Friday, 30 December 2011

1935 Rusland Battleships - With Varied Inspiration


The French Battleship Jean Bart


I have finally started on the ships for the Fezian and Rusland navies for 1935 and I had forgotten just how much fun chopping plastic kits about could be!


HMS King George 5th

The first two models are the latest battleships to join the Rusland navy (latest as in most modern) and will be supported by some refitted earlier types to form a powerful squadron for use in the Fezian Sea. The ships are currently under construction but they owe a debt of inspiration to the Royal Navy KGV class as well as the Nelson and Rodney with a dash of the French Jean Bart thrown in for good measure.


HMS Nelson off Spithead

Essentially I have taken the entire central superstructure from a Revel Duke of York kit; together with the quad 14" turrets and am mounting them on a smaller hull with both turrets forward a la Nelson/Jean Bart. The rationale behind the design owes its inspiration to the very much earlier Russian Sinope class battleship - mounting three twin 12" barbettes with two of these forward. The reason for this vast amount of forward firepower was to be able to engage targets whilst attempting to force the Bosporus strait. Clearly somebody in the Rusland naval design bureau had done his research!


The Russian  Battleship Sinope - note the forward pair of barbettes


As soon as these two are built I will of course post the pictures - even though they probably will not be painted just yet.
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4 comments:

  1. Geordie an Exiled FoG30 December 2011 at 23:47

    Nice post

    I am looking forward to seeing the models

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  2. Paul O'G31 December 2011 at 01:16

    Looking fwd to seeing how they come out: Sinope was a lovely barbette ship

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  3. David Crook31 December 2011 at 11:03

    Hi Geordie,

    I am hoping to have the unpainted model on the blog later today - the second of the class will be delayed slightly - simply because I have used rather more of the second KGV than I intended! I will need to buy another Duke of York but this will leave me with lots of bits and pieces for future use.

    All the best,

    DC

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  4. David Crook31 December 2011 at 12:02

    Hi Paul,

    I have the Sinope in 1/3000th which is too small for the early period ships IMHO.

    Novel idea though!

    All the best,

    DC

    ReplyDelete