1/600 What-if 16 gun HMS Belfast

[ArnoldAmbrose]

21 hours ago, TallBlondJohn said:

Hm, so your aft funnel is now over where the aft engine room would be

 

6 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I must confess that thought had crossed my mind as well

 

And if I'm honest with myself, me too, when I first dry-fitted the aft funnel there. UNFORTUNATELY, the structures in that part of the ship are not glued down yet, and UNFORTUNATELY I have spares to replace those that I have butchered. So I guess I can have another rethink. Damn, you guys are making more work for me. 😁 Seriously, if a more realistic layout is possible, but I don't do it while I have the chance I will probably regret it later. So thanks for the concerns you've expressed.

     I did a Belfast OOB many years ago and I've just dragged it out to compare with this build. The hangar doors (the rear of the fwd superstructure) are about 15mm further aft on this build than the original. However I can condense the catapult area behind them so that the leading edge of the fwd funnel is only about 8mm aft of the original. I plan to omit the Walrus aircraft and stow some of the ship's boats there, yet retain the catapult. I think this was done on some of these cruisers. I can also move the pompom platform fwd a little to retain the full aft director deck (or most of it) and still have space for the aft funnel. I think. The distance between the funnels might be a tad less, and between the masts, but this might be a better option than what I'd planned an hour ago. Although this ship is a whiff, and I've done a few of them now, I like them to be as plausible as possible. What do you guys think?

     And Tom, the kit comes with only three HA (4") directors, although I've probably got spares. I think that both the auxiliary main director and the HA director will still fit on the centerline. But thank you for the suggestion.

     Anyway, I'm on holidays now, bushfires permitting, but I don't think SWMBO will let me spend all my time at the modeling bench. So enough of my yakking and on to more naval construction. Thank you all for your interest and input. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[TallBlondJohn]

3 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

I must confess that thought had crossed my mind as well but as Jeff says, it's a whiff and the intricacies of naval architecture can be ignored in whiffery 

 

Well... OK, but for me a lot of the fun of a whiff is discovering the rules of naval architecture/east front logistics/etc and working within them, poring over Friedman for hours figuring out where something goes and so if there should be a porthole added.... But its Arnold's ship and he has a deadline to meet - my approach takes months. So I will keep my concerns about where the 4" magazine now goes and what was inside the lost aft superstructure deck to myself! 😉 (1)

 

However, it did occur to me a simple solution would be to swap the aft funnel and the pom-pom deck, then move the mast behind the funnel (2). But then its not a Belfast any more is it?

(1) toilets and wardrooms mostly - I had to check! But losing that deck does give you some topweight back to play with - weight and space dominate a naval architects concerns.
(2) trunking the aft funnel does just work- though for the record designers usually tried to avoid trunking, it took up a lot of internal space and reduced efficiency - even less room for those toilets! They will be warm and cosy though.

(3) I thought the catapult area could be condensed more, but probably not, Belfast has the same area as the Colonies which were very tight for space everywhere. But you could move the forward funnel up to that screen. The lump between the screen and the funnel base air intake it is the hoist for the 4" ammunition supply system and can be removed if the magazine is relocated... this is where I go down the rabbit hole! Its your model its what your intended audience will be concerned with.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday John, we can't be having warm cosy toilets (shouldn't we be calling them 'the heads?'), the crew would spend too much time in there, particularly during patrols in the Arctic.

I've condensed the catapult area a little. The Walrus aircraft on the catapult will just fit between the hangars and the fwd funnel, provided no more than two coats of paint are applied to either. Other than the engine and boiler rooms, and hence the funnels, I'm going to leave the internal layout of the ship alone. That's waaay out of my league. I'm going to try to position the funnels more plausibly, but after that I think I'll go with what I've got. I've got to get on with it.

     Again, many thanks for your input with this build.

Regards, Jeff.

 

PS - I didn't know about the 4-inch ammunition hoist. Thanks.

[Modelholic]

Could B and X turrets have the structure to hold the weight of a quad pom-pom. Renown (springs to mind) had a quad on B turret, but had a more substantial turret to begin with.

Tom

Edit: Just read AA's post.

we can't be having warm cosy toilets (shouldn't we be calling them 'the heads?'

Might get a bit too warm in some oceans!

Edited December 26, 2020 by Modelholic

[TallBlondJohn]

Thinking about it all, I reckon your approach is correct - it will all look good. Thinking about it more, I realised we had all been coming at the problem from the wrong end - the ship's internal layout decides the outer features. So we should have started there.

 

In reality, when Belfast's quad turrets were dropped, the opportunity was taken to work in an extra pair of 4". Another consideration was to reduce the width of the forward superstructure to create deck space on each side. Now the size of the hangars, catapult deck, boiler rooms and engine rooms are all fixed (though in Whiffery we can tweak them a bit, nobody will know). So the design decision was to resite the 4" magazine from aft of the rear engine room to in front of the forward boiler room, keeping the length of this armoured box the same (aha, so that's why Towns and Colonies have the 4" pairs so far aft). Up top the aircraft area is fixed and where possible you want funnels directly above the boiler rooms - so you only have 2 possible layouts, say Sheffield/Jamaica versus Belfast/Edinburgh. This drawing nicked from the Airfix forum shows the result well:

 

 

In our whiff, we need to shift weight back to compensate for the weight of the forward turrets, which shifts everything backwards and we are back to the conventional town design of 4 twin 4". But our magazine is forward, so we still need the ammo hoists and 'railway set' ammo supply system, which is mostly missing from the Airfix and Trumpeter kits (and the above drawing). I cant find any good historic photos, but it can be seen in this BM build:

 

So to get to the point, we need a 4" ammo supply in our quad Belfast, but I bet there's now no room in front of the funnel for the hoists. OK, move the cranes outward a bit and squeeze them in outboard of the funnels (remove the 20mms, put one of them on X turret), the hoists are now slanting outwards as well as backwards out of the magazine which is under the catapult, and it all works so I'm happy! As you have removed the rear two turrets one can argue you don't need the track system at all, just the hoists, but they add interest.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday John, actually the 4" hoist is still there, I shrunk the catapult area another way. I remember reading about the 4" ammo track system in an 'Anatomy of the Ship' book on Belfast that I withdrew from the local library many years ago. I didn't take a lot of notice of it back then as I didn't think I'd ever be doing what I'm doing now. And anyway, I don't have the skill to make something reasonable in this scale.

     And Tom, whether the turrets could take the weight of a quad pompom mount I don't know, they were very heavy I think. I've seen a photo of some of the roof of HMS Sheffield's "A" turret torn off by heavy weather. I don't recall ever seeing photos or drawings of the quad mounts on a cruiser turret. However, I believe HMS Manchester had a single 40mm Bofor on 'B' turret. I'm planning on fitting 20mm Oerlikons on B and X turrets.

     Anyway, it's nearly midnight here, I can't keep my eyes open any longer. So goodnight All, regards, Jeff.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, further to the discussions above, I've replaced some of my butchered plastic with some more recently butchered plastic in the 16 gun HMS Belfast's waist.

I've moved the fore and aft funnels fwd by 3mm and 6mm respectively. This equates to 6 feet and 12 feet. I don't think it's practical to move either any further forward than this. If I did then the Walrus aircraft will have to be launched with it's wings folded or there will be too little room for the fwd engine room I would think.

     I've been plodding away still with the forward superstructure, which is still dry fitted at this time. So are the structures in the ship's waist. I've fitted the turrets again, just for the photo to get an overall picture of the ship. In the foreground are two of the triple turrets from my build of HMS Jamaica. They are closer to the camera so the difference in size between the triple and quad turrets is not so evident here. But for a cruiser, these quad turrets are HUGE! And as you can see, only two twin 4-inch mountings per side. She'll also carry four quad pompoms plus a number of 20mm Oerlikons. And John, I meant to thank you last night for the link to the other model.

     Oh well, that's it for now. Got plastic to cut and glue, and paint to slap on.

Thank you for your comments and interest. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[TallBlondJohn]

Yes that's what I had in mind! 😉

 

Second pair of pompoms on the bridge? I always thought Belfast was short on forward AA firepower - octuple mounts sound very nice but those arcs aren't ideal.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, the 16 gun HMS Belfast now has her main teeth, all sixteen of them, her reason for being.

I cut the guns from the sprues and cleaned them up a bit yesterday. I was going to do the guns of HMS Jamaica at the same time but after doing these I was going a bit cross-eyed. Airfix has the annoying practice of attaching guns to the sprues along the barrels, requiring very careful removal and clean up. I like to glue the guns into turrets at a fixed elevation, horizontal or slightly elevated, regardless of whether the guns have trunnions or not, which these don't. So to get them at my desired elevation I made a jig using a spare deck piece from a cannibalized kit. That's it in the foreground. I drilled and slotted a hole in the deck house to the right, just as I did to the barbettes, to hold the turret. In front of where the turret sits (to the right and facing right in the photo) is a height spacer made from styrene strips, total height 2.75mm in this case, and the gun muzzles rest on that while they are being glued into the turret. This gets them all at a consistent level.
     When I painted the turrets it became obvious that I needed to clean up the joints a bit more, so I did that a couple of days ago. They looked much better. Then I painted them and they didn't look any better at all. Oh well, I'm going to follow a practice that governments the world over have learned - if you can't fix a problem then hide it! The judicious placing of gun tubs on top and Carley floats on the sides of the turrets should help there. 🤫
     All the midship structures you see are glued in now, although the fwd superstructure and funnels are dry fitted still. And speaking of funnels, the preceding Town and following Colony class cruisers all had a taller fwd funnel than aft one, but these two ships appear to have funnels with their tops equal height above the waterline. In the kit this means that the aft funnel is in fact taller than the fwd funnel as it sits on a lower structure. As I've lowered the height of the aft superstructure by one deck I don't think this funnel needs to be so tall, so as a trial I've switched funnels in this photo. Compare with the previous photo. What do you think? I've also made and fitted funnel grills but they're not very visible here, being painted black.
     The unpainted deck abaft the fwd funnel is where a boat tier will go, but it needs shortening. I'll also be working on some of the smaller fittings now.

            Anyway, that's it for now. Thank you all for your comments and interest. Stay safe and regards, Jeff.

[Exkiwiforces]

Geez, you wouldn’t want to bump in to her on a dark night on the Nth Sea or somewhere in that neck of woods with that potential broadside without having Radar.

[TallBlondJohn]

Funnel height - Generally the RN liked funnels to be the same height unless they couldn't be - in the Town and Colony classes the forward funnel has to be higher to keep the bridge area clear of smoke and gases. The KGVs, Arethusas (as built) and Didos as well as Belfast all had balanced funnels, with heights adjusted as required to incorporate any deckhouses. But I think this was mostly aesthetic, so you could break the rule - the result will be a bit less 'RN-ish' to my eye.

 

Your Belfast is looking very smart though. Any thoughts what will go on the deck on each side of the aft funnel?

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday John, thanks for the clarification regarding the funnels. I rather like the look of the 'Town' style funnel heights but as this is meant to be a fictitious yet plausible HMS Belfast I'll go with the equal heights and not switch them. Unless I do it in error. 

    I thought I'd place a 20mm Oerlikon gun tub at the outboard edge of the 4-inch gun deck, immediately aft of the aft 4-inch twin mounting, just like the one fwd of the fwd 4-inch. Inboard of the gun tubs maybe a dinghy, or ammo r/u lockers, something to make that bit of deck a little less empty. Below that bit of deck I was planning on mounting a Carley float to hide the lack of supporting stanchions. Same at the break of the foc'sle deck, under the gun tub just fwd of the catapult.

     The next task I want to tackle are the 4-inch guns and light AA weapons. I've got plenty of twin 4-inch shields but the barrels are unusable I think. They've been molded in a sea of flash, I don't think I can extract them, so I'm trying out ways of making my own. Plus I'll do my own pompoms and Oerlikons also.

 

And Exkiwi, although she's a fictitious vessel if she got a target within range of her 6-inch guns I think she could dish out punishment that only a battleship or battlecruiser could survive. As long as the ammunition supply held out.

 

Regards, Jeff.

[TallBlondJohn]

21 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday John, thanks for the clarification regarding the funnels. I rather like the look of the 'Town' style funnel heights but as this is meant to be a fictitious yet plausible HMS Belfast I'll go with the equal heights and not switch them. Unless I do it in error. 

    I thought I'd place a 20mm Oerlikon gun tub at the outboard edge of the 4-inch gun deck, immediately aft of the aft 4-inch twin mounting, just like the one fwd of the fwd 4-inch. Inboard of the gun tubs maybe a dinghy, or ammo r/u lockers, something to make that bit of deck a little less empty. Below that bit of deck I was planning on mounting a Carley float to hide the lack of supporting stanchions. Same at the break of the foc'sle deck, under the gun tub just fwd of the catapult.

     The next task I want to tackle are the 4-inch guns and light AA weapons. I've got plenty of twin 4-inch shields but the barrels are unusable I think. They've been molded in a sea of flash, I don't think I can extract them, so I'm trying out ways of making my own. Plus I'll do my own pompoms and Oerlikons also.

 

And Exkiwi, although she's a fictitious vessel if she got a target within range of her 6-inch guns I think she could dish out punishment that only a battleship or battlecruiser could survive. As long as the ammunition supply held out.

 

Regards, Jeff.

 

You could just stack some Carley floats on the deck as well - Edinburgh did this. Any dinghy would be out of reach of the crane so you'd have to account for how it would be handled - I guess the crew could just carry it!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday John, I got the idea of the dinghies from the Airfix model of HMS Belfast. Snug alongside the stbd side of the aft funnel are two dinghies and a Carley float, on the port side a power boat. And you're right, they're all out of reach of the cranes. Manhandling any of these to the ship's side would be awkward I would think, getting past the aftermost 4-inch gun mount and the crew shelter. How the crew would move the power boat I have no idea. At least I am considerate and give the crew only light boats to move, and a bit more space to do it. 😀

     Regards, Jeff.

[Our Ned]

The boats abreast Belfast's after funnel were handled by derricks, the kingposts for which were stepped at the for'd end of "X" gundeck.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, thank you for your responses and comments. Nearly a week has gone by and not much to show on the 16 gun HMS Belfast, but I have done a little. It's now time to do the 4-inch and light AA guns, and that's what I've been doing. The 4-inch gun shields are OK, needed a bit of cleaning up but the twin barrels are molded in a sea of flash, and I don't think I can extract them in a usable condition, so I've made my own. Also, the kit comes with two octuple pompom mounts but I've decided to arm this ship with four quad mounts, So again, I've made my own.

I've decided to do those guns required for my build of HMS Jamaica (temporarily on hold) at the same time. At the top are the quad pompoms. Those at the right are for HMS Jamaica. I made them first and they have thinner barrels - maybe too thin. I fitted the four mounts for HMS Belfast with thicker barrels. They are partially painted here.
     The four twin 4-inch guns lower left are for HMS Belfast. Again they're partially painted. I removed the molded breech blocks, drilled holes for and fitted the gun barrels, then added new breech blocks. The barrels are tapered 0.5mm styrene rod and the breech blocks are from 0.75x1.0mm styrene strip. The breech blocks are the larger of the styrene cubes at the top rear of the mounting. Those two smaller cubes at the bottom edge are some sort of box structure that the shells lay on as they're fed into the fuze-setter. The four twin mounts to the right are for HMS Jamaica. They're not painted yet.
     And in the centre of the photo are the original barrels. See what I mean by a sea of flash? Both kits were like that. As you can see, flash is not limited to the gun barrels, but to other parts also. 
     Soon I'll be doing the 20mm Oerlikons, singles and twins. I might as well do the guns for both models at the same time. Sort of a production line.
Well, that's it for now. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[Chris Hewitt]

Great what-if ,what I did with my Belfast ,I'm not a great fan of camouflage and find that she was painted in Pacific colours in 1945,she had extra anti aircraft guns added plus had removal of her aircraft. The walrus then were use to drop of mail and were based at forward bases or aircraft carriers.

Edited January 3, 2021 by Chris Hewitt

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Chris, that's a great model, thanks for sharing. I see you've also landed the aftermost 4-inch mounts, which I read that happened, but not sure when. And I agree that complex camo schemes can slow down a build although they can add a bit of variety in the display case. I've gone for simple camo in this build, very similar to what you've done here. Regards, Jeff.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday All, time for another update on the 16 gun HMS Belfast. The fwd superstructure is now glued on.

     Most of the boats are now fitted, I still have two more small launches that I might place either side of the aft funnel. There are two large cutters between the funnels but I think she needs a couple of whalers on davits for quick deployment. Abaft the 4-inch gun deck is about the only place they can go. The funnels, cranes and two of the twin 4-inch mounts are dry fitted for the photo. I've finished the pompoms, HA (high angle) directors and radar lantern (dry fitted). Plus, I've painted the searchlights, main directors and other assorted small parts still on the sprues. The cranes need their paint touched up. The crane boom parts were a bit distorted on the sprues, both kits, so they took a bit of adjusting. They're not perfect but as good as I'm likely to get them.
     I've fitted Carley floats to the sides of the main turrets. 'B' and 'X' turrets will have light guns carried on their crowns, hence the non-slip paint. The kit comes with a powered twin 20mm Oerlikon mount on 'B' turret, one of five in the kit, but they're not molded very well. A couple might be usable but not all. I thought instead I'd fit two single Oerlikons on each of the two turrets but I'd have to fit gun tubs also. I still might. Plan B was to use the twin powered mounts but replace the two barrels and magazine drums on each. Then I thought of plan C - 'Boffin' mounts. A Boffin mount was a powered mounting for the twin Oerlikons but instead it carried a single 2lb pompom gun or 40mm Bofors. It was an interim measure I think, before the powered mk7 Bofor 40mm single was introduced. HMS Belfast carried some of these I believe. I can use the not-too-good twin Oerlikon mounts, file off the guns and magazine drums and add a single larger gun. I'm currently leaning towards that option.
     Shipping the ship's boats gave me a few grey hairs (those that haven't fallen out yet), and taken a lot of time trying out and discarding ideas. Due to the midships area being condensed space was very tight, kit parts couldn't be fitted as per instructions and what you see here was about my third arrangement. Had the catapult space not been available for boats it would have been a real headache to find space for them.
     Also in the photo are the finished turrets for HMS Jamaica. Although they have nothing to do with this build I've included them in the photo to show that I haven't forgotten that build, and to show just how much bigger are the quad turrets.
     Well, that's it for now. Lots of fiddly stuff still to do. Thank you for your interest. Stay safe, and regards to all, Jeff.

[beefy66]

Starting to look very busy now and with the bigger main turrets very menacing  👍

 

Stay Safe

beefy

[TallBlondJohn]

Nice progress, she does look smart - especially those two tone turrets.

With my naval architect hat on, the boats would have had to have gone between the funnels. So the pom-poms now don't fit? OK I'd have shifted them back, one on each side of the aft funnel. Quads not octuples. Two more on the bridge. Hopefully they wont cover the 4" mount, need to allow the crew to see out if they have to fire over open sights. Maybe they did, which is why they got moved forward and inward when the catapult was landed and the boats got moved, as you depict. Sorted!

[Modelholic]

The after pom-pom platforms could be could be shrunk a bit if necessary. (cor. I spelt nessessary - nessesary. that word right first time!)

Wouldn't the gun layers(?) sight through the aiming ports in the gun shield?

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_4-45_mk16.php

Tom

[TallBlondJohn]

4 hours ago, Modelholic said:

The after pom-pom platforms could be could be shrunk a bit if necessary. (cor. I spelt nessessary - nessesary. that word right first time!)

Wouldn't the gun layers(?) sight through the aiming ports in the gun shield?

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_4-45_mk16.php

Tom

 

They would lay the gun through the ports, but as wide a field of view as possible would help the crew captain pick up potential targets - so the less overhead structure the better. But if things came to that the ship would be in big trouble anyway...

 

Good point about the platforms, Belfasts were generous (and maybe quads need less space?).

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Guys, thanks for your interest and comments. I think you're correct regarding the boats and pompoms - she would have only had space for quad pompoms and they'd have had to have been fitted abreast the after funnel, with the boats shipped between the funnels. Hence I've got those guns too far forward. In order to speed up the build (and this isn't happening) I tried to use kit structures as much as I could, plus I'm still planning this as I go and hadn't thought about the boats when I should have. It would have made the build a bit more authentic.

     Oh well, I'm afraid I'm going to have to live with this as it is, as the structures are glued down now. She'll be carrying two more quad pompoms on the hangars, but I think I made the sponsons a bit small, plus didn't think of their directors until too late. So they won't have them. I've moved the HA directors fwd a little to clear the pompom's arcs of fire fwd. I didn't think pompoms were fitted with shields, unlike the twin Bofors.       I wonder if it's too late to extend the rear pompom platform aft a bit? Hmmm.

Thanks again. Regards, Jeff.

[Modelholic]

Can you place the directors up a level in the superstructure on those sticky out 'ear' bits?

Tom