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Sink the Bismarck! HMS Ark Royal, 26 May 1941


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On 7/11/2019 at 11:10 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 I’d kill for a decent photo of the compass platform / bridge!

Do the plans from Roberts 'British Warships' show any of the layout detail for the compass platform/ bridge? 

 

Just got my copy and haven't had a chance to study it yet, but there's a breakdown of each level of the island if I remember rightly?

 

Although with my memory it could of been a map of the Isle of Wight I saw somewhere....

 

Geoff 

 

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Plans yes, but I’d still love to see a photo or two - & there is nothing for the port side, either.  As far as they go, those plans are superb, but they’re incomplete (as published, anyway).  The Profile Morskie plans lack detail, and in some places aren’t quite accurate (assuming the builders’ plans reflected reality).

 

In the end, we have what we have; it’s possible to piece together quite a lot of the missing detail from glimpses of the island in the background of IWM Swordfish & Fulmar pictures, for instance.  I’m also looking at quite a lot of video; Ark was something of a film star in her brief life (& I’m not just talking about “Ships With Wings”, which plays just as fast & loose with reality as most films, but does have some film of the real thing).  And if it can’t be found, then who is going to prove me wrong?

 

When I went to the FAA Museum with @CedB and @The Baron last week, I was hoping that there would be a large (?builders’?) model of Ark.  I think I’ve seen one there before, but can’t be sure.  But there wasn’t.  Lovely model of Ark 2 in her Dardanelles guise.  Ditto Ark 4, Indomitable, Furious, Argus... even a Kiev class.  But no Ark 3.

 

Ah well!

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A bit more, building on last night’s work.  

 

First up, this is what I mean by the PE scuttles with eyebrows.  3 are fitted as a test; pretty happy with how they look.  As you can see, still a little filling to complete further aft, and since I’m obviously going to need to sand it a bit, the remaining 5 scuttles can wait a bit longer.  Concept proved OK, though.

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You can also see in the picture above that the interior walkway towards the top of the funnel is glued into one side.  Plus this shows one of the brass brackets for the galley flues that I mentioned last night.

 

Here it is with the other half of the funnel dry fitted.

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Happy.

 

Crisp

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Looking and learning from this as many others I have this kit and the Tetra sets  :book:

 

Crisp have you had a look at the Topdrawings books from Kagero some good detailed drawings in these i think.

 

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beefy

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Thanks, Beefy - yes, I do have the Kagero book; very good in some places, less so in others.  But strong on the island!

 

One more shot for this evening; the beginnings of the funnel cover support frame for the top of the funnel.  A challenge not to bend this out of true (a challenge I have not entirely passed!); this is 8 separate pieces of brass, with several more yet to come (one visible taped down alongside, because I’m now stopping through tired eyes).

 

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More tomorrow, I hope

 

Crisp

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5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Plans yes, but I’d still love to see a photo or two - & there is nothing for the port side, either.  

Ah well!

I've been collecting photos of Ark Royal  and her aircraft for 20 years. I have quite a number of close-up photos of parts of the ship that are not well-represented in photos you can find on-line;  including  various close-up photos of the island and funnel. One of these shows the interior of the funnel (photographed from above facing the stern).  I would say that Tetra made an educated guess at what they thought the interior structure of the funnel looked like. In reality there was a series of inter-connecting walkways at different levels  The walkway in the centre is possibly a bit lower that Tetra would have you place it and doesn't extend forward the complete length of the funnel. Directly underneath this central walkway, there is another. These are flanked, at an intermediate level, by a walkway on the port side (again, not running the entire length of the funnel). Joining the lower central walkway is a transverse one that forms the head of a "T".   On the port side I don't see the structures that Tetra have conforming to the shape of the funnel. I would assume that the starboard side of the central walkway is a mirror image of the port side, but it's not in frame.

 

I started with the funnel on my 1/200 build, and I will scan a low res version of this photo in due course when I start a WiP in a couple of weeks after my return from the Pyrenees to watch Le Tour and ride a few Cols. The only version I have at the moment is 1600 dpi.

Edited by iang
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As ever, it is (genuinely) fascinating to hear from someone who has clearly studied the subject for decades, so knows more about this Ark than I ever will.  Any photo titbits you can thrown in my direction will be gratefully gobbled up - equally, I understand if you cannot.

 

Having said that, there is a limit to how far I’m prepared to go in the pursuit of accuracy... and the interior of the funnel is beyond that limit.  Particularly since what you will see (particularly in 1/350 rather than 1/200) is the impression of a walkway or walkways in the depths (which will be pretty murky, what with funnel soot an’ all) all underneath the funnel cap, funnel cover frame and a couple of flues built into the uptake.

 

Tetra’s walkway is an educated guess, though not entirely correct.  None the less, Tetra’s educated guess is just one of no doubt hundreds of educated guesses that I’m going to have to make, so who am I to complain.  It definitely stays!

 

P.S. All this also definitely comes into the ‘First World Problem’ category.  I have the Roberts copies of the shipbuilders’ “as built” plans [albeit missing one side].  I have the Kagero & Morskie plans.  I have several books, a reasonable number of photographs.  I also have the Victorious “Anatomy of the Ship” book and John Lambert drawings in assorted places which give me good references for HACS, Vickers .5” guns, 4”, 8-barrelled pom-poms, pom-pom directors, assorted sights, signal projectors, searchlights, bridge equipment, paravanes, winches, cable holders...  and here I am being all precious about not having the right photo of precisely that area of the ship.

 

Get over it, man, and build what a) is plausible for the period and b) looks right!

 

P.P.S. Not for the first time, let’s hear it for Gator’s Grip.  I always use GG for these complex PE constructions, only committing to CA and/or solder once I am sure everything is in place.  GG gives me enough flexibility / wiggle room to manipulate things without either breaking the bond and having to glue it all over again, or bending the brass because the glue joint won’t budge a mm.

 

So, mindful of Ian’s point about the walkway (whatever shape it was!) being lower in the funnel, and having done a visual test fit of the funnel cover frame which suggested there was going to be a problem... the walkway has been detached from the funnel again.  Without damage.

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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On 7/14/2019 at 5:13 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Adjust your (mind)set accordingly.

Sorry for the late reply, my world is busy,busy,busy at the moment.

Tweaked and adjusted accordingly. I do like the way you include so much historical detail in your builds, it pulls us in and has us wanting more and adds another dimension to the build.

You are correct in that we do often  judge historical events through a modern lens, often forgetting that many of the weapons systems of that war were getting their first 'real use' and much of the[r operational doctrine was in it's infancy.

Keep feeding me/us please 🙏

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On 7/17/2019 at 10:54 PM, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

 

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I had to do a double take when I first saw this as I thought you'd lost the plot ................ I could have sworn it was the makings of a type 965 bedstead!

 

Great progress on the etch and the accompanying background is very inspiring.

 

Terry

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Very interesting build Crisp, and wow very nice start :like:

Just reading a book called Scramble about young fighter pilot Tom Neil who was posted over seas after the Battle of Britain to Malta  and they left Britain on the Aircraft carrier HMS Furious but transferred to the HMS Ark Royal in Gibraltar, they man-handled 23 Mk 11 Hurricanes of 249 Squadron across planks from one  carrier to the other, and all Hurri's stayed on Ark's deck, and it goes on to say that they would be disposed in such a manner as to enable the fighters to operate should there be an attack.

Tom Neil said in his book "the Ark Royal was as different from the Furious as chalk is from cheese"

 

Looking at all the sheets of PE :think: just wondering what type of magnifying glasses are you using.

 

Regards

Richard

 

 

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Furious, being a converted battlecruiser (-ish; she was one of “Fisher’s Follies”, along with Glorious & Courageous, designed for some pie-in-the-sky WW1 attack via the Baltic) which went through several different conversions before she reached her fully flat top final form, could only ever be a bodge.  The accommodation was not up to 40s standards (themselves pretty spartan by the standards of today), and according to my Father, who did some deck landing training on her, she was very smelly because her boiler gases vented astern rather than via a funnel.

 

Ark, on the other hand, was only 3 years old and designed from the ground up as a modern carrier.  I bet they were ‘chalk & cheese’!  But the Hurricanes had to be stowed on deck because they couldn’t fit down the lifts (no wing fold).

 

Ark did several “Malta club runs” (as they used to call them) to deliver (land) fighters to Malta, usually escorted / led by a Skua or later a Fulmar to assist with the long over-sea navigation.  Indeed she had just finished one when Force H was sailed suddenly for the Bismarck hunt, and was on the way back to Gib after another when she was sunk.

 

Magnifying glasses?  Just a bog standard Optivisor

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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Like many of us in the UK at present, I expect, it’s way, way too hot in my man cave at the moment to do anything very useful.  This is doubly frustrating, since I am on holiday this week and next, so in theory able to make some real progress.

 

For now, however, little to report.  I primed 12 Swordfishes yesterday, when it wasn’t quite so insanely hot.  Plus, since I actually have some rare modelling time at home for once, I’ve been closely inspecting the two hull halves and the flight deck.

 

Pretty decent on the whole.  I have polished away some of Merit’s moulded on detail - stuff like the arrestor wires; by no means terrible, but could be improved - plus a couple of minor casting defects.  Given the fact that it’s about 2’ long, it’s a very decent piece of moulding, on the whole.  It’s slightly warped, but nothing to worry about; not in the same league as the Airfix Illustrious, for instance.

 

The hull pieces are similarly decent.  The degaussing cable seems to be moulded in the wrong place in a couple of areas, but that’s no great issue, since it’s coming off anyway, to be replaced by Tetra (whose references agree with mine).  In places there is a little filling to be done, since Tetra’s improvements (which make a massive difference) overlap Merit’s original version at times, thus leaving the odd gap if left untreated [photos / examples will follow as I fit the brass in due course, for those who are following this looking for ideas for their own builds].

 

And in one place Merit’s technology seems to hit the buffers. Here is the real ship’s bow, seen at South Railway Jetty in Portsmouth in 1939 or very early in 1940 (note that Victory’s top masts were being worked on then, too!).  Look at those 6 scuttles above the anchors, between the 4 fo’c’s’le openings and the bow light housing.  

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Here are Merit’s version.

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Seen from the side, not bad at all... but clearly the drill at Schloss Merit only operates in one direction, because seen from the bow they appear as slits which grow longer the closer you get to the centre line.  I’d show you in a photo, but for some reason Village Photos is flatly refusing to upload that one.  In due course I’ll add it once I’ve got a grip of the technology!

 

We’re away for 3 or 4 days from tomorrow, so more next week

 

Crisp

 

P.S. Random technology test.  A photo of no relevance to this thread [apart from the ship’s name and bad weather, I guess].  But what a photo!  No idea who to credit or whence it came - I just stumbled upon it on the interwebs.  Wacky cockpit cover on that Sea King; baint never seen one of they.

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15 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Like many of us in the UK at present, I expect, it’s way, way too hot in my man cave at the moment to do anything very useful.

So very true but none the less, I'm sure you've been using your 'modelling time' wisely.

 

Stuart

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20 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

P.S. Random technology test.  A photo of no relevance to this thread [apart from the ship’s name and bad weather, I guess].  But what a photo!  No idea who to credit or whence it came - I just stumbled upon it on the interwebs.  

What a photo indeed. Sums up the air assets of the old girl beautifully, although no plane guard Wessex !

 

Terry

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Bow-on showing Merit slit scuttles

 

[Aha!  Finally, after a period of utter ineptitude, I’ve got the technology to work - specifically (having got fed up with some aspects of Village Photos) I’ve finally caved in and gone back to Flickr, but had forgotten one key part of posting pics from an iPad.]

 

Anyhow; here are the same scuttles high in the bow as posted above, seen from ahead.  The direction of drilling the hole in the mould is pretty obvious, and hopeless for this purpose.  Shortly to be filled and replaced.

 

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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I am gradually working my way round the hull pieces, correcting Trumpeter Merit’s errors; none of them horrendous or anything that can’t be fixed with a bit of modelling, but still.  If I can find mistakes by looking hard at publicly available photographs, so could the designers.

 

In particular, they seem to have decided that it’s simplest to mould the two sides the same. Admittedly, plans for the port side aren’t readily available, but photos are - notably of Ark’s sinking, where there are quite a few detailed pictures of her port side.  There were some obvious differences.

Merit port hull showing areas needing work

 

Everything marked / circled in pencil in this photo was not present on the real ship - notably the gash (rubbish) chute, which is that long pipe thing at bottom of shot.

 

Merit port hull part after gash chute removal

 

Now removed. 

 

There are lots of other things like this to be done, and they’re not very photogenic, so you’ll probably have to be patient while I work my way through them. 

 

The hawse pipes also need some re-work; it’s widely (& correctly) reported that this kit has anchors that are much too small, but the hawse pipes were clearly not designed by anyone who has ever seen a real anchor.  They are oval, as they should be (to give the anchor shank somewhere to sit)... but the long axis is 90 degrees out.  Compare the plastic below with the real thing further down...

Merit starboard bow areas for improvement

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All this will pay off in the long run, but makes it feel as though I’m crawling along.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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Thank you; a beautiful photo from the era of the Spanish Civil War (note the neutrality colours painted on the nearest 4.5” turret).

 

When was it that we stopped referring to an aircraft as “a machine”?  Early in the war the practice still persisted - Battle of Britain reports, for instance, often talk about “enemy machines”.  But nowadays it would sound distinctly odd to refer to, say, an F-35B as “one of Queen Elizabeth’s machines”.

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This thread is not only informative (as ever) but could well become a good reference source for me.

 

To explain, earlier this year I acquired the Trumpeter 1/700 Ark Royal 1939 version. It was a chance purchase as I was with my wife in an Art supply shop in Dorchester, and there it was on the shelf, just calling me. Looking at your shots and my own below, it bears an uncanny resemblance to the 1/350 kit with all the similar (same?) minor detail anomalies. Although the detail doesn't seem as good in the smaller scale, it does seem to replicate, almost exactly! Those forward scuttles have the same issue, but the moulded in crane supports (I think) below the deck edges are presumably represented much better on the bigger scale model.

 

Bow section:

 

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 Stern

 

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and the midships view almost identical each side but for the double openings on the starboard side and some other minor differences further aft as you can see.

 

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Anyway, I'm taking notes and hoping to gain more detailed knowledge on the way. I suspect this build (my one) wont start this year and I definitely need to get myself the Topdrawings publication.

 

Keep up the excellent work!

 

Terry

 

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Those do indeed look spookily alike.  In particular, the same areas of detail [hull openings etc.] which are missing in 1/350 (& supplied by Tetra) are also absent in 1/700.  The supports you refer to are actually for the aerial masts, which were horizontal for flying and vertical at other times.  These are separate parts on the 1/350 kit, and mine will be Tetra PE anyway.

 

The de-gaussing coil on your version is particularly perfunctory; it took me a while to work out that was what the diagonal line visible just aft of the fo’c’s’le openings is meant to be... but it’s the DG coil.  I am in the process of sanding / scraping Merit’s off, so I can add it back on again from Tetra PE.  This is partly because of better detail, but also because Merit’s is slightly wrong in places.

 

At this stage the only other thing I’d say is that the square opening scuttle-cum-hatch jobs (each had a couple of rungs built into the hull beneath it, and I’m still trying to work out why) are much too stark in 1/700 - they appear to stand proud of the surface by about 3 scale feet, which is nonsense.  [For example, the series visible above the double hull opening].

 

Edit: My powers of description seem to have deserted me today; I’m referring to the openings clearly visible  starboard aft - you can also see the rungs.  This is a curious image; the top half looks for all the world like a photograph, but the waterline area and the sea are obviously painted - the horizon doesn’t even line up!  None the less, a great view for detail of stern lights, DG coil etc.  She’s either at anchor or alongside, because the ensign staff is rigged.

 

P.S. Edit: if you look really closely, you can see that she was being painted (a semi-permanent situation in harbour, I imagine); there is a paint stage [aka. a Pusser's plank] rigged port aft of the round-down catwalk, and what look suspiciously like paint pots attached to a rope on the opposite corner.  I think the painted sea might simply be someone trying to turn a photo taken in the dockyard into something more ‘romantic’ as she sails into the sunset on a flat calm sea...

Ark Royal stern detail (?painting?)

 

No photos today, but I am continuing the process of correcting those, the DG coil and other surface detail in 1/350, before adding brass.  Take as many notes as you like: there’s nothing secret here, and it all depends on how far you intend to go in detailing the smaller scale.  Is there any after-market available for it?

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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I managed to track back on the points you mention above and can see what you mean re the rungs, scuttles and DG coil. The latter is clearly unrepresented almost wholly apart from those two odd diagonals - strange they put those in and nothing else. They actually look like they might be in the right place.

 

I've a "few" other things in the pipeline before I start a 1/700 build in earnest. Apart from dabbling a few years back with some cold war frigates (sitting on the shelf of shame still), the last 1/700 I did was HMS Exeter, when in my teens - I thought it was magnificent of course but the truth was probably way different. I intend to do one properly soon to get my hand back in. Meanwhile although I'm sure I'll pick up a lot of information and insights on this build, but there is a judgement call on how far I could go in the smaller scale. As for aftermarket, I know WEM did one for the Revell kit and yet another for the Aoshima kit but as far as I'm aware nothing lately for the Trumpeter offering. 

 

Terry

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As is so often the case, especially with this manufacturer, the closer you look at this kit the more work it requires.  On the one hand, they are heartily to be commended for producing it at all; on the other, it makes little sense to go to all the effort and expense of tooling a large model... but getting slapdash at the end and thus building in easily avoidable errors.  

 

Small case in point.  The image above (the half painted, half photo johnson showing the underside of the round down) is widely available; I found it after 5 minutes of search on the interwebs.  Amongst other things it clearly shows 3 vertical rails on each side - there to help sailors to cope with the overhang when doing stuff like painting.  Merit moulded 5 of them:

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OK, so removing the aftermost 2 and replacing them with a pair of horizontal jobs isn’t that tough... but it shouldn’t be necessary if their designers took a little care.  Here is the other side part way through the removal process.

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This is just an example, but there are dozens of similar little inaccuracies in this kit.  You could build it OOB and get a nice model that looks very Ark-shaped, certainly.   Or, with a bit of effort, you can make it look like Ark Royal really did.

 

You know me well enough by now to guess which way I’m going.

 

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Hard to see in this shot of the whole hull (though it gives a good idea of her size), but I’ve done a lot of work on the starboard side:

- correcting the gash chutes (right place, but wrong shape and much too long - aft one sorted, for’d one still to do);

- removing the characteristic weld seams that Ark had (see the bow-on photo in post #94) because Merit’s are frequently in the wrong place [I have a cunning plan for replacing them with thread under primer];

- adding (at this stage only in marker pen, because my drills are in London) scuttles in numerous places where they’ve either been missed or shown incorrectly as hatches - in particular, 2 deck (the level immediately below the flight deck) has nothing at all in Merit-land, but photographs show at least 15;

- marking places where grilles and vent outlets show up in photos, even from distance (this was long before the gas-tight world of modern warships, which have few openings to the outside world: Ark had thousands of them).  [Not yet fully decided how to do these, but current favourite is home brew transfers];

- removing the moulded-on DG coil, to be replaced by Tetra brass - to be fair, Merit’s is far from terrible, though its position is wrong in one place; and

- preparing for Tetra by filling the pair of galleries midships - Tetra’s are a much more accurate shape and lay-out.

 

The port side still to be done, though most of the DG coil has already gone from here too.

 

Is this essential?  No, of course not; you’ll get a decent model OOB, and a good one OOB with Tetra [Very Fire also do a detail-up set specifically for this kit, but I haven’t seen it].

 

But if you want accuracy, you have to do a lot of Merit’s work for them.  Still, even that is fun, even if it shouldn’t be required for a kit that is far from cheap.

 

More soon

 

Crisp

 

 

 

 

Edited by Ex-FAAWAFU
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