Monday, 28 August 2023

Royal Navy Fleet Completed

The last of the Royal Navy ships were finished a week or so ago, with the completed Royal Navy fleet now taking its place alongside the US Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy and Kriegsmarine. Given that the Royal Navy ships were the first I started it is nice to finally complete them. The last batch includes the Nelson and two Queen Elizabeth class battleships, the Barham and Valiant:












Two more King George V class battleships in the Duke of York and Howe:











and HMS Resolution:











Four more County class heavy cruisers include the Cornwall and Shropshire:











And the two Australian County Class cruisers Australia and Canberra both in their 'Chicago blue' colour schemes which they adopted for operations alongside the US Navy in the Pacific. As mentioned previously the Canberra was sunk and a US Baltimore class cruiser named in its honour later in the war, while the Australia was the first Allied ship to come under kamikaze attack and was subsequently hit by them another six times, suffering the most kamikaze attacks of any ship during the war:











Additional light cruisers completed include HMS Manchester and Belfast:











Three RAN Leander class cruisers in HMAS Perth, Sydney and Hobart:











And another Dido class anti-aircraft light cruiser, HMS Argonaut:











Two Fiji class light cruisers, HMS Fiji and Bermuda, plus HMNZS Dunedin and HMS Dauntless complete the light cruiser additions:





















I also added three 'O' class destroyers, Onslow, Offa and Onslaught, to bring the total number of destroyers to fifteen:











As we are planning a few convoy games, I decided to add several corvettes and destroyer escorts to the fleet. The four Flower class corvettes, Clematis, Arbutus, Samphire and Sunflower are tiny models, seen here together and next to a pencil for scale:





















The three Hunt class destroyer escorts, Bicester, Exmoor and Grove are also considerably smaller than the usual destroyer models:











Five U-class submarines, Union, Umpire, Ultor, Unruly and Urge will also be useful for campaigns, if we manage to get one off the ground:











I completed three more fleet carriers with the Victorious, Formidable and Hermes shown below:











Along with several escort carriers for the aforementioned convoy games. These include HMS Attacker, Battler, Archer, and two converted grain carriers in the Empire MacAlpine and Empire MacRae. These latter two carriers continued to transport grain, and therefore had both a merchant crew and a Royal Navy crew to service and fly the four Swordfish aircraft they carried:











Finally, here is HMS Archer alongside the Ark Royal, just to give an idea of the difference in size between an escort and fleet carrier:











The entire Royal Navy fleet consists of 79 models in total, most of which fit snugly in one A3 storage box although the carriers and a handful of battleships have had to find a home alongside some of the overflow from the US and Japanese fleets:











Next up will be the completed merchant and transport ships, only a dozen or so, and then the Italian and French fleets to complete the project. 

12 comments:

  1. Wonderful work that adds to your already brilliant collection.

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    1. Thanks Richard. The end of the project is now in sight, especially as the remaining contingents are snakker than the four I have completed.

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  2. Another lovely batch of WWII naval goodness there Lawrence - your commitment and patience in doing these is amazing. I hope you and your gaming group get a decent number of games out of this project - you certainly should do, with the number of ships you have painted in the last few months!

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    1. Thanks Keith. I have a friend who is into naval gaming who rang me out of the blue and suggested we get together every second Tuesday, so these will see quite a bit of table time in between Napoleonic naval games. That was really the inspiration for getting stuck into these.

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  3. I love them all. Great job. do the bases come with the ships? How the hell did you get those straight white lines on the carriers?
    Now stop tempting me to get into WWII naval. I only have so much will power. 😁

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    1. Thanks Stew. The bases are 3mm MDF pieces I ordered separately off a local supplier and then build up with multifiller, and the carrier decks are decals (there is no way I could get a white line that straight freehand). I think WW2 naval gaming can be a bit hit and miss but if you start with a fun set which doesn't get too bogged down in minutiae, like Nimitz, it can be fun. Probably no different to starship gaming in many ways.

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  4. Good God, man! How do you do it? Superb work, as always. Great job! When will we see these fleets in action?

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    1. Thanks Jonathan. I have been setting a fair pace with these but grabbing three hours each morning before work has certainly helped. I'll definitely post an AAR or two with some forthcoming actions we have planned.

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  5. That is a pretty impressive fleet Lawrence.

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    1. Thanks Mark. Only a few more to come, thankfully.

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  6. Splendid fleet, did you make it to HMS Belfast when you were over? Worth a look, no HMS Venerable, my dads fleet carrier didn't see much action in the Pacific but was in Sydney for VJ day!
    Best Iain

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    1. I saw HMS Belfast but, in spite of living in London (well, Penn) for two years, never made it on board. It is one of those things were I kept thinking I'd do it next time I'm in town, and now regret not getting around to it twenty years later. I did initially want to include at least one Colossus class ship, but stopped at ten RN carriers which is more than I'll ever need.

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