KenR : 1/700 Hunt Class DE HMS Middleton (40 pts)

 

From one end of the scale with Bismarck last week, to the smallest ship I have in my stash this week, I'm planning some Convoy games so a Destroyer Escort was a must.

The model is from a Polish company called IBG models who do a small but very useful range of British small ships. The "joy" with this one was that it contained a photo etch set of parts, something I've never used before. It's definitely a learning curve, but painting on the set and specialist photo etch glue are musts from now on.

The photo etch definitely brings an extra dimension to the model, the hand rails stick out but if you look closely there are all sorts of ladders etc made out of the stuff. I've also used a different, earlier, camo scheme from that presented on the box.

Still to make my mind up about IBG, the gun barrels are a nightmare as they are attached to the sprue by the barrel which makes getting a clean straight barrel in this size virtually impossible. I had a spare turret from another model which was handy as I completely destroyed 2 Turrets in the build. I've got another 4 IBG models in the stash so I will have made my mind up by then !

The above photo shows HMS Middleton at work, escorting the two Merchants I've done so far in the Challenge. The ship has 6 QF 4 inch guns which is quite a punch for a ship of only just over 1,000 tonnes. Points wise its on the same base as all the other "small" ships so I've stuck with 40.

I had to include this picture to show the difference between this week's and last week's entries, is the Bismark Big of the Middleton Small 🤷 there's another Italian Wars entry this week, whilst I have Prince of Wales and the German Destroyer Z21 on the stocks at the moment.

Lovely work on what sounds like a challenging model.  Photo etched brass parts sound like they are left to others to work with!  Were the traditional blood sacrifices made to the gods of hobby craft?  However your diligence (and start kit) have paid off as the finished ship looks wonderful and those etched railings look great (I'd have mangled them into pretzel shapes).

I have a few Hunt class DEs in my (much smaller scale) fleet and they can be very useful escorts.  The guns are dual purpose and pump out considerable AA fire and have enough oomph to give enemy destroyers a scare.  Plus they carry a useful ASW array to deal with U-boats.