HMS Hermes (1919) & HMAS Vampire (1917). Indian Ocean, February 1942; 1/700 Aoshima/Tamiya.

[Ngantek]

Here's a build of HMS Hermes (1919) and HMAS Vampire (1917), from the Aoshima and Tamiya kits respectively. These two were lost during the Indian Ocean Raid of April 1942, caught virtually undefended while fleeing for Trincomalee by the bulk of the IJN Kido Butai airfleet. I thought it would be nice to display them together in happier times, in this case at the end of February 1942, when they were briefly bound for Fremantle together. Vampire had served with distinction as part of the Scrap Iron Flotilla in the Med virtually without rest since April 1940, and it would have been her first return home. Sadly they were recalled two days later to prepare for the invasion of Madagascar, and thus ultimately became ensnared in the Ceylon raid in April.

 

Please forgive the photos. Originally as part of the excellent Salty Sea Dog GB, I 'finished' these two a while ago; and they did make it to Telford and back, but I was never particularly happy with the result, at least not enough to take any good pictures; before I upended the box they were travelling in 🤣. Since I entirely lack the inclination to untangle, repair and rebuild everything, I've decided to go with what I have. Anyway seeing as how annoying I know it can be to find builds on here that die out or questions that never get answered, I figured I may as well post what I have in case anyone in future has interest in the kits or subjects.

 

The difficulty of displaying two ships together at a distance that doesn't look ridiculous (let alone anywhere near accurate) was something I struggled with. In this case I thought it would be nice to have some goofers on the Vampire enjoying the spectacle as she is acting as plane guard while Hermes lands on her Swordfish, although in reality that would put her a good mile astern. The diorama is consequently rather unbalanced to squeeze them both in. The odd shape is owing to my lack of space at home, so the base actually separates and the ships can be therefore sit individually on their own small hexagonal cut out portions. The sea base itself is rather rough, it's my first effort and let's just say lessons have subsequently been learned, I hope! 

 

HMS Hermes is from the Aoshima kit with various minor upgrades and scratch additions courtesy of Starling models (oerlikons) and Tom's Modelworks (upgraded PE crane). The aft netting is scratched from 0.1mm wire and some mesh ribbon, but the result is so shonky, it would've been better to leave it. It could've used Aoshima's PE set but I failed to find one. The kit is nice enough, a little abstract in places but suffers by comparison with the stunning Flyhawk one, and I spent no small amount of time bemoaning my decision to build the former. It says something about the state of the industry where I can feel aggrieved at building the worse modern tooled IM kit of an obscure single-ship class.

 

HMAS Vampire is from the Tamiya, which is very nice, but a little simple in places, and despite being of the same ship, presents her in a pre-war fit that required a significant range of alterations. Mostly these were made using the comprehensive White Ensign V&W PE, Starling Models (oerlikons, depth charge gubbins, spools and vents) or scratch (2pdr pom poms, superstructure, masts).

 

The stringbags are a mix of the kit ones and Flyhawks nutty 14-part versions. Yes, 1/700 aircraft, 14 parts. Figures mostly ION and Starling Models.

 

Paint was predominantly Colourcoats with the odd bit of Tamiya thrown in here and there.

 

My sincere thanks to all those who followed and helped out along the way. Particularly to @Procopius for sharing his excellent paper on the Indian Ocean Raid itself. I've benefitted greatly from the research of others, but the decisions and subsequent errors are my own. There are some issues with the scheme and fit of Hermes (left hull, lacking any photos, is entirely a guess on my part; Oerlikons and quad poms are incorrect and no doubt many others); and of Vampire (the blue B5 colour is almost certainly incorrect). I'd (as always) urge future builders to do their own research and perhaps check back on the WiP before assuming any details are correct, many decisions were plain (usually uniformed) guesses on my part.

 

The result doesn't nearly live up to the quality of information provided, but I'm glad to have got them finished in the end. More info on the builds and research can be found on the WiP pages below. 

Thanks for looking!

Andy

 

 

 

 

WiPs:

 

[Procopius]

I particularly love the Swordfish landing there.

[Andy H]

Impressive and inspiring. 😎👍

[Marcello Rosa]

Love it, really captures the moment

 

[mick]

excellent work

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday @Ngantek, I think you're being hard on yourself - these are terrific. And like others, I love that plane landing. Supporting it by the arrester hook is a brilliant idea, one that I might 'borrow' in the future if I may. I also think many of us have to 'guess' detail on occasion when we can't find supporting evidence/answers to questions. I have done so. I repeat, these are great.

Regards, Jeff.

[Ngantek]

On 27/02/2024 at 21:19, Procopius said:

I particularly love the Swordfish landing there.

 

18 hours ago, Marcello Rosa said:

Love it, really captures the moment

 

 

On 27/02/2024 at 22:19, Andy H said:

Impressive and inspiring. 😎👍

 

16 hours ago, mick said:

excellent work

Thanks all, that's very kind. As I say, not an end result that I'm particularly proud of, but I felt I needed to draw a line under the open build logs!


 

15 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday @Ngantek, I think you're being hard on yourself - these are terrific. And like others, I love that plane landing. Supporting it by the arrester hook is a brilliant idea, one that I might 'borrow' in the future if I may. I also think many of us have to 'guess' detail on occasion when we can't find supporting evidence/answers to questions. I have done so. I repeat, these are great.

Regards, Jeff.

Thanks for your kind words Jeff. We all have those builds whose finished reality doesn't quite live up to what we were hoping for at one point. I think this one had the classic case of rushing the finish because the joy had gone a little bit, so execution rather let down the idea. I've never done a sea base or worked with figures before and thought it would be nice to try and tell a bit more of a story this time. Definitely a lot of positive lessons to come out of it that are hopefully paying dividends on my current build though, so it's little churlish to be too negative about it! I have to say, in the process of this one, I've become rather attached to both ships and their stories, so I would like to have another go some day.

 

Thanks again.

 

Andy

[robgizlu]

Andy - my siincere apologies for not having registered this - I was away when you posted.

I really like it - the ships are excellently modelled - I too like the Swordfish on finals "wobble", 

Great sea colour and sculpt - nice wakes, and think your 2 part base is really rather neat.

Congratulations 

Rob

[AdrianMF]

Amazing. I love the figures too, very characterful and animated!

 

Regards,

Adrian

[javlin]

That is really neat and impressive for me all I can do in 1/700 is glue pieces together the eyes just do not have the duration to go there.Nicely done!!

[Ngantek]

On 11/03/2024 at 09:28, robgizlu said:

Andy - my siincere apologies for not having registered this - I was away when you posted.

I really like it - the ships are excellently modelled - I too like the Swordfish on finals "wobble", 

Great sea colour and sculpt - nice wakes, and think your 2 part base is really rather neat.

Congratulations 

Rob

No need to apologise Rob, I barely post here these days! But thanks, I appreciate the encouragement. It's not worked out quite right, but valuable experience gained. I've stolen a lot of ideas and inspiration from your builds, so thanks for giving us something to aim at (however unrealistically!).

 

On 11/03/2024 at 14:07, AdrianMF said:

Amazing. I love the figures too, very characterful and animated!

 

Regards,

Adrian

Thanks Adrian. The Ion ones are quite nice (if rather pricey), lots of more interesting poses to work with. There's not quite the choice at 700 scale that you get at 350

 

 

On 13/03/2024 at 21:50, javlin said:

That is really neat and impressive for me all I can do in 1/700 is glue pieces together the eyes just do not have the duration to go there.Nicely done!!

Thanks that's very kind. Mostly I like the choice at 700, and the small possibility that they will fit into the house! I'm also hoping that the masochism will make the inevitable step up to 350 more enjoyable!

 

Andy