the fwd superstructure I'm afraid, but seriously it's not too difficult.  Most challenging part I found was fairing the extensions into the curved fwd screen to make them look seamless.

 

HMS Belfast's beam is 69ft. She was rebuilt and bulged after her back was broken by a magnetic mine in 1939. After re-construction, Belfast was the RN's biggest cruiser at 11550 tons std displacement.

 

thanks

Mike

[Chewbacca]

51 minutes ago, Mikemx said:

 

HMS Belfast's beam is 69ft. She was rebuilt and bulged after her back was broken by a magnetic mine in 1939. After re-construction, Belfast was the RN's biggest cruiser at 11550 tons std displacement.

 

thanks

Mike

Agreed, across the bulges.  But that doesn't affect the beam at deck edge which would have been as built.  Having just checked Friedman (which I would say is about the best reference for WW2 RN cruisers)it confirms she was 63ft 4in.

[Graham Boak]

I have Belfast at 66ft without bulges, according to Whitely.  Which makes it 52 inches wider than Newcastle, or nearly 1/10 of an inch in 1/600.  The Belfast deck is indeed wider than the Tiger hull, which is also wider than Newcastle but considerably less so.  On the model, the Belfast superstructure is about 1/5 of an inch narrower than the deck..  (Raven and Roberts quote 63 ft 4 in for all, as far as I can see.  So I'm ignoring that.)   I was indeed assuming that the forward superstructure was the same width on all the ships, because it seemed (to me) very unlikely that this very important structure would have been narrowed and hence reduced in volume at a time when internal volume was under desperate pressure.  Or perhaps the design was too early for that to be realised?

 

Measured at the rear of the forward superstructure, I have a dimension equivalent to 65ft for the Belfast deck in the Tiger hull.  Allowing for the actual widest part to be slightly further aft, that seems close enough to the 66ft width for me.  (Which would make it too wide for the 63ft 4 in, too.)   However the B gun deck is only 55ft, which is still some way short of the 61ft 8in true(?) width of the Newcastle hull.  Oh dear.  It isn't just the B deck that has to be widened, but also the (signal?) deck above that.  I assume that the central bridge tower over that will have been the same size.

 

My concern regarding the potential (and presumed) Flyhawk kit is that the ones that have already been released appear to have far too many tiny tiny pieces for my failing fingers and eyesight, not to mention a reliance upon etched brass.  I fear it may be a few decades too late for me to properly appreciate.  I would like to know your opinion of the Penelope, bearing that in mind.

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

3 hours ago, Mikemx said:

 

There's loads of Royal Navy ships in the pipeline in 1/700 and the Flyhawk kits are best by a long distance! My advice is to wait to see if anyone does HMS Manchester or one of her sisters. If you can't, L'Arsenal of France do a resin kit of HMS Sheffield, which is probably the closest you'd currently get to Manchester (or indeed the old WEM Sheffield if you can find one).

 

Someone mentioned the Colony class cruisers, L'Arsenal also did HMS Jamaica in 1/700 as well as Sheff.

 

If you want ships built in Hebburn - try Flyhawk's 1/700 HMS Legion - I have it and it's an amazing kit. Flyhawk also do HMS Naiad (which you could maybe convert into Cleopatra if you wanted a 2nd Dido). Flyhawk previously announced they will be doing HMS Kelly.

 

Also of note - WEM used to do HMS Sussex, Tamiya do the E class, so HMS Electra? IBG of Poland will be doing G and I class destroyers - so Greyhound, Imogen and Imperial might be possible.

 

thanks

Mike

 

Imperial seemed to have minimal modifications before her loss so depending on the I class kitted by IBG it should either be easy or a pain in the backside to do

[Graham Boak]

IBG are doing H, G and I, but just how the kits will differ between each other we've yet to see, other than that we are promised different year options.  They are doing Glowworm, which can't have had many changes.  Also Harvester 1941, Hotspur 1943, Ilex 1942, Ithuriel 1942, and another G which I forget.  Garland?  I may be being a little bit cynical there, but three new hulls seems a little too good to be true.  (As a possible guide, just what were the differences between their Hunts?)   See this for some of them http://www.ibgmodels.com/IBG_models_KATALOG.pdf

[Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies]

If dead set on Imperial there would be enough bits between them to arrive at a Brazilian H bridge and 4 x 4.7in QFs with G class funnels and davits on the stern for an early war I class. The aft funnel was cut down fairly early on on remaining I classes to improve AA arcs of fire.

 

If I managed to hack about a resin Brazilian H in 1/350 to make Imperial doing it from 1/700 injection kits will be fairly straight forward (he says!)

[Tony C]

On 12/08/2018 at 22:33, Graham Boak said:

 Manchester was the only "Town" painted Mountbatten Pink. 

 

PINK?

PINK?

PINK?

In His Majesty's Royal Navy?

 

It’s not Operation Petticoat, you know!

 

[Chewbacca]

22 hours ago, Graham Boak said:

I have Belfast at 66ft without bulges, according to Whitely.  Which makes it 52 inches wider than Newcastle, or nearly 1/10 of an inch in 1/600.  The Belfast deck is indeed wider than the Tiger hull, which is also wider than Newcastle but considerably less so.  On the model, the Belfast superstructure is about 1/5 of an inch narrower than the deck..  (Raven and Roberts quote 63 ft 4 in for all, as far as I can see.  So I'm ignoring that.)   I was indeed assuming that the forward superstructure was the same width on all the ships, because it seemed (to me) very unlikely that this very important structure would have been narrowed and hence reduced in volume at a time when internal volume was under desperate pressure.  Or perhaps the design was too early for that to be realised?

 

Measured at the rear of the forward superstructure, I have a dimension equivalent to 65ft for the Belfast deck in the Tiger hull.  Allowing for the actual widest part to be slightly further aft, that seems close enough to the 66ft width for me.  (Which would make it too wide for the 63ft 4 in, too.)   However the B gun deck is only 55ft, which is still some way short of the 61ft 8in true(?) width of the Newcastle hull.  Oh dear.  It isn't just the B deck that has to be widened, but also the (signal?) deck above that.  I assume that the central bridge tower over that will have been the same size.

 

My concern regarding the potential (and presumed) Flyhawk kit is that the ones that have already been released appear to have far too many tiny tiny pieces for my failing fingers and eyesight, not to mention a reliance upon etched brass.  I fear it may be a few decades too late for me to properly appreciate.  I would like to know your opinion of the Penelope, bearing that in mind.

I've not come across Whitley but I'd trust Friedman.  Along with Professor Eric Groves, Norman Friedman is probably the best living naval historian so I'd definitely trust his research.

 

The key thing with the fwd superstructure is that the Batch 3s had a very different design.  Look at these drawings which originate from a US ONI source

 

Batch 1: SHEFFIELD

 

 

Batch 3: BELFAST

 

You can see clearly that in the Batch 1s, the fwd screen of B Gundeck extends all the way out to the deck edge and there is no upperdeck walkway on 01 deck from the foc's'le to the flight deck.  Contrast that with the Batch 3 where there is a walkway either side of the fwd superstructure from foc's'le to flight deck.  Thus the later ship fwd superstructure is narrower, by about, I would say, 4 ft either side.

 

This is compensated by increasing the width of the bridge superstructure itself at 02 deck level in the later ships.  Above that, the bridge itself does appear to be slightly narrower in BLEFAST than the early design but without measuring it, it may be an illusion caused by the different shaped fwd bridge screen,  If you have a ,look at the ATF build thread I linked above, you'll see that there is very little grey plastic left in GLASGOW's fwd superstructure and an awful lot of plasticard!

[spaddad]

Thanks everyone, it looks like the sensible thing to do is wait & see what comes out. In the meantime I've got another one for you, HMS Triumph, what are my options, if any?

[bootneck]

Aircraft carrier 1946, Battleship 1903 or Submarine 1991?

if the carrier then there is the 1:400 scale Heller kit Arromanches/HMS Colossus. The submarine can be built, with some work, from the Airfix 1:350 HMS Trafalgar kit

[Graham Boak]

L'Arsenal do a resin Colossus, also Glory which I assume is basically the same tooling.  It is rather lovely if expensive.  The Heller kit is old.

[spaddad]

18 hours ago, bootneck said:

Aircraft carrier 1946, 

Doh!

[Graham Boak]

(Mainly for Chewbacca.)  M.J. Whitley was the author of Cruisers of World War Two, from Brockhampton Press 1995 and 1996.

 

The Batch II Towns carried more armour than the Batch Is, and hence were considerably heavier.  It is normal practice to widen the beam in such cases, as indeed was also done with the Batch IIIs.

 

I must admit that I was postponing addressing the bridge problem, so your comments will be very helpful.  I must admit hoping I could at least start with simply removing the curved front and fitting a flat face, and proceeding from there.  But as you are aware there are other matters to be sorted before reaching that high in the superstructure.  On the subject of curved fronts, as a Batch I the Sheffield had a flat front, unlike its representation in the US ONI drawing in post 34.

[Our Ned]

The forward superstructures of the three groups - or batches, although this is the first time I've come across the word "Batch" in this context rather than the usual "Group" - differed between groups. The first group of five ships had slightly curved upper bridge faces (not flat - see onhttp://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/561342.html) on wide lower bridge/hangar structures. The second group of three had a round-fronted upper bridge on the wide lower structure. The third group (EDINBURGH and BELFAST) had the round upper bridge on a narrower lower structure - narrower since the port and starboard hangars were closer together (although they were not touching) as they had no funnel between them

[Chewbacca]

On ‎21‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 10:05, Graham Boak said:

(Mainly for Chewbacca.)  M.J. Whitley was the author of Cruisers of World War Two, from Brockhampton Press 1995 and 1996.

Thanks.  Not one I'd come across.

 

On ‎22‎/‎08‎/‎2018 at 08:07, Our Ned said:

The forward superstructures of the three groups - or batches, although this is the first time I've come across the word "Batch" in this context rather than the usual "Group" - differed between groups.

That's probably my fault.  I'm so used to referring to Batches because that's how modern ship classes are broken down.  My apologies for causing confusion.

[cruiserguy]

Good Evening Everyone,

 

This is a wee bit off topic, but is an interesting story about one of HMS Manchester's crew. I won't name him but I met him over 15 years ago, and he was serving on her when she was sunk. He spent three days in the water, most of it encouraging his younger shipmates to hold on telling them "the ships will come" as they began to give up hope of rescue. He was posted missing at first, but was rescued, landed at Rosyth, and walked the 35 or so miles home to Airdrie. His mum got the shock of her life when he walked through the door - his whole family thought he was dead. One tough guy.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Will.