Rusland Battleship Number 1: Krasnyi Dekabrya

Krasnyi Dekabrya - the first of a class of two ships built for the Rusland navy in the Fezian Sea

Pictured above is the partially completed first model of a class of two battleships built for the Rusland navy based in the Fezian Sea. As yet she is incomplete as I shall be painting the superstructure, turrets, floatplane and ships boats whilst they are off the hull - I find it easier to paint this way. the prominent holes in the superstructure are of course where the ship's boats will be located.

Krasnyi Dekabrya - as she is at the moment!

The hull is from a piece of 5mm thick balsa wood and is topped with some ready grooved plastic card which serves very nicely as wooden decking. All the ship fittings originated from a Revell 1/1200th Duke of York battleship and the entire superstructure was built as per the kit instructions and merely had the decking trimmed away. The main turret rings were cut out and two of them placed on top of one another in order to get the super firing effect. I had to chop up the second kit for the additional turret ring and another pair of twin 5.25" DP turrets. I will need to acquire a further Revell DoY kit but this will furnish not only the remaining parts for the sister ship (Krasnyi Yanvarya) of the Krasnyi Dekabrya but also for the modernised battle cruiser: Vlast Narodu.

Krasnyi Dekabrya - viewed from the business end

Once the 'off hull' pieces have been painted (as well as the hull of course) it will merely be a case of gluing them in place on the hull. I have a number of additional hull items to add - the belt armour prominent on a KGV battleship as well as the wet weather board and possibly some capstans used for the anchors.

Paint scheme wise she will be overall light grey with light tan decking - I have yet to think about the float plane though! Her origins can be clearly seen but she is different enough to be, well, different and when the models are built and painted I shall provide a 'back story' as to how the design came about - just to add a little flavour. At the time of writing the technical details and specifications of this ship is a closely guarded state secret but no doubt D'Arcy's All the World's Warships 1936 will hopefully provide some details - certainly the Fezian Party for Unity and Progress (P.U.P) will be hoping so....;-)

The ship measures roughly just under 6" long which is about as large as I want to go for this project given that the models are being built specifically for use on my Hexon terrain tiles. The basic idea of using existing ship components on a reduced size hull in order to create something original seems to work out very nicely and so I shall enjoy the coming weeks as I churn out more models for the two navies.

And yes, I enjoyed making this model enormously!