Nick Moore1707819886

Thanks for replying Ratch, but what I was looking for was the undetcoat colour if the vehicles/guns had them i.e. red lead for steel, yellow oxide for aluminium, which is what we used when I was in the R.N. We would then undercoat again on top of that with dark grey and finally topcoat with the light grey you see R.N. warships in. Think I may just stick with a red oxide(ish) colour!

Hi all. Does a nybody know what colour undercoat paint the British army used during WW2? I'm building the Airfix Bedford QL portee with 6 pounder anti-tank gun, so these are the ones I am really after at the moment, but an Archer and some assorted guns & armour are in the stash as well. Thanks guys and gals!

I really hope so Paul. I've always wanted to do her as Jellicoe's flagship. Althogh they are different scales I think that she'll look good beside the HSF battlewagons I'm close to starting.

I for one am enjoying reliving some of my childhood by building the re-issue 'Classics' but the one I long to see is HMS Iron Duke. I was never able to buy this kit as a kid but I would dearly like to get a chance of building it now. After all, she WAS the flagship of the Home Fleets great admiral (and I am most definitely not talking about Beatty!), the man who successfully penned in the much vaunted battle fleet of the Kaiser after they failed at Jutland. So please Mr Airfix, how about it? Anyone else like to see her again? I sure hope so!!

Hi Russel. Yeah, got a 45 in the stash myself, just waiting to see what I want to do with it. I'm really keen on the HMS Dragon delivery paint job, but am also drawn to doing an operational one rigged for at sea replenishment. I work in the RFA and work with them quite often, so next time I am going to take my camera up with me and get some phots. Don't know when that'll be, though, unfortunately. The 45 will pair nicely with the Illustrious eventually, as well as a 23 when I get around to buying one!

I'd like to see Airfix coming out with more in the 1/350 range as well. A QE carrier would be fantastic - I have been past Rosyth a few times and have seen Queen Elizabeth there and she's one good looking ship (as well as being freaking enourmous!) - and it would go great with the 45s and the 23s produced by other companies. However, what I'd really like to see are, primarily, pre-Dreadnought British ships. I'd also like more First World War British ships - I'd love a 1/350 HMS Iron Duke as she was as Jutland - along with the smaller ships, torpedo boats, torpedo boat destroyers etc. While I'm blue skying I would also love to see WW2 British destroyers and also some Royal Fleet Auxiliaries.

Sorry, my last I did of course mean removing a couple of sponsons and the Goalkeeper (not Phalanx!), remodelling the bow by the ski ramp and then mounting Sea Dart. Upper deck aerials, Sea Dart tracker etc would then have to be checked to see what would have to be added or removed to model the ship at the chosen period.

The same mouldings could be used by Airfix to some degree in at least one of their ship kits - HMS Illustrious. I worked with this ship on and off for her entire career and there weren't many changes to her but there were enough to justify the issue of an update. The main changes were to aerials and the fotting of Phalanx guns in place of Seadart missiles. This would require a modification of the fwd weapon bay by the ski ramp and a couple of additional sponsons aft but the rest of the current moulding could pretty much be used as is. Same would hold true for Invincible and Ark Royal. I mentioned Belfast before. Her changes were mainly aerials and upper deck weaponry ss well so an update to her could use most of the current moulding as well. However, using Belfast as a starting point for other Town class cruisers would require major changes to pretty much everything above 1 deck, although I think the hulls, screws etc would be usable.

I have bought multiple kits of the same ship so as to model sister ships or one ship throughout various stages of its service career. A good example is the KGV class battleships, which underwent numerous changes of equipment through their careers. HMS Belfast is another one which springs to mind; the Belfast which went to Korea was radically different to the one which went to war in 1939. Also, it seems to me that model manufacturers stick to the same few ships each time. What about the numerous smaller ships which do the actual grunt work of any navy - the frigates, destroyers, minesweepers, MTBs etc. I would love to see more of these being kitted, particularly the Royal Navy ships from WW2. One last thought for a particularly underkitted period - what about the pre-Dreadnoughts? I have read a lot of naval history, particularly on the RN from around the start of the engine driven era up to the reforms of Jackie Fisher and his driving force behind the Dreadnought ships. I personally think that a lot of these ships looked fantastic and they were, for their time, revolutionary. They were tremendously important to the power of the Royal Navy at the time and I think that kits of these tremendously influential ships would be sellers.