Hello all

I recently bought an incomplete set of 1/350 Russian "Borodino" pre-dreadnought battleship (for a very good price) and imagined a very alternative fate of her. Let's say she wasn't lost during the battle of Tsushima, survived the Russo-Japanese war then the WW1 and somehow ended up in the allied fleet during WW2. Pretty crazy, I know

My plan is to build the hull with some changes, ex. remove torpedo launchers, remake the bow for better seaworthiness and remove casemate mounts.
The armament will be completely different as well as literally everything on deck since I don't have the parts, so I'll build them for scratch.

I hope to have a lot of fun during the process

Here are some photos of the hull glued up and torpedoe launchers cut off, awaiting putty...

Welcome aboard (a little Nautical humour for you there - yeah, Very Little... Moving On).

Sounds interesting; IIRC one of our members (Dizzy, maybe?) did something similar, Arizona into a Monitor I think; you might want to check out his build for some ideas? Just a thought.

Welcome aboard indeed!
Here's a couple of previous projects, I hope it helps.

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=42738.15

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=35603.msg568462#msg568462

https://www.whatifmodellers.com/index.php?topic=49949.0

Someone built a monitor using a cut down Arizona scale-o-rama to IIRC 1/72 scale and fitted with tank turrets. T-34 or Sherman I can't recall.

Quote from: kerick on February 24, 2024, 10:00:44 PMWelcome aboard indeed!

Someone built a monitor using a cut down Arizona scale-o-rama to IIRC 1/72 scale and fitted with tank turrets. T-34 or Sherman I can't recall.

That would be either finsrin (a.k.a. Bill) but he lives exclusively over on Beyond the Sprues, now, or Frank3k, who does visit here.

Looking forward to this, always had a liking for these pre-Dreadnought warships 

I've wondered what a monitor like ship would look like with modern tank turrets and similar armor on the ship. There were the brown water navy monitors in the Mekong River delta during Vietnam. They had slat/bar armor against RPGs way back then.

Quote from: kerick on February 25, 2024, 10:03:35 AMI've wondered what a monitor like ship would look like with modern tank turrets and similar armor on the ship. There were the brown water navy monitors in the Mekong River delta during Vietnam. They had slat/bar armor against RPGs way back then.

One of those variants had the 105mm turret from the LVTP5.

Hello again!
Thanks for a warm welcome and links to other projects.

Meanwhile I worked a bit on the topic of the new bow. Made it from 1mm and 0.3 mm polystyrene sheets. Profile of the new bow makes the hull kinda similar to merchant ships
There will be a lot of putty on it 

   Welcome to Whiffworld, where the inhabitants are  harmless  (and extremely supportive ) and the only real dangers are soaring imaginations, the occasional prowling anachronism  and the odd paradox lurking among the sprues.

This "Revised Borodino"  is looking most  promising, and I will be looking forward to viewing future developments!  There are fascinating possibilities in a backstory of how she avoided Tsu-Shima, became embroiled in the Russian revolution, survived Stalin's purges, spent 6 months as base AA vessel at Scapa Flow and ended up as a museum ship at St Petersburg.

Hi,
I'm intrigued to see more of your build

Ah, cool. Ships are not whiffed very often, so it's a nice addition to the board's spectrum. 

Quote from: Rheged on February 25, 2024, 11:04:50 AMThere are fascinating possibilities in a backstory of how she avoided Tsu-Shima,

She might have damaged her props when the Russian Baltic Fleet "tangled" with the Grimsby fishing fleet and returned home of even stopped off at Brest ?

Quote from: NARSES2 on February 26, 2024, 07:23:34 AM

Quote from: Rheged on February 25, 2024, 11:04:50 AMThere are fascinating possibilities in a backstory of how she avoided Tsu-Shima,

She might have damaged her props when the Russian Baltic Fleet "tangled" with the Grimsby fishing fleet and returned home of even stopped off at Brest ?

Given the wild firing of the Russian fleet  during the Dogger Bank Incident, she could well have been the victim of so called "Friendly Fire"  The backstory possibilities here are enormous!

Read the book "The Fleet that had to Die"  Richard Hough 1958 for further information.  Currently free (or so it seems to say) on Amazon  Kindle  https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fleet-That-Had-Die/dp/184341015X 

Some appropriate viewing;



A little addendum;

I watched them right after publishing. The story of Kamchatka makes me laugh even now