From PeterD Gallery of Ancestors - The Scrap Iron Flotilla (35 points)

I had an abundance of choices for this chamber.  My dad served in the RN in Korea on shore bombardment, my material grandfather fought with the New Zealand Expeditionary Force on the Western Front in WW1 and my paternal great grandfather fought in the Tirah Campaign on India's NorthWest Frontier.  However, I went with this set of five elderly Australian destroyers for my WW2 project as they are professional ancestors of our esteemed Minion du jour as Paul is a High Mucky-Muck Brass Monkey in the RAN.

These ships were WW1 vintage destroyers, 4 V&W class plus a Scott class leader that were transferred to the RAN in the 1930s.  They served in the Med from 1940-1 and were christened the "Scrap Iron Flotilla" by Goebbels and derided as such in Lord Haw Haw's broadcasts.  However they served with great distinction mostly on the Tobruk Ferry Service shipping supplies to the Aussie garrison of that beleaguered port city.  The survivors were transferred east for repairs as their engines wore, coming back into service just in time for the Japanese onslaught.  They actually don't fit the timeline of my WW2 focus, but I just like the story of these old ships.  Of the five HMAS Waterhen was sunk in 1941 on the Tobruk run, Vampire by Japanese carrier planes in 1942 (along with the carrier HMS Hermes) and Voyager was lost in the Timor campaign in 1942.  

These are all 1/2400 scale CinC sculpts with modifications.  These ships were designed to fight a second Jutland agains the Kaiser's High Seas Fleet and ended up fighting an entirely different war.  The 4" gun in position (that's the mount at the very back fo the ship Greg) was replaced with extra depth charge throwers.  Similarly the aft (rearmost Greg) set of torpedo tubes was replaced with  a 3" AA gun.   My Xacto skills were up to removing the gun and tubes and I bodged together mostly reasonable facsimiles of the AA gun in its band box from GHQ leftover bits.  

As with earlier ships camp patterns are based on Mal Wright's excellent book and are mostly historical for the actual ships in 1941.

The ship's names were not originally Australian but have become part of RAN lore and  have been rescued.  There is a modern HMAS Stuart, a shore establishment HMAS Waterhen and the second HMAS Vampire is a museum ship in Sydney.

HMAS Stuart was a slightly bigger ship, but no 1/2400 Scott class leader exists so I used another V class.  She should be 20' longer with an extra 4" gun amidships.  I thought about bodging one together from two hulls but decided I'd like to maintain some use of my left hand.  The twenty extra feet is 1/10" at 1/2400. 

The history of these ships can be found in short form on Wikipedia and in long form here.  A musical tribute to the Scrap iron Flotilla can be found played by the RAN band below.

Points wise that 10 for the 5 1/2400 scale hulls plus 20 for the Chamber plus what ever brownie points I get from toadying up to the Captain!  

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This entry is a real treat Peter, thank you. The Scrap Iron Flotilla  has a special place within the RAN and there is an annual dinner in their honour. I understand a book of their history may be in the making too.  Several were also involved in the Battle of Crete by the way,  along with two of our N class Destroyers and the Cruiser HMAS PERTH (later sunk by the Imperial Japanese Navy at Sunda Strait along with USS HOUSTON)

Take your points with a few bonus for successful toadying as well as the madness of refitting ships in this scale!