Calling all Royal Navy "R-Class" Battleship fans!

[Timmy C]

I'm not talking about the anchor runs areas, but ok.

[Mr. Church]

It appears the class had chequered steel plate for the anchor chain rubbing strips. I haven't found a photo to show H.M.S. Royal Sovereign specifically but H.M.S. Revenge clearly had them in 1940 as per photo below from the Imperial War Museum's online collection:

Anchor chain rubbing strips clearly visible here as steel chequered plates.

HMS Royal Sovereign's bow again:

[chazi]

Hello everyone.
I'm looking for hull line for R-class british battleships - mainly for HMS Resolution?
Thansk for help
Best regards
Chris

[Guest]

What do you mean by "hull line?"

[SovereignHobbies]

Hello everyone.
I'm looking for hull line for R-class british battleships - mainly for HMS Resolution?
Thansk for help
Best regards
Chris

RMG Greenwich appear to have the real ones. They're very helpful but you'll have to pay for scans of them but the quality tends to be excellent.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collectio ... 83491.html

Profile Morskie does offer plans for HMS Resolution, but they're typically drawn by interpreting photographs. I own copies of the plans for the cruiser HMS Ajax and have compared them to Profile Morskie and whilst if the real thing wasn't available Morskie would give a model which looked more or less like a Leander class, in reality and by direct comparison there are some substantial differences in the hull lines. Note differences in sheer end to end, completely different shape of rudder, totally different positioning of propellers (marked as a near-vertical line with "CP" caption on the original plan) (and not portraying inequal size of inboard and outboards) and different position of the characteristic knuckle at the bow as well as generally finer lines forward.







I realise we're all cost-conscious to some degree but if I were looking to save money, I wouldn't start by saving on the reference material. That's just my opinion which I realise nobody asked for though...

[Maarten Sch�nfeld]

RMG Greenwich appear to have the real ones. They're very helpful but you'll have to pay for scans of them but the quality tends to be excellent.
https://collections.rmg.co.uk/collectio ... 83491.html

Profile Morskie does offer plans for HMS Resolution, but they're typically drawn by interpreting photographs. I own copies of the plans for the cruiser HMS Ajax and have compared them to Profile Morskie and whilst if the real thing wasn't available Morskie would give a model which looked more or less like a Leander class, in reality and by direct comparison there are some substantial differences in the hull lines. Note differences in sheer end to end, completely different shape of rudder, totally different positioning of propellers (marked as a near-vertical line with "CP" caption on the original plan) (and not portraying inequal size of inboard and outboards) and different position of the characteristic knuckle at the bow as well as generally finer lines forward.

http://village.photos/images/user/483a5 ... 2b9e05.png[/img

http://village.photos/images/user/483a5 ... c15548.png

http://village.photos/images/user/483a5 ... 27a099.png

I realise we're all cost-conscious to some degree but if I were looking to save money, I wouldn't start by saving on the reference material. That's just my opinion which I realise nobody asked for though...

Oughchs! These hurt... I never saw such a revealing and derogatory comparison...

But I fully agree: the Profile Morskie plans LOOK good (at first sight, nice details and so...) but the big picture is often way, way off... the maker clearly never invested to get the basic shape of the hull right in the first place, and the upper structure includes also many assumptions as guesssed from photos.

I recommend to use these only as a secondary source, mainly for details, but NEVER use these as the base reference for your scratch model build.

[SovereignHobbies]

James, what is going on with the dark lines on the body plan as not on my copy which is same as yours?

It's a fairly low resolution scan of the printed version that come in their little books. The file size of the RMG plans is large and having bought them it was obvious what I was going to use so a low resolution scan of the PM ones was sufficient to overlay them in Adobe Illustrator for this comparison. They're well printed otherwise.

[Mr. Church]

Back to the topic of the 'R' Class Battleships.

Earlier on a friend of mine sent me a link to a beautiful photo of all four surviving 'R' Classes together in 1942, likely in the Indian Ocean.

It is posted here on the Hazegrey History Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/hazegreyhistor ... =3&theater

I've reposted it here below for discussion purposes and for ease of viewing, copyright rests with original owner:

The caption identifies them nearest to furthest away as Royal Sovereign, Revenge, Ramillies and Resolution, which looks correct to me. The resolution of the photo is a little low unfortunately but it is a fantastic photo nonetheless.

It would look great in colour with all four battleships sporting different camouflage schemes.

[SeanF]

I just received the new Orange Hobby HMS Royal Oak. Not at Combrig's level of fine detail, but still quite nice; metal gun barrels and crane booms included, photoetch looks to have everything you need; even a separate lower hull is also included for the full-hull enthusiasts. But the deck is completely smooth; not even an attempt at planking. Ordinarily I'm quite satisfied with painting the plastic/resin grooved decks and don't bother with real wood decks in this scale (except to cover a nasty seam line - Tamiya Scharnhorst or Dragon Arizona, for example); but with no texture at all, I sure hope someone will provide an aftermarket deck for this kit!

- Sean F.

[Mr. Church]

A fascinating short video done for the 80th anniversary of the sinking of H.M.S. Royal Oak in 2019. Some great and very poignant footage of her wreck:

https://vimeo.com/kieranjduncan/fallenoak

Great to see such effort being made to document it and preserve a record of it for the future.

[Mr. Church]

A nice Alamy stock photo of H.M.S. Royal Sovereign, probably in late 1941 or 1942 as she has the Quadruple PomPom Mountings on top of 'B' and 'X' turrets. I found it when looking for something else as it is captioned 'Royal Navy in World War 2' and not identified as Royal Sovereign.

Re-posted preview for ease of viewing, copyright rests with original owner:

Original here:

https://www.alamy.com/royal-navy-world- ... 53340.html

I really like that camouflage scheme.

[palco]

Hello. I would like to inform you that in the new year we are starting the [AJMMODELS POLAND] project Hms Ramillies ww1. Then I'm planning more 3-4 models of other R type battleships ww1 iww2. I'm going for help. I'm looking for all the little-known detailed , unpublished photos of these battleships. Mainly from private collections. I have all the photos from books and the Internet. I will be very grateful for your help in this topic.Regards

[mikasa]

Hello. I would like to inform you that in the new year we are starting the [AJMMODELS POLAND] project Hms Ramillies ww1. Then I'm planning more 3-4 models of other R type battleships ww1 iww2. I'm going for help. I'm looking for all the little-known detailed , unpublished photos of these battleships. Mainly from private collections. I have all the photos from books and the Internet. I will be very grateful for your help in this topic.Regards

Nice! More WW1 battleships better! Are you planning the Revenge as she appeared at Jutland?

[Xanthar]

Hello, I'm wondering if one could use the hull from an HMS Iron Duke model as the starting point for an R-Class ?
Has anyone done that before?

[Graham Boak]

Why? Because there is no other way? Because that's the sort of thing modellers do to fill gaps in their collection/desires? Because it is easier to chop plastic than carve from wood? Because available resin kit(s) are the wrong scale? Or just frightened of resin? The actual reason may well be something else, but the idea isn't totally off the wall.

[Xanthar]

Or just frightened of resin?

I might be frightened of resin : P I'm also frightened by 1/700 scale. I'm thinking 1/350 or bigger would be nice : )

[Xanthar]

ended up I was wrong as both close in size.
[snip]
Xanthar, what time period?

Yep the beam is a little off but, LOA is close. I've not seen plans for either so I was wondering if more experienced researchers could comment on the similarity of the hull lines?

I'm not a fan of torpedo bulges, so before those were fitted is my preference.

[Xanthar]

which Revenge class battleship?

I'm not sure I have a favorite, yet. I was looking at some of the diagrams in my copy of "British Battleships : 1919 - 1945" by R. A. Burt and thinking about making something that was pre bulges and as generic as possible so that it could be customized to suit.

[81542]

Xanthar wrote:

"I'm not a fan of torpedo bulges, so before those were fitted is my preference."

Well, you can now reduce you list of choices to four: HMS RAMILLIES had hers fitted on the stocks.

81542

[PaulC]

I'm no expert but would seem to me that a somewhat easier idea is to convert a Queen Elizabeth which I believe has been done, than an Iron Duke. Major hull surgery for both, but significantly less with the QE I would think.

The R's "U" shaped stern is a major difference from both Duke and QE. The Duke's break from forecastle deck level to quarter deck level is at the fore funnel, while the R's and QE's is near the mainmast.