KenR - 1/700 HMS Ark Royal (120 points)

 

Just the one ship this week, but its a Big One. I've been chipping away at this for a few weeks now so I am glad to get it in before the finish post.

The model is 1/700 scale from a company called Aoshima (I have no idea how they are different to Tamiya) and compared to say the KGV model I did earlier in the Challenge has a lot more detail.

HMS Ark Royal is one of the iconic ships of the WW2 British Navy and the name has been used on a number of other iconic Aircraft Carriers. Launched in 1937 within the limitations of the Naval Treaty, she was involved in many actions at the start of the war until she was sunk in the Med in late 1941 by a torpedo from a German U Boat.

My main interest is in Ark Royals involvement in the Chase for the Bismarck and will be integral in any future campaign I do around that ship.

The paint scheme is basic, but the sheer size of the ship meant a lot of weathering work was done on the hull and its well worth a zoom in to have a look. 

The base is my standard Capital Ship Base Size of 42 cm x 10 cm and as with other ships of this size I've claimed 120 points.

The first three photos have been done without aircraft, the kit does come with 6 Swordfish (2 with folded wings), 2 Skuas and 2 Fulmars, however I was very disappointed with them, the Swordfish especially have very little detail and I spent an entire day trying to get the planes to my liking and failed. So the planes in the photos are likely to be ditched but I thought I would put some pics with them on deck to give you an idea.

I've picked up some Flyhawk planes which are much much better (they have Photo Etch machine guns !) but there is no chance I will get them done anytime soon. I also plan to have crew on deck but the Swordfish are slightly under scale and don't work with the slightly over scale Eduard Figs.

I also plan to do an "in the air" fleet of planes for the gaming table but again I need to obtain and paint the miniatures for that.

I don't think it will be an issue on here but the deck colour is the official Bronze Grey Colour used by the RN for decks at the start of the war, when I asked about it on a Naval Gaming Forum WW3 nearly broke out 😄

I hope to get Prinz Eugen done before Challenge End as a final sign off for this years Italian Wars  WW2 Naval Project.

I will also put an additional post before the end of play on Monday especially for Peter, it won't be a full Colunela but it will be some Italian Wars !

Oh my Ken, the Ark is absolutely stunning!  What a wonderful job you've done with her.  Again the weathering and the sea effects are museum quality stuff.  I won't argue on your choice of deck colouring but I know that these details can be a sore point for the rivet counters.  All I know is that it looks great.  BTW it sounds like you touched more than one nerve on FB this week!

The planes that you've included look fine to me, but I'm not going at them close up.  t the sale you're working at it would be nice to have planes that are in keeping with the magnificent flat top.  What scale to you plan to use for the airborne planes?  I always find that it works well to up decrease the scale ratio (so increase the model size) for planes that are aloft. 

Looking forward to the mythical Italian Wars post but I believe that MartinC and DaveD will post Turnip28 projects before that happens.  However, I’ve really enjoyed watching indulge your over the top crazies and build up these 1:700 fleets.