1/350 Airfix Type 45 HMS Dragon or is it Dauntless...?

[Russelle]

Jan, Tim, thank you for your kind words guys

The dockyard is back to full speed ahead and the P80 has done its work.

Now down to the final stages on the hull (P600) a few minor areas to finish off (around the anchor) before moving on to filling the seams on the upper structure.

The flight deck is now taped up for protection and will stay this way throughout the build now

Some ratholes have shown up that need filling

The deck will need to be repainted in these areas, but that’s not a problem.

I’ve started filling the seams with medium CA applied with a toothpick.

After it cures I paint it with water based silver paint and a hairy stick to see how it looks before sanding back. I find this method works really well when you need nice crisp corners and good accuracy.
Obligatory overall shot

More soon

[phantom_phanatic]

Looking great. Well worth all the work.

[JJ1973]

Great progress, Russ! Good to see that you’ve tackled the - or at least one of the? - greatest problems with that kit, looks really good, mate! And she’s a big ship, even bigger than mine, I wasn’t aware of that. Especially her beam - that’s pretty impressive in your last pic! Somehow I always thought that they would be about the size of our 124-class, but in fact, they are more like an Arleigh Burke!

So, what Veteran goodies are you going to get for HMS Dauntless?

Cheers
Jan

[Shanghaied]

Hi Russ,

She looks so simple and smooth, like a weekend build, but what a beast to build!
Nice ships in 1:1 btw, visited the HMS Duncan when she was in Hamburg once.

Tom

[Russelle]

@phantom_phanatic @JJ1973 @Shanghaied Stephen, Jan, Tom, thanks so much for the kind words guys: really helps to keep me motivated to get this done for the Tin Sailors campaign

Jan, she’s a big un for sure. Interestingly about 2/3rds the length of a WW2 Battleship and probably as long as a WW1 but only displacing around 7000 tonnes-i guess armour plating takes up a lot of the difference. I’ll take a couple of comparison shots and post them up🤗

The veteran goodies have arrived and I’ll reveal them soon too with pics

Tom, yep, fully welded there’s not a single plate line to worry about on this build, at this scale. Glad you got the chance for a visit-a type 45 visited Melbourne a few years back, but unfortunately I missed the chance to get on board

[Russelle]

Ok, some good progress to report, although it doesn’t seem like much, but this is the all important steps to prepping the hull for paint.

Midships deck is all masked up allowing the filling and sanding of the seams with super glue and checking with silver paint.

Unfortunately I’m going to have to repaint the fore deck but that was always a possibility.

Now, onto the after market which I had been um-ing and ah-ing about up til now, but with the hull coming into shape nicely, I decided it was time to purchase the Veteran Mk8 4.5"gun and the DS30 Mk2 which come as a set and also the Veteran phalanx CIWS.

Hopefully I can make these look as good as Jan’s work on Gneisenau

Now, for those wondering, the Type 45’s are a big class of ship at 152.4m and 7,350~8,500 tons displacement. So, I’ve put together some comparison shots with some other ships.

The lengths of KGV and Prinz Eugen are about 50% more than that of Dauntless, but KGV displaced around 35,000 tons and Prinz Eugen around 19,000 tons. I guess there’s a lot to be said for just how much armour plating went into ships back in the day.

Here’s a shot with just the Tribal class hull and Dauntless together to illustrate just how much these ships have grown. The Tribal class displaced around 1,850 tons

I was going to put Lord Nelson in the shot too, but she’s tucked away in the stash and too hard to get at. But, FYI, Lord nelson is shorter than Dauntless at 135m but around twice the displacement at 16,000tons.

Once again, thanks for looking, back off to the bench… now, where did I leave the sand paper???

[Russelle]

I like sharp lines,
and I can’t deny,
you other modellers can’t deny…

Ahem, sorry, uhm, back to normal programming… Couldn’t help throw in a bit of sir-mix-alot there

All the basic sanding is now completed and it’s onto adding in the details.

On the top of the aft wall of the hangar there are some small details that need to be added in.

Items 1 and 5 aren’t represented at all by Airfix’s kit and items 2,3,and 4 were vaguely moulded and were promptly removed earlier on during the cleaning up process.
In order to re-create them, I took some left over sprue and was able to turn the required items by inserting the sprue into my cordless drill and running at high speed, I was able to carve the shapes required with files and sand paper.

2,3 and 4 are now attached but I’ll paint 1 and 5 separately to make sure I get good coverage

other details added as the pics show

Foredeck all finished

All in all, I think I used around a 1/3rd of a bottle of CA as filler!

The prop shafts are also being fitted, bar one piece, which is giving me trouble: more areas requiring filling and the anchors are now in place too.

Thanks again for looking in and your patience with the build… We should see paint on soon!

[Johnnych01]

Really take shape nicely now Russ, it’s looking really nice and as you say… Pretty sleek. I was impressed by the comparison shots of the hulls. I’ve seen these 45s down in Pompey countless times and genuinely never thought about the comparative size against a WW2 battleship…it’s quite surprising see it like that

[Russelle]

@Johnnych01

I’ve seen these 45s down in Pompey countless times and genuinely never thought about the comparative size against a WW2 battleship…it’s quite surprising see it like that

Hi John it makes for an interesting comparison doesn’t it? Being able to set these different classes of vessel side by side and get an appreciation of their relative size is part of the reason I steadfastly build only in 1/350 scale

I can’t help but ponder, looking again between the type 45 and the larger vessels: are the type 45s larger than we think or were WW2 capital ships smaller?

On a side note, it seems the type 45s replacement will be larger again, in fact so large that they’ll be given cruiser classification: type 83!

[Johnnych01]

they certainly look bigger and have grown in size, also noticeably in the beam as well, which you can probably put down in part in things like the added helo hanger and landing pad which takes up a big chunk of area.
I wonder (without digging into ref books) how far away a type 45 could sink a WW2 BS and vice versa ?
The type 83s sound like they will be a bit of a beast…

[McRunty]

@Johnnych01

I wonder (without digging into ref books) how far away a type 45 could sink a WW2 BS and vice versa

This is all opinion but I suspect it would have an issue killing a WW2 Battleship. Damaging yes, likely severely damaging in fact but sinking one would be problematic due to missile count and the BB’s armour protection.

The type 45 uses harpoon missiles as its main anti ship armament. Depending on the Block it has a max range of 77 - 150 nautical miles with a 487lb warhead. The Type 45 is also faster than most (if not all) BB’s so could maintain the range indefinitely. Unfortunately it only carries 8 missiles and from what I understand, underway reloading is not an easy thing to do.

The only BB it would realistically be fighting is a modernized Iowa which also carries Harpoons so the range is negated. Both vessels carry Phalanx but the Iowa’s carry more (4 vs 2). Once the Type 45 is out of missiles then its down to main battery fire and I am not convinced the type 45’s 4.5 inch gun is going to make an impact

The longest ranged BB gun hit is around 15 miles and that only happened twice.

So TLDR: A Type 45 can damage (maybe kill) a WW2 era BB from well outside the effective range of said BB. The BB wouldn’t even see the Type 45 so the Type 45 is effectively invulnerable. If the Type 45’s captain was an idiot it could be killed at a max of around 15 miles by a WW2 BB. Against a modern Iowa, all bets are off and I think the Type 45 is doomed.

[MoramarthT]

Against a WW2 BB a type 45’s best bet is to wait for night and send in the Wildcat with tweaked ASW torpedoes to acoustically home in on the BB’s screws. Knock the wheels off the (Battle) wagon and the only way it’s going is in a downward direction, scuttled or left to someone better suited to killing it. Bring back the WE177 and anything WW2 is toast…

Regards,

M

[Russelle]

Interesting discussion here guys🤠

Rory, I agree you are correct, it would be very difficult to sink a WW2 BB. We need to remember the context in which BBs were designed and built, and that is for ship to ship bombardment. Thusly, they were built with heavy plating in order to take hits and still being able to continue fighting.

In other words: BBs didn’t become obsolete because they were vulnerable, but because the distances at which battles took place exceeded the range of their primary weapons. Aircraft carriers in part took over the role of BBs, but are in fact much more vulnerable to hits than BBs, but stay out of range and send their aircraft in to do the offensive damage.

The true successor of BBs (IMHO) is in fact the submarine. They are today’s modern ship killers.

Which brings me back to the type 45. In today’s context, BBs and type 45s would be very unlikely to see combat with each other. Whilst armed with Harpoon missiles, the damage a Type 45 could do to a WW2 Battleship would be minimal, but I’d posit that well before a lock was achieved, an Astute class submarine would have already struck and the BB would already be on its way to the bottom

[Armor_Buff]

Russelle, amazing work sorting out the kit and fixing the various issues!

Seeing either the superstructure fitment or 5mm warp in the hull, she’d have exceeded flank speed sailing into the bin at Armor Buff’s Boat Building Bench:)

Fabulous save and model building!

Did a bit of reading on the Type 45 Guided Missle Destroyer and Type 45 seems amazing state of the art in sensors and information processing.

Could someone please enlighten me about this aspect of Type 45 design, the ASW capability?

Guided Missle Destroyer designs usually seem to have torpedoes for Anti-Submarine warfare plus a helicopter. Allowing a dual threat to the submarine from one ship.

The Type 45’s don’t appear to me to have torpedoes or other ship mounted Anti-Submarine warfare system.

Has the technology progressed to the point where ship mounted ASW is entering obsolescence?

Does today’s capability basically depend on the helicopters?

BTW - No implied criticism intended of Type 45’s just wondering if things have really changed drastically over the years.

[Russelle]

Hi Wade!

Thanks for dropping in and checking out my build. The kit has its quirks for sure, but nothing that can’t be overcome with a bit of filling and sanding (so far )

Great questions there. My knowledge of the Type 45’s is nowhere near as good as it could be, but my understanding is that their primary role is as an Air Defense destroyer, designed to protect the Carrier Strike group from air strikes. ASW and Anti ship capability is kind of a secondary role for the class. Yes, they’re equipped with a chopper for ASW work but they’re not as quiet as a true sub hunter, and their anti ship capability is limited to the Harpoon launchers… This could however change if the VLS (Vertical Launch system) is equipped with ballistic ship missiles.

The unfortunate truth is that penny pinching by the UK government oftentimes results in ships fitted for but not with. Looking at Russian ships for example, and they positively bristle with weapons, but in comparison UK ships seem almost sparse and barren.

But, it seems that the MoD has now decided that sub hunters will be a priority in the RN as they are looking to introduce the new Type 26 class of frigate, to replace the ageing Type 23.

If you want to do more research, there’s a great website called Navy Lookout and a great article here, about the armament situation.

Hope this helps

Prop shafts on

[McRunty]

Those are some fun gaps to fill and blend in. The fit of that kit really is awful!

[Armor_Buff]

Russelle, thank you for the Navy Look links they made for an interesting read. The weapon chart by warship class is fascinating.

[Russelle]

@McRunty Hi Rory, it looks bad doesn’t it, but to be honest, it’s not really because of the simple shapes TBH the Prinz Eugen was much more labour intensive and to make matters worse I’ve probably got a bit of OCD when it comes to seams

@Armor_Buff You’re welcome Wade it’s a good site for info on the RN

[JJ1973]

Hi Russ,

great work overcoming the flaws of the kit, Dauntless is coming along very nicely mate!

Allow me a few words on the discussion Type 45 vs. BB.
A Type 45 would only survive if she’s faster than any BB - even the old WW I veterans like Warspite would eat her up if she would try to fight; so as for a modernized Iowa - she should even be faster - no chance for a Type 45. But those destroyers were not built for anything like this, you would not encounter a BB with a WW II cruiser, or Air Defense Cruiser, and even the Battlecruisers were no match for Battleships. If you look for something to counter a BB, even a modernized Iowa, you have to look at the Russian Navy, they have specialized Anti Surface Warfare ships, ship killers, designed especially agains the Iowas and Carrier Groups. Just I can’t say in what status they are these days, if they are anywhere near combat ready. US Navy ships with a bunch of Tomahawks could do the job as well, even though the Tomahawk missile is not designed to hit moving targets (don’t know about possible upgrades, though).
ASW capability - hull mounted sonars and torpedo tubes are more or less obsolete. You’re looking at active towed array, active/passive sonar buoys, helos and aircraft, and submarine of course. But todays ships are all highly specialized, a Type 45 is an air defender, so anti surface and anti submarine are secondary roles. Normally you would never operate with just one frigate or destroyer, but in battle groups that are composed of ships of different specialties, for whatever task you have at hand, and mutual support of those units will bring combat effectiveness. E.g. a group of - even small - anti surface warfare units like German Navy K130 with four RBS 15 missiles each, operating preferably in confined waters, would pose a deadly threat for any BB, including modernized Iowas…

Cheers
Jan

[McRunty]

So I did a thing…