Woodstock74 wrote:
Now that Mikro-Mir has given us the Churchill class (Conqueror) kit, the question begs; how similar was the Valliant class? Looking at over all dimensions, it seems they're spot on regarding the hull overall dims. What about general hull shape? Seems this might be an excuse to get another kit from Mikro-Mir?
Hi Woodstock74,
I did that reasearch already: the Valiants were totally the same as the Churchills, only things like soundproofing internally were improved on the latter. For us modelers there is no difference I can tell. So you can safely order the MikroMir Conqueror kit to model either the Valiant or the Warspite.
Only over the lifetime of these five boats there were some differences: originally they had no towed array (on the left aft stabilizer), the hydrophones on the foredeck were originally the small 'dimple' type and later to be replaced by the later familiar and more obvious 'pillar'. And finally, they all originally were fitted with a seven blade propeller but at some time in their life replaced by a nine-blader. But you know everything about those already!
It seems that Churchill has been used as a testbed for the pump-jet propulsor, later to become standard on the Swifture and Trafalgar classes. But I have not found any document lest picture confirming this. Obvious, as the ships are still under official cloaks of secrecy!