Calling all RN C-class AA cruiser fans

[Tracy White]

Picked up the Trumpeter 350th Calcutta kit today and was looking over potential options for aftermarket improvements.
The Profile Morskie boot has drawings of the following:
32' Cutter x 1
32' Motorboat x 1
27' Whaler x 2
15' Dinghy x 2

Black Cat has a 14' and 16' dinghy, but no 15'. Any idea what should be used? They have the 27' whaler nut not either of the 32' craft. Any idea if anyone else is doing RN boats? I went looking for the Admiralty Modelworks boats but no luck so far.

Comment for clarification based on discussion Frank and Dick had over on Steel Navy:

Omit Pieces E17 & E18 on step 25 of the Calcutta kit as they depict equipment she did not have in the location depicted.

[Frank Fowler]

Tracy take a look at Micro Master down in New Zealand for replacement boats as well as some other items such as the MK III HACS.

[Ady]

I'll second the Micro master suggestion. I'm waiting on their 4in guns, 4in ready use lockers, 0.5in quads, all ships boats and the mkIII director for use on this build. I've used their stuff already on HMS Cornwall and the parts are simply amazing. The boats and 4in guns are works of art.

[Tracy White]

Thanks everyone.

I'm still not 100% sure of the boats in that my sole source with enough data to form a list at this time is the Profile Morskie, and they reference a "15' Dinghy." Well, neither Black Cat or Micro Master have a 15' dinghy but there are several 14' and 16' craft of different purposes like "sailing dinghy" and "drifting dinghy" that are not part of the label on the PM plans. That said, the overhead drawing of the interior space more closely resembles the Micromaster 14' drifter dinghy so unless anyone has any more precise information I'll go with that.

Both have the 27'whaler and Micro Master has the 32' cutter, but neither has the 32' motorboat. I am leaning towards getting things from Micro Master just to "sole source it" and be done - sounds like a good experience either way I go.

Anyone know about a source for the 32' motorboat or if that is a typo and it should actually be something else?

[Tracy White]

Is there any hard and fast rule to where Corticene would be used - i.e. was there any on Calcutta such as the bridge?

I've got two of the four boat types so far and a third on order - the fourth isn't offered yet. I am quite happy with what I've seen so far so thanks again for the earlier recommendations.

[Tracy White]

David - not sure I understand the question. I have a list of boats provided in the Profile Morskie Calcutta book that I typed out earlier here that looks fairly similar, if that's what you mean. Here is the full list of items I'm planning on buying or have already, for those who may be wanting to do similar in the future:

Boats:
32' Cutter x 1 (Micromaster)
32' Motorboat x 1
27' Whaler x 2 (Micromaster)
15' Dinghy x 2 (Micromaster)

No one makes the 32' motorboat as far as I have been able to find at this point and the drawings reference a 15' dinghy and I've only been able to find 14' and 16' dinghies. The Micromaster 14' drifter dinghies look the closest to what I see in the Profile Morskie book, so barring a better reference coming around I've decided to go that route.

Arms
HACS Mk III - Micromaster, who also has a covered version, but since I'm using uncovered boats I figured I'd go with an uncovered fire control director as well
4" Mk XVI guns - Micromaster
Quad pom pom - Black Cat Models
Quad Vickers - Micromaster

I haven't looked into other details such as searchlights and rafts yet.

[Ady]

Get the 4in ready use lockers too. My order arrived at week and they are simply superb. Far superior to the plastic parts and any photoetch lockers I've used.

[TomRigg17]

Can anyone tell me the dimensions (and pics if possible) of the splinter shielding installed around the gun mounts.
Thanks to all
Tom

[Christian Bruer]

Can anyone tell me the dimensions (and pics if possible) of the splinter shielding installed around the gun mounts.
Thanks to all
Tom

Good evening,
I am working on HMS Cairo in scale 1:350, as a basic I use the Trumpeter kit. I want to present HMS Cairo in her late 1941 configuration. She had splinter shields on all four 4" gun mount positions. According to the few photos I have found the I decide to made them from 0,2mm styrene 4mm high. IMHO that looks quite acceptable. I hope that helps.

[TomRigg17]

It does indeed, thank you Christian.
Exactly what I was looking for and what I've done.
Tom
FYI: the max. elevation of the 4" guns was 80 degrees. The mounts in your pic look to be at max. elevation (barrels virtually touching the tops of the shield cut outs) but are no-where near 80 degrees.

[Tracy White]

They look like modified 3D printed mounts - whose are they if so?

[TomRigg17]

Checking my 'Black Cat' 3D mounts they're the same. Could be rectified by moving the trunnion point forward somehow I suppose, but I'll not elevate them too much to make it not as noticeable.
Tom

[Christian Bruer]

It does indeed, thank you Christian.
Exactly what I was looking for and what I've done.
Tom
FYI: the max. elevation of the 4" guns was 80 degrees. The mounts in your pic look to be at max. elevation (barrels virtually touching the tops of the shield cut outs) but are no-where near 80 degrees.

Hello Tom, glad I could help a bit

Yes I know and I was indeed not happy with the result. Meanwhile I set the elevation to a more or less horizontal level. I have 4" twin mounts from Micro Master on order and will look if they fit much better for a high angle elevation. The North Star Models are quite nice, but I think the Micro Master will be a big improvement in detail and correctness.

Feel free to have a look at my WIP here on MW.
viewtopic.php?f=59&t=315015

[Christian Bruer]

They look like modified 3D printed mounts - whose are they if so?

Hi Tracy, these are after market 4" mounts from North Star Models. They are made of resin, brass and PE parts.

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/north-s ... g--1102762

For a couple of years ago they were top notch and still are a big improvement of most kit parts. But as replied to Tom, I am looking forward to get my hands on Micro Master 4" mounts. Regarding the accessories I got from them so far they are most excellent in any aspect.

[Christian Bruer]

Checking my 'Black Cat' 3D mounts they're the same. Could be rectified by moving the trunnion point forward somehow I suppose, but I'll not elevate them too much to make it not as noticeable.
Tom

Ah ok, so I guess it is a scale problem because of downscalling the real one by factor 350. I did not found a photo of a the real one with 80� elevation. But anyhow, I will have a look at the Mirco Master parts and then I'll see see what to do.

[Rambousek]

Greetings to all fans of C-class cruisers.
I was reading previous posts on the forum and there was a discussion about the tricolor camouflage of the HMS Calcutta from the period of deployment in the Mediterranean. Does anyone know what color was used during the fighting in Norway? It was a single color camouflage apparently - most likely 507A or a mix of 507A and 507C. Profile Morskie and Malcolm Wright state the color as 507B - so a mix (Malcom even claims there was a white wool on the bow) but these are very old sources. Does anyone have more up to date information?
Thanks in advance for any information.

[dick]

... HMS Calcutta .... Does anyone know what color was used during the fighting in Norway?....

Looks like well weathered Home Fleet grey to me ie 507A with a significant amount of white false bow wave, a further bit of side wave and maybe a bit of stern wave too!

[Rambousek]

Hello,
I would like to thank Dick for the information and for the great photo especially. It will help a lot during my ship construction.

[Rick E Davis]

I picked up the Trumpeter 1/700 scale HMS CALCUTTA kit and I had planned to build it largely out-of-the-box as a quick build. I have had an interest in the modifications of these old WWI era cruisers to an AA mission. However I have ended up with some questions due to my lack of experience in building RN subjects. In researching it appears that the kits configuration fits her "as completion of AA mods". From what I could tell HMS CALCUTTA basically was in the kit configuration during the 1940 Norway campaign and prior to transfer to the Med. I actually found her appearance and service during the Norway Campaign was more appealing to me. The image posted by Dick really convinced me to model my HMS CALCUTTA for this 1940 time frame. The relatively simple camo of 507A "Home Fleet" with the addition of false bow waves being a straight forward scheme rather than a Med scheme. I found another image (thanks to Alamay) of HMS CALCUTTA during an online search. See attached. But neither image verifies her configuration in 1940 operating off Norway.

There are several nice images of HMS CALCUTTA as completed in 1939 and before being painted in camo. I'm assuming this was close to her configuration in 1940 off Norway.

The Trumpeter kit seems to have a few "extra" parts (maybe used on one of the other C-class AA kits), so I'm wanting to verify what parts need to be used. I plan on getting Black Cat 3-D weapons as replacements. I can't make out if she had any radar in 1940 while operating off Norway (reference books seem to say unknown). I have found many of the parts Trumpeter has in this kit to be very small and lack detail and I can't figure out what they are suppose to represent or why didn't they simply mold them on the larger parts? I remember the criticism that Dragon 1/350 scale kits got for having too many tiny parts (and their horrible instructions criticism which is well deserved). Well the parts in this 1/700 scale kit are way worse to deal with, many no more that short pieces of rod (I have lost several in trying to attach them and without extra parts to replace these lost parts, that I refuse to try and replace them with small cut rod pieces).



Any comments appreciated.

Rick

[tjstoneman]

The photo attached to Rick's post shows HMS Cairo - Calcutta had a splinter shield on the for'd edge of "B" gundeck, not present in the photo. The photo of Calcutta posted by Dick (almost certainly in a Norwegian fjord) shows a differently-shaped false bow wave (admittedly such things could be changed).

As for Calcutta's configuration off Norway, see posts in this thread from October 2020. It appears that Calcutta was never fitted with RDF (radar), and she only had one HA.DCT (Part D7); the after one (Part D12) was never fitted (see my post of Mon Oct 19, 2020 2:54 pm in this thread).