Airfix HMS Fearless (A03205V) 1:600

[Mike]

HMS Fearless (A03205V)

1:600 Airfix Vintage Classics

 

 

HMS Fearless (L10) was an amphibious assault ship of the Royal Navy that acted as a base and provided Headquarters facilities for the Royal Marines that were aboard, before and during their assault missions.  She was constructed in the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Northern Ireland in the early 60s, reaching service in 1965 at the beginning of a career that was to be longer than many ships of her era, which also made her the last steam-driven ship in the Royal Navy, with her career coming to an end in 2002.  She spent another five to six years laid-up before being sent to be dismantled in an environmentally responsible manner by a Belgian shipyard, recycling the majority of its metals during the process.  She was one of two ships of the class, her sister Intrepid was L11, and served alongside her until she was withdrawn into deep storage where she provided spares for Fearless, which is a little sad from her point of view, but kept fearless sailing for longer.  Intrepid was dismantled around the same time as Fearless, but in a UK location.

 

During service Fearless was capable of transporting 400 troops plus armour, or 700 troops if the armour wasn’t required, and those troops were Royal Marines, who formed the 4th Assault Squadron while they were aboard.  They would be put ashore using the four LCVP landing craft, or one of up to five Wessex helicopters that could land on the expansive deck that covered the majority of the dock where the landing craft were embarked.  Both Fearless class ships took part in Operation Corporate to retake the Falkland Isles in 1982, where they performed admirably, and after they returned only Fearless underwent a two-year refit to extend its working life, as Intrepid wasn’t in good condition by then.  The type’s replacements were ordered at the beginning of the 90s in anticipation of the end of the Fearless’s career, although there was a brief period where there were no Assault Ships in service while they waited for HMS Albion to replace the retired Fearless a year later, to be joined by Bulkwark in 2005.

 

 

The Kit

This is a very welcome trip down memory lane for me, as I built this kit as a boy and really enjoyed playing with the included landing craft and helicopters that are in the kit.  That should give you an idea of how old the kit is, and the fact that it’s in the Vintage Classics range should give you another clue.  The kit was originally tooled in 1968, just three years after the real thing ‘joined the Navy’, so you’ll probably know what to expect from the sprues within the box.  Speaking of the box, it arrives in an old-skool Airfix box, and inside are four sprues and five separate parts in grey styrene, the sprues being the original style with no protective runners around the edges like we’ve come to expect from modern kits.  The instruction booklet is very vintage too, but the decal sheet is from Cartograf, which means it’s good to go.  Looking over the sprues while trying not to knock any parts off, the detail is what we would expect from a kit of that era, and although the moulds are showing some signs of age, time has been relatively kind and the model should be buildable, although a little flash and some sink marks will need to be dealt with if they bother you.  This is currently the only choice in this scale, and there’s sadly no 1:350 kit around.

 

 

 

 

Construction begins with the hull, which is made from two halves, a six-part dock inside the stern, the deck that has raised tie-downs moulded into the aft area, and a pair of anchors in the bow.  The two simple display stands are also shown in this first diagram, for you to use or dispose of as you see fit.  The hull has fine raised lines around its sides for the anti-fouling and boot-topping, but there appears to be a scratch in the mould of the starboard side near the bow, but as it is raised, it shouldn’t be a problem to dispose of.  Age is a cruel mistress.  Under the stern, two prop shafts are fixed into shallow depressions along with a fairing where the shaft exits the hull, a two-legged strut, separate rudders and four-bladed screws at the tips.

 

The superstructure is made up from ten parts, the sides of which have some raised portholes and other surface shapes moulded into them.  The superstructure is then detailed with davits; lifeboats; four smaller utility landing craft; defensive weapons of the era; the twin funnels on either side of the hangar; two masts of different heights with various horizontals and antennae.  Around the dock are a number of small parts and a three-part crane on one side, plus a smaller one on the opposite side.  Another crane is fixed to a circular base outside the hangar for the ship’s boat, the jackstaffs fore and aft, and four lengths of stairs are fixed to holes in the sides of the hull below stubs that are moulded into the deck.

 

Over the page the accessories are built up from a few parts each.  You have two of the four LCVP landing craft, which have a separate ramp to the front and raised pilot house at the rear, while the two Wessex helicopters that are included have separate blades and tail rotors, although the depiction of their wheels is a simple cylinder across the underside of the fuselage.

 

 

Markings

Fearless was grey throughout her career, with plenty of rusty streaking seen in most photographs from any period.  The instructions depict her as she was in 1968 when the kit was originally tooled.  From the box you can build her thusly:

 

 

 

Decals are by Cartograf, which is a guarantee of good registration, sharpness and colour density, with a thin satin carrier film cut close to the printed areas.

 

 

Conclusion

It’s an old kit, but it certainly has a lot of fond memories for me.  She was a great ship with a long career, and unless you fancy scratch-building something larger, it’s the only choice apart from expensive resin in a smaller scale.  Her motto says it all - Explicit Nomen ‘The name says it all’.

 

Recommended, but more-so because it’s the Fearless.

 

 

Review sample courtesy of