Colony or Town class cruiser main armament - large plans available?

[bootneck]

I would like to have a practice at scratchbuilding a gun turret for a British cruiser, and have decided upon the three barrel type found on Colony and Town class cruisers.  The only plans that I have are the very small ones in the AOTS book "Belfast".  Can anyone please help with sourcing some decent plans of such a gun turret?

 

cheers,

Mike

[davepb]

Hi Mike,

Have you tried contacting Ross Watton direct to see if he can let you heve larger versions of his drawings?

 

Cheers, Dave

[foeth]

Something like this print from the NMM?

(Click the image, the Britmodeler forum has the insufferable tendency to always scale down images to spoil your viewing pleasure).

 

Additional image (without dimensions).

Perhaps there is more in Conrad Water's Town class cruisers book, but one of my book cases is wrapped in plastic due to a small renovation... the drawing in his Cruiser Birmingham book (other book case) does not have a large turret drawing.

Edited December 8, 2020 by foeth

[EwenS]

There were two different triple turrets in the Town class.

 

The first two groups, the 5 Southamptons and the 3 Gloucesters, were equipped with Mark XXII turret, although there were some slight differences between even those. The Mk.XXIII illustrated above, was a long trunk version which then went in the Belfast & Edinburgh and then the Colonies. Some details here

http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNBR_6-50_mk23.php

 

And there were some differences to the shape of the gunhouse between the first two Town groups. IIRC the junction of the front and top armour plates was rounded in the first group but a sharp edge in the second group and in the Mark XXIII.

[bootneck]

Thanks all.  My reason for building one of these turrets was because my first venture on a warship was HMS Sheffield, the original "Shiny Sheff", and I was amazed at the turrets.

 

This is an IWM photo, in the public archives, of HMS Sheffield during the period of my time onboard.  The whaler in front is crewed by Royal Marines from her.  The ship alongside her is HMS Rame Head.

 

cheers,

Mike