HMS Conn, Captains Class Frigate, 1945

[Stephen Allen]

Some time ago, in a discussion with other members of the board, I posted some photos of the Captains Class frigate I am building in 1/72 scale. At the time I said I would post some updates as the build moved along. It's now progressed to painting and fitting out, so its high time I shared some photos so those interested can see how things are coming along. This is a radio-controlled model and, as such, there needs to be provision for access into the hull for batteries and maintenance, but beyond this I am seeking to keep the build as close as I can manage to its likely appearance and configuration in April/May 1945.

 

https://cdn01.hobbyphotohost.com/p?i=a247b899de80955e364e783094c46384

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Stephen, that's very impressive. And just a little bit bigger than my 1/700 USS England, of the Buckley class. 🙂 Regards, Jeff.

[Stephen Allen]

I have had one of the Trumpeter 1/350 scale Buckley Class DEs sitting in the stash for a number of years, and had always planned to build it as HMS Conn. Conn was one of the 78 US Built Destroyer Escorts transferred to the Royal Navy during the second world war, and was the Senior Officer's ship for the late-formed 21st Escort Group operating out of Northern Ireland. By 1945 Conn was either fitted with or fitted for virtually all of the additions and modifications that the RN made to these ships, and hence looked very different from the original USN version of the Buckley. I still have the Trumpeter kit, but my interests have turned to larger scale radio control vessels, so Conn was a natural choice for my first serious foray into 1/72 scale.

 

The build is based on the Southern Cross models fibreglass hull. This is an excellent hull, very faithful to the ship's lines, and only needing a little work to more accurately reflect an RN unit. The position of the anchor hawse lips needed to be moved up to deck level, and I built the extended bilge keels after reading and comparing a variety of sources on how long they should be and how deep. They are a lot bigger than the original USN keels.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything else is scratch-built or bought in from various makers of resin, etch and 3D-printed fittings and weapons. The chief issue right through the build has been working around the paucity of reference material on the layout and certain fittings, and the fact that no two ships among the 78 appear to have an identical fit. Conn is particularly problematic as despite the ship's excellent war record, there are only two photographs of Conn currently available either in print or on the web. Fortunately, there are many photos of other Captains available and in particular a series of photos of other Frigates of the 21st Escort Group which have helped to clarify some appearance and camouflage issues. Written references that have proved especially useful are Donald Collingwood's 'The Captain Class Frigates in the Second World War', Bruce Hampton Franklin's 'The Buckley Class Destroyer Escorts' and Al Ross 'Anatomy of the Ship: The Destroyer Escort England'. Franklin's book contains Buckley Plans dated November 1943 from the actual building yard for most of the RN Buckley type, Bethlehem Hingham, and the plans in the 'Anatomy' publication are the next best source for clearing up issues.  Discussion on this board with members who know a lot more than me has also helped with my thoughts on camouflage (and anti-camouflage!), but I take full responsibility for the choices made.

 

 

[Stephen Allen]

I won't bore you all with a blow by blow of the build to date, but will try and keep up with progress from this point on, now that I have worked out how to more easily link to photos as things progress. These photos show the current state of play and pretty much illustrate the choices I have made about appearance. I have depicted Conn in what seems to be the 21st Escort Groups take on Admiralty Scheme 'C'. Overall white with a B55 panel on the hull, a full boot topping with a lighter coloured antifouling underneath which I have interpreted as red.  A lot of the deck gear, such as bollards, fairleads etc appear to be painted the same colour as the deck, there is a kicking strip along the base of the deckhouse and gun shields, and most of the ladders have dark strips painted under them, all the better to be found in dark of night I presume. I might add to my previous post by noting that there are more than two photos of Conn available, I meant to say overall photos of the ship. There are also a couple of photos of the crew and officers mustered on the forecastle (useful to show the colour of deck fittings and the very pale overall paint scheme) and one of the CO, Lt Cdr Hart, towards the rear of the bridge, which was helpful for working out access to the Director Tower this ship was fitted with.

 

 

[Stephen Allen]

And finally, the extremities of the ship, showing the anchor and cable gear, and at the stern, the depth charge arrangements and the beginnings of the Foxer gear. Conn remained fitted with the original USN K guns throughout her service, and the number of disposable arbors needed and stowed everywhere is noticeable. One of the more repetitive and boring fabrication tasks of the build!

 

 

Back with more later in the week!

 

cheers

 

Steve

[mick b]

Steve, excellent work and great to see the progress, as you may recall you helped me with my Elkins model (currently stalled) with regards the dimensions of the new structure on the bridge.

We had black strips painted behind vertical ladders on HMS Nottingham to avoid black toe boot marks showing up if left as grey paint so I guess the same may have applied here?

 

Mike

 

[Adm Lord De Univers]

What. A. Beaut. I seem to have stumbled into some kind of Captain class britmodeller nirvana recently (and I love it), but 1/72? How big is this thing?

 

Also, thank you for the references above, as a fellow owner of the 1/350 (pipsqueek) scale version (to be the Louis) I think I will be greatly indebted to both those books and this build.

 

David

[Stephen Allen]

Thanks David

 

its just a touch under 1.3 metres. Its really a little ‘un in our TF72 club. Is your Louis the ISW resin kit? I have one of these and it is a surprisingly good little kit, one of the best from the range.

 

Steve

[Adm Lord De Univers]

Ye gods, I have nowhere to fit something of that magnitude! I've got the trumpy england and wem conversion pe, however it'll be a while until it gets built as I need more practice first, especially as it'll require some scratching and was my Grandad's boat.

 

David

[Stephen Allen]

Fitting out continues.  The Captains were fortunate in being the first class of Allied escorts to be fitted with radar guided anti-aircraft missiles:

 

Just kidding, and apologies for the poor photo! These are Snowflake rocket flares, one to be fitted to each side of the bridge. I have only found a single illustration of a complete Snowflake on the web and have done my best to replicate what I saw with brass tube and plastic sheet. The US Navy pub that contains the description of this device sounds distinctly sceptical about the inherent safety of this British device, warning that it should be attached to a long lanyard, and that the lanyard should be enclosed to avoid anyone inadvertently tripping over it and setting the thing off accidentally - I wonder how they found that out?

 

And this is the additional night illumination available, six 2 inch rockets attached to each side of 'B' gun shield. these had the advantage of being trainable with the gun.

 

I used the rockets and brass etched end pieces from the DJ Parkins set meant for the Matchbox Corvette. I just couldn't get the thick etched connecting rails to fold, so I replaced them with Plastruct angles. You can now get a much better 3D set from Micro Master in NZ.  It looks okay now that it is painted. The gun shields were developed from the few photographs that show them aboard the Captains. They were also used on the Colony Class Frigates and Cathedral Class Minesweepers, also Lend Lease ships with 3"50 guns.  Most Captains had at least a shield for 'B' Mount, as this was manned at cruising stations, Conn was one of the few to have shields on all three mounts. Archer resin rivets are very useful for detailing pieces like this. The 3"50 guns inside the shields are from Di Stefano at Shapeways, though I have replaced the barrels with turned Aluminium ones originally meant for Sherman tanks. The 76 mm barrel is an almost perfect match for the naval equivalent and plugs right in to the 3D printed gun. The overall size of the shield emphasizes just how small the gun was; it 'couldn't put a dent in a pat of butter' according to one CO and could not pierce the pressure hull of a U-Boat, the most serious drawback of the class.  If the war had lasted the RN had plans to replace it with the 4 inch, and of course the USN traded up to the 5"38cal when it begun to refit its own Buckley's.

[Stephen Allen]

The essential long range sensor for the Battle of the Atlantic. the HF/DF. Captains were equipped with either the RN version of High Frequency Direction Finding for interception and bearing data on U-Boat transmissions, or SA air warning radar, but never both. RN Escort Groups usually had a mix of ships equipped with either sensor. It couldn't have been a top weight problem as the USN operated Buckleys with both the radar and their version of HF/DF carried on a pole mast aft. It was probably a manpower issue for the RN, with each ship only being able to be provided with the bare minimum of technically trained ratings.

 

My HF/DF started life as the Scale Warships 1/72 etched antenna. This is a bit delicate for outside use, and being right at the top of the mast it will be the first thing that idiots will point at while saying  'What's that? Oh, sorry...' . To beef it up I cut the bottom section off and slid 0.5mm brass tube over the vertical sections, and used these for the internal angled sections and the top as well. A couple of fixtures helped keep the whole thing aligned as I glued it all back together and added some strengthening tabs from plastic sheet. I am pretty sure I also used the little Albion Alloys joining tabs on some of the corners. This all gets mounted to a central Aluminium tube which is a slide fit into the top of the mast. That's so that I can mount it last before sailing, and remove it first. That's the theory anyway!

[Stephen Allen]

The Captains were very quickly fitted with additional life-saving floats. Conn carried a total of 10 floats, consisting of a mix of original USN balsa floats (square type) and RN Carley floats.

 

By April of 1945 Conn was one of a number of RN and RCN ships that likely had floats painted in a high visibility red and yellow scheme, the actual pattern varying from ship to ship. There is an excellent colour photograph of HMCS Thetford Mines, which shows the colours (and also how sloppily the painting was carried out), and further evidence is contained in a written account by Sub-Lieutenant Colin Wilkinson aboard HMS Narborough, referencing the colours used and why. Its an amusing anecdote.

 

The reason for doing it is obvious but what is less so is why requirements for camouflage painting were relaxed. Feel free to speculate. I am yet to find a source of authority/permission for this practice, it was not universal and seemed to largely fade out post-war.

 

I have been trawling through the IWM, Navyphotos, various books (there is an excellent shot of a Captain, HMS Rupert, in Franklin's Buckley book, showing floats with a diagonal check pattern) and have so far come up with a list of 20 plus ships, all photographed in the 1944-45 and post-war period which have floats that clearly have these high visibility markings. Captains, Lochs, Bays, Castles, a River, an Algerine, the Canadian cruiser HMCS Ontario (in colour no less). Patterns include red ends and yellow middles like Conn, diagonals like Rupert, reversed yellow, red, yellow, and some with half yellow, half red divided down the middle, especially Lochs.  Whether these are representative of larger numbers of ships I haven't yet determined, as the online photo holdings are chosen for other reasons (or are random). It would probably take written evidence to go much further and I have a ship to build.  Anyway, the pattern used on Conn is clearly visible on her forward floats, so I have used the same pattern for all.  I will try to get a better photo once I have them attached to the superstructure.

 

cheers

 

Steve

 

[Faraway]

Outstanding work 

Jon

[Goji308]

Beautiful project!!  Keep up the excellent work. 

[robgizlu]

I agree - This is looking very excellent!

Rob

 

[Coors54]

This is what my dad always hankered after to remind him of his service on Conn, whether mum would have countenanced something that big in the house is another matter. My poor efforts with the old Revell Buckley never seemed to satisfy his itch.

 

Beautiful work Stephen and she is going to look tremendous.

 

Dave

[Dancona]

Woah, superlative model making going on here, this is looking spectacular, the turrets are works of art in their own right !

[Stephen Allen]

Pressing on with the remaining details. Conn had two of the USN's standard 24 inch searchlights, one mounted each side of the bridge. I had purchased a pair of these from Shapeways. They would look very acceptable with a little detail work, but I wanted to show more of the workings of what was a fairly complex piece of equipment, and also make the lens a bit more realistic. These are the purchased lights, and I have already started by cutting the searchlight section from the pedestal, so that I can use these with the improved mounts.

 

And this is what the real thing looks like:

[Stephen Allen]

The first step after removing the searchlight section is to cut and assemble suitable pieces of brass and aluminium tube to form the body of the light, then temporarily mount it to the pedestal to make sure that everything stays square:

 

Details are added to the new body.  Outside details include the signalling key and the prominent top mounted air circulation exhaust and intakes, and the lower square section, which houses electrical gear for the carbon arcs that illuminate the light when switched on. These types of combined searchlight/signalling lamp also had internal vanes that open and shut to allow the operator to send morse code.  They also had an internal light-tight shutter, much like a camera's, but I am modeling that as fully open so some of the internal detail can be seen. Adding the external equipment underneath the light drum interfered with the sit of the light in the pedestal, so I also raised the pedestal arms with some additional plastic strip to restore the correct clearances underneath.

 

 

This last photo shows the lights ready for painting with added external cabling (metal tie wire) and detail. Its all just bits of plastic sheet and strip, with the circular sections punched out (discs) or heat formed around metal tubing (circles).

[Stephen Allen]

The searchlights freshly painted, but not yet weathered or shaded.  I could have added more detail but you have to stop somewhere and I think these will be good enough for government work.  What is really noticeable is that with this USN style of light unless the the inner signalling vanes are open, the brightly polished silver reflector at the back of the drum is never visible.  

 

I'll try to finish off the searchlights next time around, and show (hopefully!) the lens installed.

 

[Adm Lord De Univers]

I'm not sure what government you've worked for, but I'm pretty sure this goes far beyond the standard of government work. I'm actually at a loss of what further detail could be added, I mean, I assume there's a brass plate with instructions on it or part markings, but I expect the camera angle or resolution has hidden it from view.

 

David

[Stephen Allen]

Thanks David, you are too kind!

 

In this scale you can just keep finding and adding new detail, and the end result is you never get the model on the water.

 

Just to round this out, I lightly weathered the searchlights with a little drybrushing with oils, gave them a coat of clear varnish, then fitted the lenses. I was initially somewhat stumped as to how to model them. Clear acrylic discs are easy enough to come by, but these searchlights had noticeably domed lenses. I could carve masters and vacuform or smash mold them but that seemed like too much hard work. Some searching on the internet brought up some alternatives ranging from very expensive - small glass lenses meant for various kinds of cameras or laser devices - to ridiculously cheap - something intended for jewelry and craft called a cabachon glass bead. These come in various shapes, from spheres to high and low domes, and in various diameters. They are not 'engineered' so the height of the dome and diameter are only roughly correct and not guaranteed. But they come in packets of 50 or 100 for next to nothing, so you can do some test fitting and comparison to find the best matches. I bought a packet of 50 low domed cabachons with flat bases from a local online craft supplier and found that they were actually quite consistent. Preparation took next to no time. I masked and drew a circle on the rear of each cabachon with a black sharpie. This depicts the opened light-tight shutter of the searchlight:

 

The little glass bead captures the domed shape of the lens very nicely, and lets the vane detail from the interior show through. they are practically drop-fits into the searchlight and were secured with a little acrylic glue around their circumference. Quite happy with these!🙂

[Stephen Allen]

One step forward and one back. I built the basics of the mast quite early in the piece, as it was needed to help with getting the bridge structure and the mast supports aligned and in the right place. The rake and squareness of the mast are critical to the ship's appearance. It is a typical ww2 era USN pole mast. Because it is braced by passing through or butting against two separate superstructure levels, the lower section of the mast is a reverse taper, to allow it to be stepped in the completed structure. Because its an operating model, I built the mast from telescoping aluminium tube to keep top weight to a minimum. Now that the rest of the ship is getting close to completion its time to go back and finish off the details. I plan to leave stepping the mast to the very last stages, as once its onboard it makes moving the superstructure around a delicate job. I have thought about leaving it removable, but that leads to problems of rigging and de-rigging and keeping it square and true. If I can work out a way of temporarily but firmly fixing it in place I will try that. Here is the mast on its building stand, with the access ladder being tried out for size and position. On Buckley based Captains the ladder runs up the starboard side of the mast all the way to what would have been the SA radar platform.

On USN ships the yardarm sits behind the mast and on Buckley's the yardarm stands proud of the mast supported by a couple of brackets. I found that a couple of large etched ringbolts suitably modified worked to hold the yardarm firmly. Everything is pinned and glued with a high strength epoxy, as my soldering skills, limited as they are, are not up to successfully soldering brass and aluminium together.

[Stephen Allen]

The RN fitted a lot of its own equipment to the Captains, and removed quite a bit of USN equipment that was not relevant to its fighting and communication techniques. On the mast the HF/DF sits just above a Type 144 IFF aerial. Lower down the RN retained the SL surface radar. This had both an automatic sweep and a PPI display, which made it highly valued both for the detection of U-Boats and also the control of night surface engagements against S-Bootes. The RN also fitted additional signal yards in a characteristic 'V' at the top of the mast.  Most of the photos I have seen of Captains also show that the USN style 'Fighting Lights' were removed, and replaced by the usual RN outfit of non-directional signalling lights on the yardarm - haven't got to these yet, or to the voice radio aerials. 

 

The IFF aerial was often called the 'Candelabra' for obvious reasons, and in service it rotates. You can see a really good example of this type of aerial in action aboard 'HMS Saltash Castle' during the last U-Boat hunt in the movie 'The Cruel Sea', whizzing around above Ericson and Lockhart as they get grumpy over the length of the hunt. I built mine by cutting down an etched valve wheel to make a cross, added brass tube for the arms and axle, and used 1/400 scale etched pulley details for the antenna elements. Its very approximate, very fragile, and I have left it as a drop fit because I am bound to bend it or break it at some point. 

[mick b]

Phenomenal work Stephen! 

 

Mike