HMS "Duchy" Class

[proditor]

With the constraints of the Washington Naval Conference firmly in place, the UK was faced with some tough decisions when it came to new warship construction.  The Nelson and the Rodney rolled off the quays and into Fleet service, with the three strong King George V class soon to follow.  But in the interim, in those days when no one really new what the future was to bring, they decided to hedge their bets with a "Coastal" battleship.  Designed to be armed and armored against 14" plunging fire, but on a much shorter citadel than the still developing KG V class, the new Duke of York and Duke of Wellington were supposed to fill a niche no one really had considered.  Fast enough to at least threaten the famous Germans twins (Scharnhorst and Gneisenau) and fully capable of pounding them or the Panzershiffs into scrap, the "Duchy" class allowed for some extreme flexibility at a time when the empire truly needed every ship and every man.

The basics of the ship were simple: a beamy ship with a citadel that would be a repeat of the Nelson/Rodney, and the turret design that would be used in the upcoming KG V.  Without the additional twin turret, the Duchies were considered to be inferior, but in many ways, this very mindset led to them being employed in ways that helped free other, more powerful surface vessels.  Also, they built faster than the KG V, meaning that as the Prince of Wales was just starting to fit out, the Duke of Wellington had already seen trail by fire when her surface action group managed to surprise the Graf Spee.  The ensuing Batlle of the River Platte was short, and brutal.  Unable to damage the Duke, the Spee was hammered until she finally went under, battered and aflame, just outside of Montevideo.

So that's the story in rough form at least.  Now for the ship.

I started with a Tamiya HMS Nelson.



And then I started cutting.  I removed the superfiring "B" location to use on an upcoming project, and then I started moving things around and truncating the hull.

[proditor]

And then came the PSR...



Followed by general construction of the superstructure and weapons.

[proditor]

And here we are today.  Nothing is glued in place yet, this is just the dress rehearsal, but man, I dig it.  This is it for a little bit as it is WAY too humid to even consider my rattle-cans at the moment.  This is what happens when you build most of a state on swampland my friends.  

[PR19_Kit]

Wow, I like the look of that. 

I always liked the Nelson and Rodney, just odd-ball enough to be interesting. Plus I can tell them apart from other battle wagons too, but with the four gun turrets it looks AWESOME!

[nighthunter]

This I have to draw! Or at least kitbash from someone's Nelson

[sandiego89]

Great idea.  A pocket Nelson.

[NARSES2]

Lovely work

[pyro-manic]

Very interesting! I am slightly concerned about the hull-form: Nelson and Rodney were pretty slow anyway, and a shorter (and therefore proportionally fatter) hull is not conducive to high speeds. Maybe add another, or a larger funnel, to show an improved powerplant? She'll need a fair bit more grunt to get up to anything close to a Scharnhorst-bothering speed.

I really like this idea, and look forward to seeing it progress when your humidity calms down a bit...

[proditor]

I realized I should have clarified the line about the twins.  In the hull form I'm working on, it looks like I have space for some version of the KG V propulsion (110,000 shp) as opposed to the Nelsons (45,000 shp) and while the single funnel is slightly problematic, it's also thicker by a bit than the KG V double stacks.  So my thought was to settle on 6 boilers, which would get me 82500 shp, on a displacement of less than the Nelsons (roughly) 34,000 tons.  So with almost double the shp on a reduced displacement, I think we'd be looking at something comparable to the KG Vs 28 or so knots as opposed to the 23 of the Nelsons.

Very little is going to be gaining on those 31 knot monsters, but at 28 or so knots, and if you manage to get them within range after the initial detection, you'd at least get some time to beat on one of the twins before they could scamper off to safety.

So my next thought is since I may not see a truly low humidity day until September, I may sand the decks flat and rescribe the wood planks.  I'm not sure if I'm feeling quite that insane however.  I may settle for something in the middle where I rescribe enough to get the point across properly. 

Also, last bit, I'm thinking a need Base Ring for the 6" secondaries...they look a little sitting flush with the deck.  Thoughts?

[nighthunter]

Sheet styrene?

[proditor]

Probably, and with many, many failures at making a circle since I tend to wing it and not use my darn compass. 

[Old Wombat]

My opinion is "yes" but only if they are minimal in height .... & use the bl**dy compass, OK!

[Captain Canada]

Pocket Nelson....I love it !

[James]

Wonderful stuff - great idea and it really looks the part.

[Joe C-P]

No 5.25" secondaries available?