Scratch-building the fleet radar picket HMS Barrosa in 1/600

[Michael Potter]

HMS Barrosa was one of four 1943 Battle class destroyers converted
to fleet radar pickets in the early 1960s. She was based in Singapore for
most of her short operational career, 1962�68. Here she operates off Yemen in
1967. These were the first warships to mount a Seacat missile battery
and the big AKE-2 "double bedstead" antenna of RN radar Type 965.
They were handsome, well-armed ships.
My searches and inquiries have found no precise drawings of these
ships as radar pickets. Good photographs have been published. Veterans
and British naval enthusiasts, including correspondent Laurence
Batchelor, sent me others. The excellence of Barrosa veteran Jim
Delleur�s photographs, and the fact that among the four radar pickets
Barrosa was the most active and the longest serving, decided me to build
this model as his ship.
No stock kit has ever existed of this configuration of ship. I figured
that I could scratch-build a model in 1/600 by using detail parts from
White Ensign models and by photo-etching other parts myself. Modeling
this ship is practically an operation in naval technical intelligence
processing.
This is by far the most ambitious model I have ever made. Rob
Kernaghan, Tony Bunch, Pirie Sublett, and Tim Stoneman educate me in
advanced modeling techniques. I�ll trust that my admittedly sometimes
sophomoric methods that follow do not choke more experienced
modelers, and offer that the use of computer graphics and homemade PE
to recreate a hitherto lost design are innovative enough to make viewing
these pages worthwhile.

[Michael Potter]

At first I shrank or expanded scanned photographs using
computer graphics, and measured the sizes for parts directly
from those. Since most photographs are oblique, I used
trigonometry to estimate orthogonal dimensions. After a lot
of effort, I realized that parallax and foreshortening in the
photographs were defeating me.
For example: in a broadside photograph (from Jane�s
Fighting Ships 1965�66) the camera lens is parallel to the
ship�s centerline. The stem of the ship is on the centerline.
The corner of the hull at the transom stern lies in an
imaginary vertical plane that is closer to the camera lens
than the centerline by half the width of the transom. The
difference skews measurements by 1%�2% of the length of
the ship. In a tight design as this ship was, those errors
create gaps and interferences, such as a platform too small
to hold a particular radar antenna of a known size. That is
from an ideal photograph. Measurements from oblique
photographs produce even greater errors despite
trigonometric corrections.
Eventually, I made computer-aided drawings to simulate
the unfound blueprints.

[Michael Potter]

At Rob�s suggestion, the hull came from the 50-year-old
Airfix 1/600 HMS Daring full-hull kit. I removed the
underwater hull (Dremel tool cutting wheel), narrowed the
main deck, and removed the molded items on the deck.
Underneath I attached an Evergreen rectangular tube to
strengthen the hull, with notches cut in the tube to fit around
the kit deck�s molded pads. The straight stem is a brass
strip. Evergreen .005-inch styrene pieces and putty fair it to
the hull.
I severed the fo�csle forward of the hull break, removed a
segment to match the Battle dimensions, and reattached it.
Inside, square tubes reinforce the hull. This was before I
knew of the errors from parallax. Later I had to move the
hull break further aft again, as other photos will show.

[Michael Potter]

From study of other RN designs with Rob at the National Maritime Museum, it
became apparent that each large, complicated mast comprised a regular
geometric quadruped tower and a payload of platforms, yardarms, antennas,
cable boxes, waveguide ducts, ladders, and liferails. Some books erroneously
asserted that the huge foremast spanned the full width of the hull or nearly so.
I drew the mast pieces on the PC, adjusting the sizes so that the sides match
when slanted (at different angles) into position.
I fabricated the masts using a Micromark Pro-Etch PE kit. The mast towers are
steel. B gun deck too is my design of PE and is brass.
The 4.5-inch gun turrets come from a White Ensign Models PRO 604 pack, built
up with plastic at the back and underneath. This is in fact authentic because the
destroyer gun turrets were built up from the same design of turret aboard RN
capital ships.
Other pieces are scratch-built from strip styrene. At 1/600 the RN standard deck
interval of 90 inches is conveniently 4mm, a stock size with Evergreen.

[Michael Potter]

This version has both gun turrets and the USN Mk 37 gun director, with
supports atop it for the RN gunnery radar type 275. The PE Squid mortar is on
the quarterdeck (USN fantail). The funnel is thin strip plastic wound around
tubes. It took five attempts.
The white patch beneath the foremast is a hull extension that I later found was
too long. The vertical seam forward of it shows where I shortened the fo�csle.

[Michael Potter]

To verify designs before making PE, sometimes I first assemble the
patterns from prints on paper. A revised mast and less visibly an
extension to the fo�csle deck appear here.

[Michael Potter]

This image is a design for PE, printed on plastic as a mask. The metal is
etched on both sides so needs two masks. The two largest patterns are
B gun deck and the bridge deck.
During the photo phase of PE, light shines through the clear plastic (seen
as white in this image) and chemically changes a dry chemical laminate
on a metal strip. The black ink impedes light from reaching those areas of
the laminated metal. Wash the metal strip in a chemical bath to remove
the unexposeded areas (seen as black in this image), thus exposing bare
metal. During the etch phase of PE, another chemical attacks the bare
metal and leaves the white artwork intact.

[Michael Potter]

The photo phase of PE produces a laminated brass strip after exposure under the plastic mask.
The two large patterns are the 01-level decks for the aft superstructures. The white areas in the
artwork create the blue areas in this image. The etch phase of PE removes the bare brass.

[Michael Potter]

The etch phase of PE. Stains from the PE chemical are permanent so the factory is on a bare patch
in the garden. The oven heats the PE chemical. Brass is being etched in the square tank. The
square bucket contains water for rinsing. Who says cats are useless?

[Michael Potter]

This model is my first use of an airbrush. The paints are Testors Acryl series.
The big �double bedstead� AKE-2 antenna for radar Type 965 came from White
Ensign Models PE 701, which despite the label is practically 1/600.

[Michael Potter]

Test fit of the Type 965 antenna. The gun barrels are telescoped steel tubes.

[Filipe Ramires]

Looks fantastic Mike!

[ARH]

Very nice, thanks for posting ,looking forward to more.

[Michael Potter]

The early paintwork was flawed so I removed it by soaking the parts in acryl
cleaner. Here is the beginning of the corrected fo�csle break. The aft deckhouse
now has PE sides, including open doors and computer-aligned portholes.

[Michael Potter]

Upper deck liferails and ladders are from WEM PE 612. The main structures are
dry-fit in this photo and will be aligned properly later.

[Michael Potter]

I think it is an accomplishment to re-create the deck plans without an accurate
official drawing. The decks are consistent with photographs from lower angles.
She is still only dry-fit in this photo.

[Michael Potter]

This view shows the loading ports on bulkheads for the Squid ASW mortar and
for the Seacat point-defense missile. These were the world�s first operational
warships with a point-defense missile system.

[Laurence Batchelor]

Mike I'm very impressed!

What areas are you lacking reference material or were the photo's I sent enough?

One thing which maybe of help is Norman Friedman's new book as A.D. Baker III will have drawn some plans inside, so one hopes for your sake a radar picket Battle is in there!

Let me know what you would like information on and I see if I can help, be rude not to for such a fine build!

[JWintjes]

This is absolutely sterling work, Mike!! Very nice progress shots!!

Thanks a lot for sharing your project with us!



Jorit

[Michael Potter]

Thanks for the nice comments, folks!

Laurence, your photos indeed closed many gaps. Still, if you or anyone
have a photo of the rear of a 1943 Battle bridge, that would help. This is
the best I have:



Several photos of these ships indicate that the rear of the open bridge
(the 03-level) was open, presumably with liferails, as opposed to a solid
bulwark. The above photo shows a door and a ladder behind the bridge
on the port side at the 02 level (B gun deck).

Photos of Barrosa appear to show a solid bulwark directly behind
the director; or maybe it was just a canvas wind dodger.

A source would be the model of HMS Alamein at the Newcastle Discovery
Museum.