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HMS Ark Royal Mid 1940


S-boat 55

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Hi all  

 

Quick question or two if I may, I've this is the stash and I'm in the process of gathering a few bits/extras whilst I work on my current build/s, could do with confirming a couple of bits around her fit in mid 1940. Not sure why but the oft forgotten Norwegian campaign has always interested me so I'm going to do that kind of period when I build her. From what I've read the following is correct I think but I'm not certain as some of it is from very open source material;

 

Paint scheme: Overall Homefleet 507A

AA provision: As sunk with the exception of the two poms poms yet to be fitted on the platforms over the flight deck opposite the island

Air group: Swordfish and Skuas with oddly a 5 strong squadron of Walruses there for training operations 

Radar type: Ive read the type 285 parts shouldn't be fitted for this period but confess on this I've no idea so would very much appreciate any help, 

 

Thanks in advance

 

Sam

Edited by S-boat 55
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Paint scheme - agree AP507A overall

AA - agree - 4x2 4.5", 4x8 2pdr, 8x4 0.5".

Air Group - "mid 1940" includes the later part of the Norwegian campaign and Ark's involvement in Operation atapult (Mers el Kebir) and attacks on Cagliari and Elmas.  Off Norway she carried Skua and Swordfish (Rocs were embarked in the early part of that campaign).  The Walrus of 701 Squadron were only embarked for a couple of days in early June - they had been operating from Harstad and embarked in Ark as part of the evacuation at the end of the campaign.  Her air group when she entered the Mediterranean was still Skuas and Swordfish, although another Swordfish squadron had embarked.

Radar (RDF) - Type 285 should indeed not be fitted - I have no idea why the kit includes the aerials, as Ark was never fitted with any radar sets!  (Not sure if any of her squadrons had RDF-fitted aircraft later on.)

 

Confirmed that some of the Swordfish embarked during the Bismarck chase DID carry ASV (radar).

Edited by Our Ned
Amendment - new last sentence
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  • 5 weeks later...
27 minutes ago, hj1985 said:

https://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-04CV-Ark Royal.htm

 

Here is a detailed operation history for HMS Ark Royal.

 

You can find what air-group it carried at different times by Ctrl+F searching for keywords "Swordfish" and "Skuas"

Thanks that's a fantastic resource,  

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  • 2 months later...
On 30/12/2021 at 19:44, S-boat 55 said:

Thanks for confirming that, 

 

I'm intrigued by the Walruses, I'm tempted to try and lock her down to those few days just for the point of difference of having them on board,  

 

Thanks again, 

 

 

On 7 June Ark Royal embarked  5 Walrus from 701 Squadron from Harstad for return passage and 1 Walrus from Glorious on 8 June.  Two of these were ex-HMS Effingham  (P5662 and P5663). The others serials were P5656 , P5697, P5707,  P5711 (all to Harstad via HMS Glorious  on 9 May).

 

I have a photograph  of a Walrus on Ark Royal, in high demarcation camouflage, which I had assumed was one of these (I can't read the serial), but looking at it again it does not have a fin flash, so it is before 7 June Harstad embarkation. The Admiralty mandated marking a fin flash and yellow concentric to the fuselage roundel of FAA aircraft on 30 May. 

 

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Looking at the Admiralty records for Ark Royal's aircraft operations in June, the 6 Walrus were not passengers, but actively deployed on ASW and reconnaissance duties  most days until they were disembarked on the 14 June. They were coded 5C, 5F, 5H, 5K, 5L and 5M, though I suspect that only individual aircraft letters were carried. Matching the serials to the codes is not possible from the Admiralty documents I have.

 

 

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10 hours ago, Jamie @ Sovereign Hobbies said:

 

Moravia's Grey - same as HMS King George V.

 

@dickrd found it in the Ship's Book at Kew :)

Thanks Jamie and by extension @dickrd, I'm slowly build up a lost of what I'll need for her, 

 

50 minutes ago, iang said:

Looking at the Admiralty records for Ark Royal's aircraft operations in June, the 6 Walrus were not passengers, but actively deployed on ASW and reconnaissance duties  most days until they were disembarked on the 14 June. They were coded 5C, 5F, 5H, 5K, 5L and 5M, though I suspect that only individual aircraft letters were carried. Matching the serials to the codes is not possible from the Admiralty documents I have.

 

 

Thanks @iang that's very impressive knowledge of her history, I'll have to see about if I can get marking small enough for a 1/350 but would be quite cool to have the codes on them, would love to see that photo you mentioned if possible, 

 

Sam

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On 08/04/2022 at 18:56, S-boat 55 said:

 would love to see that photo you mentioned if possible, 

 

Sam

Here's the photo. It's from my phone, as my scanner is broken.

 

 

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Thanks for posting that for me, 

 

Everyone seems a little fascinated by the Walruses presence,  this has made my including of them a must,  as they're quite tall is guess they would have had to of been kept on deck, 

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11 minutes ago, S-boat 55 said:

Thanks for posting that for me, 

 

Everyone seems a little fascinated by the Walruses presence,  this has made my including of them a must,  as they're quite tall is guess they would have had to of been kept on deck, 

Height of a Walrus on its wheels was 15 ft 3 in. Hangar height under the beams in Ark Royal 16ft. So they fit happily.

Edited by EwenS
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  • 3 weeks later...

It is so interesting! The Norway campaign fascinates me a lot. Poles (Navy and ground forces) were deeply involved.

 

I hope to build "Norwegian" Ark Royal some day.

 

Pity there is no Glorious or Furious plastic model available.

 

BTW, is it possibile to estimate that Warspite Swordfish marking and camouflage (one which in the 2nd Battle of Narvik sunk a U-Boot and spotted artillery)?

 

Good luck with this project!

Edited by GrzeM
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21 hours ago, GrzeM said:

It is so interesting! The Norway campaign fascinates me a lot. Poles (Navy and ground forces) were deeply involved.

 

I hope to build "Norwegian" Ark Royal some day.

 

Pity there is no Glorius or Furious plastic model available.

 

BTW, is it possibile to estimate that Warspite Swordfish marking and camouflage (one which in the 2nd Battle of Narvik sunk a U-Boot and spotted artillery)?

 

Good luck with this project!

I've no idea re the warspite question I'm afraid,

 

I've heard rumour that Veryfire are looking at doing a 1/350 Furious but we'll see, if not I think one could be scratch built using HMS Repulse' hull, as its pretty close in dimensions and profile, I've looked at it as an idea but I've a lit to build until I get to it

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Gidday, I've a 1/600 scale Airfix Repulse to Glorious conversion in the build queue, but don't hold your breath just yet. I know the hull won't be the exact dimensions but I can live with it. Regards, Jeff.

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7 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday, I've a 1/600 scale Airfix Repulse to Glorious conversion in the build queue, but don't hold your breath just yet. I know the hull won't be the exact dimensions but I can live with it. Regards, Jeff.

Yeah they're pretty close aren't they, I worked it out to only be millimetres difference in 1/350, I.e for repulse to furious conversion then the repulse hull from trumpeter would be 7mm too long, 1.7mm too wide and 2.6mm too deep, I can live with that to save scratch building a hull, especially as the crucial bit I.e the hull form/shape is very very similar, so much so that i suspect the designers were using a slightly adjusted design from Repulse/Renown. Given they were ordered so close together and the pressure was to just get things built I suspect that was likely the case, 

 

 

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Gidday again. When built I think there was 8 feet difference in length overall (794' for Repulse, 786' for Glorious) and 9 feet difference in beam, (90' to 81'). By WW2 the difference in beam was 12 feet (102' for Repulse, 90' for Glorious) due to the ships being bulged. The length difference would be 4mm in 1/600 and beam 6mm. I can live with that. I can always protect myself by claiming the aircraft carrier is based on HMS Glorious😉 Regards, Jeff.

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  • 4 months later...
On 4/26/2022 at 9:30 PM, GrzeM said:

It is so interesting! The Norway campaign fascinates me a lot. Poles (Navy and ground forces) were deeply involved.

 

I hope to build "Norwegian" Ark Royal some day.

 

Pity there is no Glorious or Furious plastic model available.

 

BTW, is it possibile to estimate that Warspite Swordfish marking and camouflage (one which in the 2nd Battle of Narvik sunk a U-Boot and spotted artillery)?

 

Good luck with this project!

Warspite’s Swordfish at Narvik was L9767, as seen here.  This photo wasn’t taken at Narvik, but every piece of research I’ve been able to find suggests that the aircraft was still in its pre-War Cerrux Grey & Silver Dope acheme.

 

 

Swordfish L9767

 

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1 hour ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Warspite’s Swordfish at Narvik was L9767, as seen here.  This photo wasn’t taken at Narvik, but every piece of research I’ve been able to find suggests that the aircraft was still in its pre-War Cerrux Grey & Silver Dope acheme.

 

 

Swordfish L9767

 

 

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That's the only known photo of L9767 in pre-war finish where the whole airframe is in view.  The finish at Narvik on 13th of April was the same as this photo, as several photos taken from the Swordfish while spotting for Warspite show parts of the airframe, which was definitely in pre-war finish. The only doubt surrounds the code -  C8B according to Admiralty documents.   The photographs taken on 13th April do not show the fin, so it is unknown whether L9767 carried the code C8B.  In my view, the code was probably applied later when the aircraft was camouflaged.

 

I have several photos of C8A and C8C in camouflage. C8C caries the full code across a full height full fin width flash, repeated under the upper mainplane. C8A just carries the letter A on a full height, full width flash, with the A repeated under the upper mainplane. The FAAM have a photo of (supposedly) L9767  in camouflage at Aboukir. The angle of the photo is not helpful, but the single letter code on the fin could be B,  but the serial is not visible. However, I tend to treat FAAM photo captions with caution as they are  unreliable in my experience. 

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On 28/04/2022 at 16:59, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday again. When built I think there was 8 feet difference in length overall (794' for Repulse, 786' for Glorious) and 9 feet difference in beam, (90' to 81'). By WW2 the difference in beam was 12 feet (102' for Repulse, 90' for Glorious) due to the ships being bulged. The length difference would be 4mm in 1/600 and beam 6mm. I can live with that. I can always protect myself by claiming the aircraft carrier is based on HMS Glorious😉 Regards, Jeff.

I thought about a Trumpeter Repulse conversion to Glorious and it might be a good route. Instead, I used the Lindberg 1/400 Hood. It's a truly appalling kit, but other than bow and stern matches the dimensions of Furious/Glorious in 1/350 quite well.  It can also be found very cheap, so suitable for batch production. I modified the hulls to represent Furious 1918, Furious 1939, Glorious 1936, and Courageous 1916. I had plans for each enlarged to 1/350 and they match the hulls  pretty well. The bulges on the Lindberg Hood are non-existent, so the hulls can be modified depending on ship/date. The project stalled through a lack of time (I really need to retire) and absence of suitable detailed plans. I was hoping for one of the three ships to feature as a volume in the Seaforth original builders plans series. but this series seems to have stalled, as there have been no new volumes since Cossack.

UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_5834

 

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Fascinating thread this.  Thanks to all contributors.

 

On 08/04/2022 at 10:28, iang said:

On 7 June Ark Royal embarked  5 Walrus from 701 Squadron from Harstad for return passage and 1 Walrus from Glorious on 8 June.  Two of these were ex-HMS Effingham  (P5662 and P5663). The others serials were P5656 , P5697, P5707,  P5711 (all to Harstad via HMS Glorious  on 9 May).

 

I have a photograph  of a Walrus on Ark Royal, in high demarcation camouflage, which I had assumed was one of these (I can't read the serial), but looking at it again it does not have a fin flash, so it is before 7 June Harstad embarkation. The Admiralty mandated marking a fin flash and yellow concentric to the fuselage roundel of FAA aircraft on 30 May. 

 

 

Just a thought.  Notwithstanding the fact that the Admiralty may have mandated something on 30 May, 701 Sqn were IIRC ashore in Norway and from what I have read about the Norwegian campaign stores support ashore was sparse so I would put money on a bet that paint supplies were not amongst their spares and I would suspect there is every possibility that they may have been unable to comply with the directive by the time they embarked.  I'm sure that ARK would have had the paint on board but would the tempo of operations have permitted the repainting?  I don't know. 

 

 

On 15/09/2022 at 10:49, iang said:

I thought about a Trumpeter Repulse conversion to Glorious and it might be a good route. Instead, I used the Lindberg 1/400 Hood. It's a truly appalling kit, but other than bow and stern matches the dimensions of Furious/Glorious in 1/350 quite well.  It can also be found very cheap, so suitable for batch production. I modified the hulls to represent Furious 1918, Furious 1939, Glorious 1936, and Courageous 1916. I had plans for each enlarged to 1/350 and they match the hulls  pretty well. The bulges on the Lindberg Hood are non-existent, so the hulls can be modified depending on ship/date. The project stalled through a lack of time (I really need to retire) and absence of suitable detailed plans. I was hoping for one of the three ships to feature as a volume in the Seaforth original builders plans series. but this series seems to have stalled, as there have been no new volumes since Cossack.

 

 

I'd be interested in any information that you did have pertaining to FURIOUS in 1939/1940.  In the assumption that there were no suitable kits that could be converted, I have started drawing her in CAD and plan at some point in the future to 3D print her but owing to paucity of information it is proceeding somewhat slowly.  This is a render of progress to date although somewhat annoyingly we had a power cut about a week or so ago and my PC crashed.  Even though I know I had saved it, Fusion 360 seems to have gone back to a much earlier version of this.  I had also drawn all of the supports for the 8 barrelled pom-poms, opened up the covered fo'c'sle, added the hawse pipes and whole raft more.  No idea what's happened to them.  I will be starting a WIP thread at some point to chart progress on this but it is a long term project.

 

52366010370_c20d805b77_o.png

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