Re.
The Fighting at Jutland by Fawcett and Hooper. The book was originally published as a souvenir for those who fought in the battle. The authors were naval officers. The photos in the book remain the best collection of genuine Jutland photos there is (the 1920 first edition, of which I own a copy) is particularly rich. Until recently, most were not available anywhere else. When the authors caption a photo as being of
Invincible going into action in the battle, it is genuine. They were not civilian amateurs trying to excite readers with generic photos. There are no generic photos in the book. There were many in the fleet with Kodak cameras, as I have read recently. There is one gem which was not available anywhere else except Fawcett and Hooper. It shows Lion being straddled early in the action before she lost Q turret. It was taken on board one of the destroyers on her engaged side. You can see a covered flare in the foreground and
Lion to the left. Luckily it is displayed on the British Battles website in the "Jutland: Part II" section.
http://www.britishbattles.com/the-battl ... -may-1916/Re. Anti-torpedo nets. There is abundant evidence
Lion had the nets from in action photos and the 1 June photo of her. The 1 June photo used to be in the Beatty collection and is dated 1 June in ink on the margin.
Princess Royal, the now common Wyllie watercolor of her being repaired after the battle shows her with nets.
Queen Mary, the photo taken from
Tiger about two hours before the battle confirms she had nets. Of course,
Tiger never had nets. There is a sketch of
New Zealand in Fawcett and Hooper which shows her in the battle. She had nets. There are 1916 photos of
NZ which show her with nets. Strangely, the 1915 photos of
Indefatigable always show her without nets. The IWM photo, which purports to show her shortly before destruction, shows no nets. One photo, which I cannot recall, is odd because she appears to have nets but no booms to deploy the nets.
Invincible has them in the Fawcett and Hooper photo. As for her sisters, their is a fuzzy and doctored photo of one during the battle. Would not bet on it.
As for making a Jutland
New Zealand, you are in for work. The Combrig models are fine for pre-war and Heligoland Bight, and, maybe, Dogger Bank, but by 1916, she had the peculiar two level canted-to-the-side rangefinder hoods fitted on all turrets but A (these were also on her two sisters and on some of the turrets of the
Invincible class (
Lion and
PR had one on Q turret. She had a director. She also had a small rangefinder platform with an open 9 foot RF behind her forward spotting top. The phot of the ship in the peculiar camouflage was taken during the Heligoland Bight battle according to the IWM caption (for a long time it was supposed to be from Dogger Bank, the captioning is getting very shoddy at the IWM).
To me the most interesting colors were at the time of Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank when the fleet was actively experimenting with deceptive schemes. We know know
Lion and
PR had large false ship panels painted from waterline to the weatherdeck (not waterline to mid-hull as in 1915) during Dogger Bank.
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