The Spratly Islands, 2015

[grayman]

Three years after the oil panic of 2012, the nations with long-held claims to the Spratly Islands began to mobilise.

For a long time the Spratlys were eyed with envy by Vietnam, the Philippines and China for their oil and gas resources. The oil panic three years earlier brought the strategic and economic value of the islands into much sharper focus, after a hiatus from the intense speculation and interest in the late 1980's.

The Royal Australian Navy found itself called upon by the UN to secure and monitor the islands while UN negotiations got under way. The RAN deployed two of its brand-new air warfare destroyers, but the third, its construction delayed, was still in dock.

In order to give depth to the force, the RAN hurriedly reactivated and refitted HMAS Sydney to support the squadron. HMAS Sydney has been laid up since 2009 with disposal somewhere on the horizon.

Sydney was old and basically worn out. To give her some combat capability the MK13 launcher was removed and replaced with VLS (SAM and SSM) cells. These weapons would be aimed and fired within the AEGIS net provided by the Air Warfare Destroyers. Sydney could still target ships with VLS Harpoon missiles, using her retained SPS-69 radar.

The ship also gave her organic ASW helicopter, the earlier Seahawks long since retired. The newer MRH-90s could were too big to operate regularly from her decks. In essence the help pad was kept for resupply and sunbathing.

Finally, before sailing, Sydney received an experimental digital camouflage, which some commentators suggested has semi-active properties. To this day the RAN refuses to comment.

After ten months on station, thankfully incident free, Sydney returned to Australia to be decommissioned. Replacing her on station was the third and last Air Warfare Destroyer.

Picture 1 of 4:

[grayman]

Post 2/3

The kits is the 1/300 Lee "Adelaide Class", with parts for a Flight 2 Oliver Hazard Perry and additional bits for the Taiwanese variety.

In a nutshell, not a bad build, except for two things: the plastic was very brittle and did not take liquid cement (Tamiya or MEK) very well.

The paint job did not come out as striking as I'd have liked - the "dots" were much to big and the overall scheme not broken up enough for my taste.

Picture 2/4:

[grayman]

So now it is to the Airfix 1/48 Spitfire Mk22 that has been haunting me for ages.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward any and all comments and critiques.

Oh, and a couple of more pictures...

Picture 3/4:


Picture 4/4

[Damian2]

One thing:

AWESOME CAMO!!! I know first hand what a task "digi cam" can be so well done on pulling off such a striking scheme!

 

[Sisko]

Nice job on the funky camo dude  B)

I have to agree the dots are a little on the big side but it is still effective.

Hope to see more Grayman.

[Hobbes]

Very nice! I like the camo. The VLS installation is an interesting solution.  

[ysi_maniac]

That camo is WOW          

[cthulhu77]

I don't think the dots are too big...that sort of Dazzle effect is what navy's tend to like.  Very nice job, convincing to me.
 Feel sorry for the helo pilots!
  Great pics !

[grayman]

Feel sorry for the helo pilots!

That exact thought struck me as the masking came off. They'd definitely need 20/20 vision!

There is a SH-60 in the kit, but it was a bit misshapen and since it seemed I cracked something every time I touched the model, I thought I'd put it aside.

If I were to do it again (never say never) I'd ditch the deck tan and put more thought into a kind of anti-aliasing effect at the edges of the camo colours.

I guess the size of the patches could have an effect on the image in a small CCD (128x128 in some sensors) from a few kilometers.

My biggest c****kup was the pendant number - AFAIK no FFG in RAN service has had "7" as the pendant. Must've been all those photos of the lead ship that got stuck in my mind.

Thanks to all of you for the kind words and critiques.

[F-32]

Oh yeah baby!  

[Rafael]

Grayman, that's an amazing ship you have there!!!
The digital camo is a difficult one, and specially in such small scale. I agree with Greg, though, regarding dazzle effects.

Is The VLS a scratchbuild?

BTW, Pics stored!

Rafa

[Brian da Basher]

Grayman that's simply incredible! What an amazing ship whiff! That digi-camo does indeed remind me of the famous "dazzle" patterns. I'd love to see more of this kind of whiffing.

Brian da Basher

[Geoff]

Like it!
Great model and a good backstory.  

[HOG]

Hi Grayman,
Fantastic paintjob well executed, sorry can`t comment on build as I know nothing about ships or boats except that most are expected to float.
Been playing around with pixalated paintjobs myself and this might help.
I found it hard trying to cut tape into regular squares and found some rubdown transfers in local stationary store that came in squares circles triangles etc in black and white colours. As they where cheap I bought a selection and have developed this method.  Using a piece of clear decal film I rub down a few shapes and overspray this with the required colour. When this is dry I lift the rubdowns with a peice of masking tape and apply like a mormal decal. I model mainly in 1:48 and have tried applying the rubdows direct but found it hard to get a good adherence to the model giving a defined shape when removed hence the decal, and would assume the same problem only moreso in smaller scales. Sometimes silvering of the `clear` parts on the constructed decal can be a problem but first spraying the base coat solves this but can make the decal a bit thick so usually do the lighter colour first with the darker colour as the top coat so as to cut down on paint thickness to achieve a good solid colour.
Include here is a model with all markings done by this method

also can someone please explain
VLS  CCD AFAIK no FFG etc

regards Gary[8-]

[Rafael]

Well, HOG, lemme see...
In a thread not so long ago, the acronyms and abbreviations were covered, and besides my being a native spanish-speaker, I understood almost nothing, but the bit I understand is:

VLS Vertical Launch System - The canister like cells in the forward part of the ship
CCD Charge-Coupled Device - The stuff most modern Cameras use to image to a Chip
AFAIK - As Far As I Know?
FFG - A type of Frigate

By the way, Your method sounds like it's a safe bet to apply this type of camo

Rafa