HMS Suffolk: Airfix 1/1200

The initial impetus for my renewed interest in waterline ship models in 2012 was the reissue by Airfix of their 1/1200 scale models from the 1970s. Many years ago I built some of them, not very well and they are long lost so I wanted to see if I could do better second time around.

I had mixed feelings about the decision to sell them only as a 'Sink the Bismarck!' set of: HMS Hood, HMS Ark Royal, HMS Suffolk, 2 Tribal class destroyers, Prinz Eugen and Bismarck himself. At £20 it was certainly good value and I bought two immediately, on the other hand I'm still not sure what to do with two Ark Royals and didn't particularly want the German ships at all but I would have bought a few more Counties. I hoped Airfix might have added to the range but I guess the demand just isn't there and that will never happen.

HMS Suffolk was the first one that I set about building. I wanted to do the best job of it that I could so spent some time on research. Over the years I have bought a good selection of naval books, including Raven and Roberts' and Friedman's books on British WW2 cruisers - these were my primary references. Another invaluable resource was the page for HMS Suffolk on world-war.co.uk with excellent colour pictures showing how the exact fit and camouflage changed through the years. I chose "Mid 1942" for my model as the most interesting colour scheme and simplest modifications from the kit.

Apart from the basic kit, I bought some white metal pom poms from Bill at Clydeside and already had a fret of etched brass propellors. Everything else was scratch built.

Octuple pom poms, L to R: Airfix 1/600 from HMS King George V, Airfix 1/1200 from the kit and my scratch  build attempt - after the frustration of trying to line up 8 tiny slivers of 0.2mm wire, I placed my order with Clydeside!

By 1942, many Oerlikon 20mm guns had been fitted. I scratch built these from the sharpened end of cocktail sticks, 5 thou plasticard and 0.2 mm wire. The gun tub walls were from an old metal toothpaste tube that has been in my spare box since the 1980s.

I also decided to replace the moulded plastic masts with soldered brass. After cutting grooves half way through the mast, I line everything up on some ceramic tiles that were left over from the utility room and fix them down with Tamiya tape.

Whilst much of the kit was very good, the bridge didn't match with my references and I ended up replacing must of it. I lacked the confidence and experience to construct the bridge windows in 3-D so they were just painted on.

I also replaced the deck around the 4" guns, added the ventilators and replaced  the rather clumsy moulded on details of the funnels with wire. The shelters between the 4" mounts needed to be reduced in size quite a lot - a fiddly job to avoid losing the distinctive rib detail.

Walrus with photo-etch propellor.

Ready for (more) painting and assembly.

The painting was with Vallejo acrylics, model air or the regular series. I made a mistake with the 507C and made it too dark so the rest of the camouflage pattern isn't as strong as it should be. The correct mix is 1 part 990 light grey to 3 parts 919 foundation white. There is a brilliant online summary of Vallejo mixes for WW2 paint colours here.

I learnt a lot from making this little model and whilst there are many things I would do differently in future (starting the the mix for 507C), I was pleased with the overall result.