The Ship Model Forum

While looking for an appropriate thread to put a question about the differences between the Samek and WSW 1/700 Royal Oak kits, I was surprised to find there was no dedicated R-Class thread. So, I've decided to start a thread dedicated to these ships - the hard working, less glamorous class of battleships that had the misfortune of following the legendary Queen Elizabeth class into service.

To date, the Royal Oak has been the most produced version of the class, with 3 different companies kitting a model of this ship, all in 1/700. There was also the venerable 1/500 Novo kit, which has been released as Royal Sovereign and re-released as Revenge, depending on the manufacturer.

Available R-class kits:
1/700 WSW Royal Oak (1939)
1/700 Samek Royal Oak (1939)
1/700 HP Royal Oak (1939)
1/700 HP Resolution (1942)
1/700 HP Royal Sovereign
1/500 Novo Royal Sovereign (also released as Revenge and others by Revell-Germany & Eastern Express)

Of these aforementioned kits, the Samek kit is the hardest to find and may be out of production. The 1/500 Novo kit was re-released by Eastern Express and Revell of Germany. I'm not sure if it's currently available outside of auction sites. The others should be available from the usual suspects (Pacific Front, etc.).

Some time back, White Ensign Models had posted some where that they were considering doing a First World War R-class kit, but I've heard nothing else. If it would be anything like their Queen Elizabeth, it would worth the wait. Hopefully they'll follow through on this - unless someone like Combrig does it first (though they haven't come out with any new kits in sometime).

There is a review of the 1/500 Novo kit here on MW, while the 1/700 WSW Royal Oak is reviewed over on Steel Navy.

The next post will cover some of the R-class models posted here and over on SN.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Here's some links to some R-class builds in the MW.com galleries:

First up, the maestro's build of the WSW Royal Oak

Bernd Villhauer's build of the Samek Royal Oak

John Werler's build of the WSW Royal Oak

Vlad Cimpan's WSW Royal Oak

Patrick Zepke's WSW Royal Oak

Michael Griggs' 1/500 Revell kit as Royal Oak

Kostas Katseas' build of the Novo 1/500 kit as Ramillies

Paul Helfrich's 1/500 Revell kit done as the Royal Sovereign in Russian hands, the Archangelsk

Over on Steel Navy, there's also Greg Shoda's 1/550 Scratchbuilt Resolution and Vincent c.f. Lau's build of the Samek Royal Oak

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Great idea to start a thread on this class of ships. I hope some manufacturers will create the other ships in the class other than Royal Oak.

I personnaly have the WSW Royal Oak and the kit looks very good from what I've seen in the box. I'm not too sure about the moulded on anchor even if they look good.

I would have loved to get my hands on the Samek kit because I already had some experience with their models but, like Martin stated, it is out of production. In fact it looks like Samek is out of business for the time being or forever. I just hope he starts producing kits again because I would love to build is Vanguard kit but that is a story for another thread.

Cheers

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Ventis Secundis

If you look at the Royal Oak models in the earlier post, you'll see some really nice workmanship on both the WSW and Samek kits. Yet, I've seen posts on various forums where people have savaged the WSW kit and praised the Samek kit. I already had the WSW Royal Oak kit, but based on all the positive things said about the Samek Royal Oak, I recently purchased that kit off e-bay as well, with it arriving at my house yesterday.

I only had time for a cursory look, and while the Samek kit does appear to have a bit finer detail and be a little better cast, I don't see why people were so hard on the WSW kit. The hulls appear to be very close in height and width, with WSW kit being maybe 1mm longer than the Samek kit (if that). Since I'm certainly no expert on this class (though I think they are ruggedly handsome ships), I was wondering is someone could enlighten me to the differences between the kits?

Of the other two R-class kits available in 1/700 - the HP Royal Oak and HP Resolution, I have not seen the Royal Oak, but do have the Resolution. While not as crisply cast as the other manufacturers R-class ships, the Resolution look to be a very nice kit.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

I don't see why some people bashed the WSW kit either. From what I've seen the detail is pretty good and the casting is also very crisp (at least on my copy). In terms of quality I'd put it on par with the Samek Texas and Alaska kits that I have. Not as impressive as newer models available but still very good models nonetheless.

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Ventis Secundis

I've started on a conversion of HMS Iron Duke into an R-class ship, although which one it will be, I've not yet decided.

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Danny DON'T "waterline"...!

Martin, there is a built up kit of the HP Resolution in the new Model Art #28. It depicts the kit in 1942 in an Admiralty disruptive scheme.
It looks like a nice kit.





Bob Pink.

You will need to post some pics for us to see That conversion should prove very intersting knowing the amount of work it's going to take

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Ventis Secundis

One my newer interests is buying old naval postcards of ships I like. While checking the status of an auction for a nice Royal Oak postcard, I started thinking (dangerous, I know) - "would it be possible to build any other member of the class from the WSW Royal Oak kit"? From my perusing Raven & Roberts - and also Burt - tonight, it looks like Ramillies received almost identical bulges to Royal Oak, while the other ships in the class had much shallower bulges. Some further checking seems to show that an early war Ramillies could be built from the Royal Oak kit, albeit with a new bridge - at a minimum (it also looks like Ramillies might have had a different aircraft handling crane). Granted, this is based on some light reading done while the Missus was making dinner, but that seems to be my preliminary conclusion. Anyone else care to comment on the similarities and differences between RO and Ramillies?

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

I looked in the British battleships in WW2 book and I noticed a difference in the torpedo blister. It seems to be shorter near the bow on Ramillies than on Royal Oak. That's what stood out on my cursory check of the book.

I hope some expert will show up and help us get to the bottom of this

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Ventis Secundis

Yes, you may be right. I think it may be easier to sand to down to the right shape than build it up.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

You are far more courageous than me with the sanding thing That would be a problem that I would not tackle considering my poor skills at sanding shapes like that. I'm not too bad at removing seems with putty but that is the extent of my talent in this area.

If you do sand the torpedo blister down could you please posts some pics of the process? It would probably help out those of us who are not good or confident enough to attempt this.

Cheers

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Ventis Secundis

Courageous or foolish?

If I do so, I will. I was sort of just asking questions, deciding if I should keep the WSW kit and convert to Ramilles or sell it.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Some scans of postcards...

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Nice photos Martin! Thanks for sharing with us I love the outline of this class of ship.

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Ventis Secundis

Hi,

With WEM considering WWI RN colours, I wonder if someday this will be possible?

These from the IWM Dazzle exhibit in September of 2007. Sorry for the flash but these were under the stairwell.

Cheers,
George

WEM has gone ahead with WWI Royal Navy colours. Here are the colours used.

On the Starboard side there is: No. 1 Mauve, No. 1 Yellow, No.2 Blue-Grey, No. 2 Grey, No. 4 Grey, Black and White.

On the Port side there is: No. 1 Mauve, No. 1 Yellow, No. 1 Blue-Green, No.2 Blue-Grey, No. 2 Grey, No. 3 Grey, No. 4 Grey, Black and White.

All colours are now avai;ab;e with the exception of No. 1 Mauve. Consider WEM RN10 for white.

Cheers,
George

Now we just need them to come out with a WW1 R class ship for us to build in this scheme!

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery