I don’t think I have seen a build log of this kit anywhere, and she is a good companion for the York, both lost during the Battle for Crete, York having been damaged by 2 Barchinos, Italian explosive motor boat on the 18th March and was beached, further damaged by the Luftwaffe, and finally scuttled 22nd May. The Calcutta was sunk by Ju88;s on the finally return run to Alexandria on 1st June 1941. It appears that between her conversion to an AA Cruiser and her loss she received no further modification. I have found reference that she may have been fitted with type 279 radars, but no photographic evidence, which would be hard to find as such things were often censored on wartime photographs.
The kit:-
Nicely molded, shape looks pretty good
A quick dry fit of the main parts.
The references particular references for this build.
The camouflage,
Fortunately the photo on the cover the profile shows the Stbd side, which is slightly different, particularly around the bow.
Keel laying within the next couple of days.
Cheers,
Si
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Horray another interesting choice of yours Si - watching with interest how you will master the camouflage 
Looks interesting. Don’t think I’ve seen one either.
Are they twin 4" High Angle guns in the turrets?
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Si,
another nice one, and I too haven’t seen a build log of her anywhere. I’m in and looking forward to your build log!
Cheers
Jan
Yes, Mk.XIX in dual-purpose mounts; not turrets as such but open-backed shields. They replaced the single 6" guns in “A”,“Q”,“X” and “Y” positions with a Quad Pom-pom replacing the gun in “B” position. All eight of the “C” Class AA conversions (five “C” class remained unconverted) had a pretty torrid time of it in WW2 with five sunk, one hulked after severe damage and only two surviving the war in decent shape.
Of the fourteen earlier variants of the “C” Class thirteen were scrapped prior to WW2 but one -Caroline- still survives.
Regards,
M
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Hi Thomas,
Welcome aboard, the camo will be “fun” luckily the grainy photo on the front of the PM book shows the opposite side the Alan Raven’s camo book. The measuring and masking will be interesting. I do quite like the “Alexandria patterns” although usually restricted to the pre-war AP507 greys.
Cheers, Si
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Hi Stephen,
Welcome aboard, M’s answer is very nice and concise, even for 1941 the close range AA was very poor. at least she had the twin 4" some of the conversions had 10 single MkV 4" and only one HA director.
It is nice to have such oddities in kit form.
Cheers, Si
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Hi Jan,
Welcome aboard, well nice to put out something unusual, hope you enjoy the ride.
Might follow this up with her sister ship HMS Colombo.
Cheers, Si
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Hi M,
Welcome aboard, thank you for your reply above, always had a soft spot for the few WW1 era cruisers that survived to fight in WW2.
Cheers, Si
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Thanks guys, will admit I’m not as up to speed on my nautical terminology as I should be.
Will be an interesting build so will be watching.
I’d like to do a 1/350 warship at some point, but most are far too big to display. This looks like it might be a much more manageable size.
Speaking of sister ships, did you catch Episode 10 of “World’s Greatest Shipwrecks: History Beneath the Waves” on the box last year? An interesting account of HMS Curacoa being run down by RMS Queen Mary.
Regards,
M
Hi Stephen,
She is 393mm, long, or if you prefer a bit over 15" in English Money, nice size for a first ship in this scale, and quite interesting being converted from a standard light cruiser into an AA cruiser. The only minor downside is that the etch incuded in the kit does not include the main deck railings, generic sets of RN railings are not expesive.
Cheers,
Si
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Thank you for the welcome. I can’t build much these days so I try to maintain some connection to the community by involving myself in the general conversation (hopefully, positively) although I lack the depth of knowledge of the specialists in the various areas.
Regards,
M
Thanks Si.
Have a few other things on the go at the moment but I’ll keep my eyes open for one.
Etch is not a material I’ve had a lot of luck with in the past. Just cannot get the stuff to bend properly to shape or even stick to the model. On everything else yes, just never where it’s supposed to go!
Very envious of anyone who can get it to work, especially the railings!
Now this is a kit that could persuade me to try small scale ships again. Last one I built was Airfix 1/600 KGV. The other that has my attention is Abercrombie.
Hi Amaegan,
welcome aboard, Abercrombie is a nice looking ship, and should be a straight forward build, the finished item would more impressive than Calcutta, similar in length, but rather wider. I have her hiding in my stash.
Cheers
Si
Hi Stephen,
None of the etch on this one is structural, apart from the side pieces on the pompom and she might look a bit odd without funnel caps. The kit pompom isn’t the worst I have seen, but I will replacing it with the black cat 3d printed unit, and also the quad Vickers mgs.
Took me rather a lot of practice to get any good with etch, I still mess bits up now, oh and quite a lot of 
Cheers, Si
We have to bear in mind that the Oerlikon wasn’t available in quantity in 1941. Close in AA weapons at that time were 8, 4 or single barrel Pom-poms or 0.5” Vickers machine guns. The Pom-poms were heavy, clumsy weapons with a relatively low muzzle velocity. Accuracy was poor and traverse was slow so they tended to be used as a barrage weapon. For some reason the Navy didn’t get Bofors guns till later, although the Army had them in 1941. I always thought these ships were under gunned but there weren’t many other options in 1941
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Hi Andrew
Very good point, very few ships would have had Oerlikons, From memory the bigger destroyers, the J/K’s and Tribal classes were at the Front of the Queue, the older, albeit converted AA Cruisers were way down the list. I may be wrong, but considering what was removed, 5 single 6" mounts, 4 twin 21" TT, 2 single 3" AA, the LA Directors, these were replaced with MkIII high angle directors. The paucity of armament may well have had as much to do shortages of gun mounts as the technical issues of refitting ship with a completely different armament.
Cheers, Si
The keel has been laid.
The hull is primed with Halford’s Red Primer, (this is a multi purpose fine Auto primer, works well on plastic) dries to a nice smooth finish, and is a good match for RN anti fouling red,
This is the forecastle deck upside down, a couple of watertight doors from the spare etch box have been fitted to add a bit of extra detail.
The inside of the funnels sprayed black, along with the wood deck.
A bit of test fitting, the items that will need a coat AP507C light grey, I will be using Tamiya XF80.
Good fit across the board.
More soon.
Cheers, Si 
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