Year: 2019

The Hunt Typ II destroyer escort for Cruel Seas in 1/300

thomasriepe , , , , ,

 

The Royal Navy had identified the need for two types of destroyer: larger vessels with heavy gun and torpedo armaments for fleet work and another type for escort duties. Although old fleet destroyers could be allocated to escort work, they were unsuitable for the task and new construction replaced them. Fleet destroyers were designed for speed and their machinery was inefficient at convoy speeds, reducing their range. Their shape made them poor sea boats at low speed, also exacerbated by additional equipment on the superstructure. Modifications were needed to ease these problems.

The escort vessels forsook the heavy armament and some of the speed of the fleet type to reduce unit cost and better suit mass production and the conditions. This new “fast escort vessel” was later classified as an “escort destroyer”.

Eighty-six Hunts were completed, of which 72 were commissioned into the Royal Navy and the remaining 14 were transferred to allied navies;

The Typ II

General characteristics Type II
Displacement:
  • 1,050 long tons (1,070 t) standard
  • 1,430 long tons (1,450 t) full load
Length: 85.3 m (279 ft 10 in
Beam: 9.6 m (31 ft 6 in)
Draught: 2.51 m (8 ft 3 in)
Propulsion:
  • 2 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
  • 2 shaft Turbines, 19,000 shp (14,200 kW)
Speed:
  • 27 knots(31 mph; 50 km/h)
  • 25.5 kn (29.3 mph; 47.2 km/h) full
Range: 3,600 nmi (6,700 km) at 14 kn (26 km/h)
Complement: 164
Armament:
  • 6 × QF 4 in Mark XVI guns on twin mounts Mk. XIX
  • 4 × QF 2 pdr Mk. VIII on quad mount MK.VII
  • 2 × 20 mm Oerlikons on single mounts P Mk. III
  • 110 depth charges, 2 throwers, 3 racks

Eighteen were ordered on 4 September 1940 and two more (Lauderdale and Ledbury) on the following day. Three of these were completed to the Type I specification – Blankney, Blencathra and Brocklesby. A final batch of sixteen were ordered on 20 December 1939. ( from Wikipedia)

This time I wanted to try a , may be easier, different way. I got a paper craft model of the Hunt Typ II (ORP Slazak) from JSC in 1/400

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The model also comprises an English G class Destroyer and a small coaster/fishing vessel

As the model is in 1/400 I had to increase the size of the parts by about 30%. After doing that with a photocopying machine I started building the model like explained in the assembly instructions. The only difference being to fill all the hollow spaces with extruded polystyrene to make it sturdy enough for casting.

The next step was filling and sanding to get a rough hull, the hull of the Warlord vosper is for size comparison, The Hunt is rather large in 1/300 ( about 28 cm)

Next the paper hull sides were glued in , before that I punched out all the bulleyes to get them 3d for casting.

That is how far I got up to today. What do you think?

 

 

What will be the next ship for Cruel Seas?

thomasriepe , , , , ,

Here is a little quiz! Can you tell which class of ship the next model for Cruel Seas will be?

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One more clue: They were used extensively with the east coast / north sea convoys.

Fully loaded steamer

thomasriepe , , , , ,

Here is the loaded version of the Steamer Bellota:

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And a few more pictures:

and next to the empty one:

And again for size comparison with the Warlord tanker:

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Next will be the tanker and passenger liner versions.

Casting the steamer

thomasriepe , , , , , , , ,

As I said in the last post I wanted to make moulds of the steamer Bellota. Here they are:

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Here are the first casts of the parts:

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And the build steamer. The life boats and davids are still missing as are the air vents. I have to do two part molds for these. Will be done next week. Furthermore the masts are missing these will be done with brass rod.

Here is a picture of the cast steamer:

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Some more pictures from different angles:

And pictures with the Warlord tanker alongside for size comparison:

The model as shown above is supposed to show the ship in ballast so riding very high in the water. I have done a loaded version ,too, have still to put it together, will show later.

Now I will do the tanker and liner version next!

The steamer Bellota is finished

thomasriepe , , , , ,

I finished the parts of the steamer Bellota in the last days and did the molds yesterday. Here are the components of the ship:

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These parts are cast separately to be able to use the hull for different layouts and to make the individual molds smaller.

This is what the steamer looks like:

And here is a size comparison with a warlord vosper hull:

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As you see it is quite big but not as big as the trumpeter liberty ship. More when the first parts are cast. Hopefully tonight.

 

The Bäderschiff Rheinland in “technicolor”

thomasriepe , , ,

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Here is the Rheinland painted and ready for the gaming table. I might give her a wash to dirty her up a bit though.

Am I still gaming and modeling?

thomasriepe , , , ,

Yes, of course! Sorry that I haven’t written anything in the last week but real life came in the way. As i am sure happens with you lot often enough, too.

I have done a little more work on the generic steamer Bellota. I started work on the bridge area. this will be the bridge for a cargo vessel . I will do a bridge structure for a tanker and a passenger liner too. The aim is to build one hull and different superstructures to build many different steamers. There will be different funnels, too. Furthermore the cargo holds will be single peaces so that they can be left of when building e.g. a tanker. The tanker will get single peace fuel lines for placing on the deck.

So here is the start of the cargo bridge structure. The railing on the hull has to be cut away on the cast later to place the bridge correctly.

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More to come

correcting a resin model

thomasriepe , , ,

I got the Vorpostenboot model from Warlord and the hull wasn’t really strait as you can see on the picture ( red arrow).

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As i had to correct that, I thought I could explain how I did it. As resin reacts with heat, it gets soft and bendy, so I heated up some water and put the model inside for a short time . I didn’t time it properly but I think I left it inside less then 30 sec. Surely the longer you leave the resin in the hot water the more bendy it gets.

When bendy enoughI took out the model and straitened it up. Be careful not to burn your fingers. Next step is to put the model in cold water . The resin gets hard again.

Here is a picture before (on the left) and after( on the right)

Hope that helps a bit if you have issues with bend resin models!

Rheinland build finished

thomasriepe , , , ,

This weekend I finished building the steamer Rheinland. The model is to be used for the Cruel Seas game from Warlord. It is in 1/300 or 6mm scale. it is completely scratch build . More about the build here, here, and here.

I did the molds and the resin casting, too.

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The only thing missing are the lifeboats. I will build a Kriegsmarine version next. Depicting the ship as a Hilfskreuzer ( auxiliary cruiser).

S.S. Bellota

thomasriepe , , ,

SSBellota

This will be my next build for Cruel Seas. I will use this plan as a guideline to build different steamers as convoy ships for Cruel Seas games. The model will be around 24cm long.

I will use the same hull with different superstructures to represent different generic steam ships. Like tankers, frighters, passenger liners etc . Here is the start on the hull.

When finished I will cast the hull in resin to safe me the hassle to always rebuild the same hull . The ships will then get different superstructures also cast in resin to be able to mix and match them accordingly . I will do different funnels, bridge sections etc to build as many different looking ships as possible. So keep an eye on these pages for more updates. I might be able to cast some ships for others if the need arises.