The Ship Model Forum

All this talk of PE, turrets, and other difficulties----sure makes me glad I model in 1:600 scale!

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Danny DON'T "waterline"...!

Hi all,

I´m shortly due to build the Airfix 1:600 Ark Royal. I got the WEM PE and the Morskaya Kollektsiya booklet (although my russian is non-existent), plus the pics gotten from thelinks in this thread and I´d like to ask you after the "correct" paint scheme for the ship.

I´ve not yet decided as to what timeframe I´d like to model (although a dio of the stricken carrier with the destroyer asides and the five planes aboard would be tempting); is there any info one of you could give me as to the right shades?

Help greatly appreciated by

Frank

HMS Ark Royal had a fairly stagnant Air Group throughout her service life.

In September 1939 she operated two fighter Squadrons, 800 & 803, the former with 6 Skua IIs and 3 Rocs, and the later with 9 & 3 respectively, and three TSR Squadrons, 810, 820 & 821, the former with 12 and the later two each with 9 Swordfish Is.

For the deployment to the South Atlantic she disembarked 803 Squadron and the Roc section of 800 Squadron, retaining only the two Skua sections to supplement her TSRs.

After her February 1940 refit, she headed to the Med without any fighters, just the same three TSR squadrons.

On return to the UK in preparation to go to Norway, she disembarked 821 Squadron and embarked 800 & 801 Squadrons, each with 9 Skua IIs and 2 (800) or 3 (801) Rocs for her April foray.

In her May foray she disembarked all Roc sections and embarked 803 Squadron, all three fighter squadrons now operating 9 Skua IIs.

In her June foray, 801 Squadron was disembarked and 800 & 803 were increased to 12 Skua IIs each. She also embarked 6 Walrus Is of 701 Squadron on from 8-14 June to evacuate them from Norway.

On 18 June when deployed to the Med, 800 & 803 had 12 Skua IIs each, 810 & 820 had 12 and 9 Swordfish Is respectively, and 818 was embarked with 9 more. She retained this Air Group until her October 1940 refit.

When she returned to the Med, she replaced 803 Squadron with 808 operating 12 new Fulmar I fighters. 800, 810, 820, and 818 remained as before.

On 5 April 1941, whilst at Gibraltar, 800 Squadron was disembarked and replaced by 807 Squadron operating 12 new Fulmar II fighters, with 808, 810, 820 and 818 remaining as they were.

The ship operated at this strength pretty much until her loss. The only changes were that 825 Squadron came aboard with 9 Swordfish on 11 June 1941, replacing 820 Squadron which disembarked on 16 June, and 816 Squadron embarked on 1 July 1941 with 9 Swordfish, replacing 818 Squadron. and 812 Squadron embarked on 10 September, replacing 810 Squadron, although 812 Squadron was put ashore from 1 October to 10 November, going aboard again just in time to get sunk.

Ark never operated Albacores (though she carried 828 to the flying off point for Malta on 16-18 October (in lieu of 812), Sea Hurricanes (though she carried many RAF birds) , or Martlets.

Hope this is of interest.

Mark E. Horan

Well, folks,

it happened after all: I invested in some limited reference books. I received Taylor´s book on HMS Hood (still have to read that one) and also bought Rossiter´s book on Ark Royal. He´s the guy who organized the underwater exploration and naturally the book´s not strong on paint schemes or technical tidbits, but he gives a nice account of the Ark´s service life with quotes of crew members.

The book gave me the opportunity to watch some of the pics I already knew in better quality, and as I´m VERY short in beginning my build, I of course kept attention to them. As I´ll build my ship full hull (enables me to present her in heavy or calm seas), I´m interested in the hackneyed issue of the rpesence of a boot topping. I´d be nearly 100% sure there wasn´t any upon launching her, but the pics prior to her loss seem to show it to me.

Yet it looks strangely lighter than the underwater hull, which can´t be. Or it´s a matter of b/w film representing colours in a very special way, or it´s some marine growth in the area just below the waterline.

Bottom line is I guess I won´t go wrong with a boot topping.

The other thing that was discussed here is a possible two-tone grey scheme for her hull. As I interpret the pics, the darker hue seen below the kink in the hull is simply a trick of the light, meaning that lower hull area must have been in the shade and hence looks darker on the pics. The bow area (in front of the kink) looks uniform grey all the way.

Right now I think I´ll go with a grey flight deck with faded white markings plus some traces of rubber tyres and a bit of grunge. I´ve no idea where the wild shades on the pic from South America originate from - maybe they were just repainting the flight deck and wre only half through?

What I don´t know is which decks to apply corticene to - well, you live to learn says

Frank

Hi to all

I am new to this forum, discovered it a few dayes ago.

HMS Ark royal is one of my UK Navy favorits, and I am building a card model of her, at a scale of 1-300.

Thanks to all of you for the pictures. Hop I can post pictures of the model in a sort time.

S. Mor

Fantastic. I've been looking around for that kit and I can't seem to get it from any US distributors.

-Devin

Well, Devin,

your predicament is the same as that of a "couple" of other US modelers interested in building that one (AIRFIX CAN YOU HEAR US???????) But it´s just the same here in Germany.

How Airfix could design and produce such a big and pricey and lavishly equipped kit and then distribute it only to an, er, select audience, just beats me. I´m far too ignorant to understand what my chartered accountant does but in spite of that I deem it doesn´t take a rocket scientist to figure out that a kit will fare better in terms of returning its production cost if more units are sold than less.

I got mine from an english chap on evilbay (sp!) otherwise I wouldn´t have stood a chance of getting it from a distributor in Germany. I took it for a belated revenge for Colditz at first, but now that you Americans don´t get it, too - it might be a revenge for Yorktown on the side of the Airfix management, too ))))


Cheers,

Frank (not quite that sure about our team´s prospects re the soccer world cup as Guido)

My dear sir,
There is no such thing as the UK Navy.
And the correct title may seem anachronistic to the uninformed plebians.
I need another drink.
Do not take offence dear sir.

RE: The Anti-Pesto van kit availability problem in the US & Germany -

I imagine it is up to the respective distributors in each country to decide if and how many they want to sell, not Airfix. Airfix cannot force the distributors to sell them. I do find it hard to believe that no vans have ever been sold in either country though.

BTW - You can still get them from the Airfix.com site online shop.
It might well not be Airfix's fault. It is almost certainly produced with a licence attached (Aardman Animations?). Most licences are country specific, so maybe Airfix doesn’t have the licence to produce/sell in other countries (yet) or maybe it'll just not be cost effective.

Just speculating - The licensing of film based products can be a very tricky and expensive activity.

Aplogies for temporarily hijacking the Ark thread -

Here's a link to the Anti Pesto van.

http://airfix.com/cs/shop/product.asp?n ... 1&P_ID=162

Hope you find it useful.

Can anyone tell me the colours for the ship sides, flight deck, other horizontal surfaces and flight deck markings of the Ark during WWII?
If you could let me know what those deck markings were that would be great too.
Regards
Kevin

Hi all,

I´m still gravitating around my Airfix Ark Royal, and having completed my Hood can soon really start. Here´s yet another silly question that just occured to me:

Just assuming I´d like to build the famous scene of Ark´s sinking with HMSLegion alongside, would there be a model kit in 1:600 of an "L" class destroyer?

Curious and still eager to start, yet someow never getting things done

Frank

There is no kit of an L-class in 1/600 to my knowledge. Your only option I think would be to modify the hull, guns et al. of a Airfix HMS H-class kit but its a major job and finding one on its own eBay is your option.

One way to do it would be to buy the Revell 1/720 Ark Royal and a resin L-class for £20 or perhaps modifying a Matchbox 1/700 HMS Kelly which could be found for less than £20 on eBay and has a much more L-class hull than an A-I class.

The biggest job is the L & M glass have unique enclosed gun mountings and these are the biggest barrier for you to scratchbuild.

Thanks Laurence!

Well, that kind of torches the idea - it´s about what I had expected.

BTW, I´ve no idea why I wasn´t logged in when I wrote the former note - happens frequently it seems.

So I´ll chose another situation from Ark´s career ... one in which she sails alone, preferably says

Frank

Frank,


Why not for a challenge go the whole hog and do a 1/600 Ark Royal, 1/600 Sheffield, from the Belfast kit and the major job make a Renown in 1/600 from the Repulse kit,

boy that would be a great Force H

Well, folks, I finally got started on my Ark.

Have so far wokred on the hull and the various inserts. Have opened the bow cutouts for fairleads, have added the armor belt from sheet, have added bulkheads to close the openings next to the fore and quarter deck, and have added the degaussing coil. Now I´m working my way through the various welding seams pretty much visible in the period pics:







Stern needed cleanup and has received it since pic was taken.

I´ll keep you posted says

Frank

Lovely Work Frank,

Cant wait for the next pics

Hi every one

I am screchbuilding a 1:300 card model of HMS Ark Royal (ww2), and have found this two drawings in the internet. They difer in the fligh deck colours.
Can someone tell me which is the right one, or are they from differen service time ?

Thanks,

S. Mor


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Soory, this is the second picture.

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All:

I talked to a pilot who served aboard Ark Royal during the spring of 1940. He was shot down while flying a Skua fighter-bomber during the strike against Scharnhorst in June of 1940. He says the flight deck was medium to dark gray with a single white stripe down the center - much like the lower photo displayed above.

Paul O'Reilly