Calling all HMS Invincible/Indefatigable battlecruiser fans

[MartinJQuinn]

AWESOME photo George! Thanks for sharing.

[TCC]

RA Burt reports that the Dardanelles paint scheme of HMS Indomitable was painted out on return to England in December 1914. She was under refit from late December and the first couple weeks of January 1915.

Cheers,
George

Hi George
That's not quite right. There's a photograph extant showing Indomitable towing Lion home after Dogger Bank and Indom is wearing a blotchy camouflage sccheme. Therefore, she must have had it painted over post Dogger Bank.

[MartinJQuinn]

There's a photograph extant showing Indomitable towing Lion home after Dogger Bank and Indom is wearing a blotchy camouflage sccheme. Therefore, she must have had it painted over post Dogger Bank.

That's a photo I'd love to see...

[TCC]

There's a photograph extant showing Indomitable towing Lion home after Dogger Bank and Indom is wearing a blotchy camouflage sccheme. Therefore, she must have had it painted over post Dogger Bank.

That's a photo I'd love to see...

That's a request I can't ignore:

[George Hargreaves]

TCC

Thanks so much for the port side, what a great shot.

Cheers,
George

[ChrisNP]

Hi, all
I love the look of these battlecruisers, and have often looked out for a photo of HMS Invincible with raised fore funnel. Apart from the picture of her exploding at Jutland, (where the central part of the ship is completely obscured), I have never seen one. Does anyone know of such a photo?
Also, I feel that there is a bit of a mystery surrounding the sinking of HMS Indefatigable. In the well-known photo of her sinking at Jutland, (google - HMS Indefatigable sinking) she seems to be in a bad way, and about to founder, yet there is no enormous plume of smoke above her, suggesting that the final explosion hasn't yet happened. If this is the case, why is she sinking so rapidly? WW1 ships either tended to blow up catastrophically, or take lots of punishment relatively easily, but Indefatigable definitely appears to be sinking before the final explosion. Any theories? Thanks!

[MartinJQuinn]

Great photo - thank you. The camo is similar to a photo I was shown of her port side when she was in the Med. Certainly seems she was still camouflaged. Boy - what a great diorama that would be!

[TCC]

Great photo - thank you. The camo is similar to a photo I was shown of her port side when she was in the Med. Certainly seems she was still camouflaged. Boy - what a great diorama that would be!

Hi all
so it might be safe to say that all the BCs wore some form of camouflage over that first winter of the war.

To ChrisNP

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ww2images/ ... 9633116745

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ww2images/ ... 9633116745

But you yourself should go through them as I'm not that 'up' on the 12" vessels and I only looked at a few and took the links of those named Invincible with the higher fore-funnel, there will probably be others that are mis-captioned.

[Frank Fowler]

Hi TCC,
Thank you for posting the flickr link. I went through most of the battlecruiser photos looking for Indefatigable photos. I came across one of Indefatigable (foreground) and New Zealand (background) that I have not seen before. The photo is a great broadside view of both ships dated 1915 and corresponds to the stern view of Indefatigable that has been published in a number of books.

The photo gives a good broadside view showing the changes to the bridge area of Indefatigable and the added platforms to the foremast above the bridge and below the fighting top. The photo is titled "HMS Indefatigable Battlecrusier, 1915, with New Zealand", Image Ref. warship4132 (warshipimagearchive, ww2imagearchive).

Is there anyway to order a good copy of this photo? I think it would be very helpful to have this photo as a reference to convert the Crombrig 1911 Indefatigable to her appearance at Jutland. Any information in how to get a copy of this photo would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

[TCC]

Hi TCC,
Thank you for posting the flickr link. ....

Is there anyway to order a good copy of this photo? I think it would be very helpful to have this photo as a reference to convert the Crombrig 1911 Indefatigable to her appearance at Jutland. Any information in how to get a copy of this photo would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Hi Frank
you are welcome. It is a fantastic set and doubly so as they are all online and can all be viewed. Sadly, I have nothing to do with the owners so can't advise on bigger or hard copies, but I have seen mention from the 'owner' that copies are available. So contact him thru his Flicker home page.

If you reach someone, I too would order a couple of jpgs if you get a price list, etc, from them.

Cheers

[Vlad]

I'm currently in the planning stages for a build of HMS New Zealand using the Combrig 1/700 kit. Thing is, the kit is essentially pre-war and I would really like to show the ship at Jutland. So far I've worked out I need to not use the torpedo net booms and add a director to the foremast. Here my research comes to a grinding halt.

I can see her bridge and spotting top look substantially different in 1918 than they did in 1911 but I can't work out when each change was made and therefore what is correct for 1916. There's also the question of 4" guns, which I believe were placed in casemates by this stage but again I am unable to find photographic evidence of how these looked in 1916.

Any help and information would be greatly appreciated.

[Bigjetwrencher]

Hi all,
My great uncle, (my grandfather's brother), Archibald Morison [img] was the ship's surgeon on the 'Indie' and was killed at Jutland. I have been looking for any photos of the ship and would love to find a model kit to build.
Thanks for any help in this regard.
Dave Calder

[Haijun watcher]

Gents,

Aside from Invincible's raised fore funnel and the lack of nets on her sisters mentioned earlier in the thread, were the 3 ships in the class essentially identical?

Could one build an HP Indomitable kit as Inflexible?

[PetrolGator]

I'm planning a Combrig Invincible for a Jutland group build I set up on Facebook. I understand she went through an extensive refit in 1914 and feel like the kit is pretty accurate to her final configuration.

From the thread, it appears that I need to discard the torpedo net books and some of the 4" turrets in her superstructure? Are there any good reference material (or completed models) that generally match her 1916 appearance?

Thanks!

[GeekSpeed]

Hi all.

I am actually working on a combat model (RC) of New Zealand. Does anyone have a picture of New Zealand in her camo scheme from 1915? I am also curious as to what colors the camo would have been. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

[Haijun watcher]

Hi all.

I am actually working on a combat model (RC) of New Zealand..

You mean like those watertight models with working turrets that shoot BBs like those made by Skunkworks?

[GeekSpeed]

Yes sir, RC warship combat. Although Skunkworks is now Strike Models.

[MartinJQuinn]

Some photos of New Zealand, from the IWM website:

Captioned "New Zealand going into action at Heligoland Bight".

Not sure if it's the light, but it does look like her hull is darker than her upperworks in the top picture. Unless it's the camouflage pattern below, and the lighter bow is obscured by her bow wave.

Just captioned "HMS New Zealand".

That camo in this picture looks similar to what Tiger wore at Dogger Bank.

Both pictures property of the IWM.

[J Spencer]

Re. The Fighting at Jutland by Fawcett and Hooper. The book was originally published as a souvenir for those who fought in the battle. The authors were naval officers. The photos in the book remain the best collection of genuine Jutland photos there is (the 1920 first edition, of which I own a copy) is particularly rich. Until recently, most were not available anywhere else. When the authors caption a photo as being of Invincible going into action in the battle, it is genuine. They were not civilian amateurs trying to excite readers with generic photos. There are no generic photos in the book. There were many in the fleet with Kodak cameras, as I have read recently. There is one gem which was not available anywhere else except Fawcett and Hooper. It shows Lion being straddled early in the action before she lost Q turret. It was taken on board one of the destroyers on her engaged side. You can see a covered flare in the foreground and Lion to the left. Luckily it is displayed on the British Battles website in the "Jutland: Part II" section.

http://www.britishbattles.com/the-battl ... -may-1916/

Re. Anti-torpedo nets. There is abundant evidence Lion had the nets from in action photos and the 1 June photo of her. The 1 June photo used to be in the Beatty collection and is dated 1 June in ink on the margin. Princess Royal, the now common Wyllie watercolor of her being repaired after the battle shows her with nets. Queen Mary, the photo taken from Tiger about two hours before the battle confirms she had nets. Of course, Tiger never had nets. There is a sketch of New Zealand in Fawcett and Hooper which shows her in the battle. She had nets. There are 1916 photos of NZ which show her with nets. Strangely, the 1915 photos of Indefatigable always show her without nets. The IWM photo, which purports to show her shortly before destruction, shows no nets. One photo, which I cannot recall, is odd because she appears to have nets but no booms to deploy the nets. Invincible has them in the Fawcett and Hooper photo. As for her sisters, their is a fuzzy and doctored photo of one during the battle. Would not bet on it.

As for making a Jutland New Zealand, you are in for work. The Combrig models are fine for pre-war and Heligoland Bight, and, maybe, Dogger Bank, but by 1916, she had the peculiar two level canted-to-the-side rangefinder hoods fitted on all turrets but A (these were also on her two sisters and on some of the turrets of the Invincible class (Lion and PR had one on Q turret. She had a director. She also had a small rangefinder platform with an open 9 foot RF behind her forward spotting top. The phot of the ship in the peculiar camouflage was taken during the Heligoland Bight battle according to the IWM caption (for a long time it was supposed to be from Dogger Bank, the captioning is getting very shoddy at the IWM).

To me the most interesting colors were at the time of Heligoland Bight and Dogger Bank when the fleet was actively experimenting with deceptive schemes. We know know Lion and PR had large false ship panels painted from waterline to the weatherdeck (not waterline to mid-hull as in 1915) during Dogger Bank.

[J Spencer]

Re. the photo of Indomitable towing Lion to Rosyth after Dogger Bank. This was the gold standard for years for the Lion at DB. But I recently found a closeup of Lion arriving in port surrounded by tugs on the Wingleader photo site (the former Postlethwaite service). Search "HMS LION" and you will see it.

http://www.wingleader.co.uk/ww2-photo-library/

This close view seems to show Lion with the full side "ship panel" carried by Princess Royal at the time of Dogger Bank. There are two photos of PR with this that I know about. One was taken by a nurse on a hospital ship in Rosyth. I found it, of all places, on a Gallipoli site. There is also one of PR on the web showing it. How does this full hull panel tally with the distant view of Lion? It doesn't, no way, no how. I have a suspicion the photo of the ship under tow might have been enhanced and the person who did the job gave Lion the 1915-style half-panel. But! Interestingly, all the period paintings of Lion returning from the battle do not show any panel at all. I have a suspicion they were all done from imagination because they almost all show L with her prewar very tall foremast---it had been reduced in height so the ship could pass under the Forth RR bridge. There is a Wyllie showing L and PR in 1915 with the half hull panel, but no other paintings show the panels. I wonder if depicting disruptive camouflage was censored?