Calling all Bretagne-class (1916-1953) fans

[apfelzra69]

Hi Jim! You're one of the model shipbuilding masters whom I have admired for many years, and you are correct -- what looked like square or rectangular openings with pipes protruding were, based on the post-1928 photo you provided, merely additional portholes with hinged scuttles that open to the rear of the porthole. NOW I've got to fix what I had scratch-built, but I happen to have photoetch portholes with scuttles attached (they came in handy when I built my Trumpeter 1908 SMS Schleswig-Holstein) and so it should be a relative easy fix. Too bad . . . I had installed the muzzles of secondary guns from my spares stash as the "pipes" protruding ever so slightly from the holes I had drilled, and then surrounded with sharpy-inked boxes! In hindsight, the reality makes more sense than my attempts to reproduce what I saw in a photo without quite enough resolution. Thanks for your reply!

[apfelzra69]

OK, yesterday I finished my 1:350 model of the Bretagne (1939-40). The resin hull was a lot of work to finish off, and I had to improvise or scratchbuild a number of deck features and cut away about 5 mm of the separate boat deck because it otherwise wouldn't fit where it it supposed to go. Based on online photographs the model seems to have features of both the Provence and Bretagne, and may be based on images from the War Thunder video game (as was my recent model of the IJN heavy cruiser Furutaka).

[apfelzra69]

Here are two more photos of my recently completed 1/350 Bretagne.