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[Backerther]

Hi all;
One of the highlights for this corvette I think is 40mm pom-pom gun since the modification is meaningful to do and worth doing so.
Take a look at a kit illustration of the gun as in pic 1......sooooooo humble and primitive so as to have made this ship largely spoiled...
This gun I have thought must be remade using the kit parts,at least to be a better-looked one,not a complete one than a kit original gun..!!
I have modified as follows;
1;The kit illustration of the gun.......Is this satisfactory,generally speaking..??
2;I drilled a hole through the trunnion by 0.5mm diameter to get the gun elevate for AA firing and surface shooting against surface vessels.
3;I also attached a sighting device,platforms for a gunner and a loader on both sides of the gun as well as other small parts
to get the gun looked realistically.
4/5/6;fabricated like these.
7/8;AA firing angle
9/10;Level or depressive angle shooting pose like against surface targets.


Next step is just a painting.!!
   

[lmagna]

WOW warspite!


That is a fantastic find! I agree, it does not reveal WHAT it is but certainly confirms that it is there. If it was the sixties I would call it a sunflower in disguise 


I also find the Lewis gun shield mount on the main deck to the right of the picture very interesting. The Lewis gun was not all that good of AA gun at the best of times so you would think it was there for some other close range surface action.


VERY NICE improvements on the 2 pounder gun Kiyo. That is looking much nicer.

[Backerther]

Hi Lou;


A great thanks for your complimentary comment on "my re-designed-2 pounder gun"!
I do rarely have much knowledge nor information on the gun so that I could not help remaking based on my imagination.!
Anyhow,original kit version profile is too poor.!!


Here are the pics of fully painted 2 pounder gun on "my design"
1/2/3;AA firing mode
4/5/6;Level firing mode
7;Depressive angle firing mode

[Dreadnought]

Looks great 

[tonyH]

Same ship (HMS Heliotrope) but different photo of the fitting.
One thing that has come up is that Heliotrope was built for the French and grabbed by the RN, possibly while on the stocks when France fell in June 1940. She was fitted out between launching on June 5th and September on 12th September, then transferred to the US Navy as PG63 Surprise in 1942.
So......was the thingy a bit of France left over?

[Backerther]

Hi Dreadnought;


Thanks for your comment.!!


Hi tonyH;


Thanks for an impressive pic of a real ship.
Frankly speaking,the real ship is rather messy,cluttered and in disorder..isn't it...!!!
But it is so convenient for me to build the model corvette in my way that is also messy.!!


Kiyo

[lmagna]

Hi Tony
Great picture! It can be enlarged quite a bit without loosing detail. I still can't figure out what it is though. Appears not to be a light.
It appears that the ship is a short forecastle early corvette and has considerable work being done on the upper casing.

[tonyH]

Hi Lou,
I reckon the photo was shot just after commissioning, i.e. September 1940. It doesn't look worn enough to have actually been to sea yet, but the d/c's are on board and the ammo is generally the last thing to go on board.There appears to be a speaker/loud hailer sticking out of the port side of the deckhouse so the "oddity" still, to me anyway, had the parabola form of the US/UK listener.
?????????? PS If you look up Surprise on Navsource, it indicates the hull form etc. that US inherited in 1942.

[lmagna]

Hard to say when the picture was taken. The mast seems to be forward of the superstructure when the Navsource pictures show it aft of the pilot house in the normal position for a long forecastle ship and the forecastle is clearly longer.  There is no radar that I can see even though this feature could have been deleted  from the photo by the censors. It is as if the pictures are two different ships. Could all of the apparent work on the casing be the addition of the aft gun tub found on US US corvettes? I suspect the horn or siren on the port side was to signal the K gun operators when to fire the depth charges.

[tonyH]

Hi Lou,
The pics of Surprise on the Navsource page are for the post conversion with 1x4inch and 1x3inch but I was thinking of the sketch, which is a sort of pre-redesign from the original build in 1939 so what actually emerged when she was transferred to USN in 1942 was even further from the original. So the radar went to the masthead etc. Also, the K03 numbering would suggest that she really was one of the first of the many. The pic of Heliotrope must have been when she was RN. The K guns, for example, are totally different from the ones used in the USN.
Sherlock Holmes I'm not but I find it fascinating.

As an aside, but with the same sort of issue, I'm just about to start a model of HMS Agamemnon (1906) and some of the photos show the ship, on active service in the Dardanelles, with only the front half camouflaged! Did they run out of paint?
Tony

[derekwarner]

......"the real ship is rather messy, cluttered and in disorder"

In fairness, I  don't think this is a realistic thought Kiyo, any Warship in Port loading ammunition, stores and whoever minor maintenance matters must naturally involve some degree of out of order as in the images shown

This is still the case today, and be rest assured, everything will be spick & span & tidy before the Admirals inspection

I agree tonyH,  the crispness of the plating & rivets would suggest the vessel had not seen a great deal of service

This dinnerplate on a stick device at the stern is certainly questionable , I have read of the US 'convey follow me stern light' .......however dropping depth charges was a 24/7 occurrence, so at night the Sailors would have needed some form of good illumination to enable & complete their tasks which would have involved some serious manhandling in the reloading of the Tin can Depth Charges ......


[I have never read of an exploit where the dropping of depth charges was aborted until first-light to allow reloading   ]

Derek

[warspite]

I couldn't determine if the brass items were a bell or a light fitting, though the other item appears to be a klaxon, obvoiusly any would do for letting the crew know when to fire the charges off the side, though non on the Starboard side from what I can tell but the other picture is earlier as the guns had not been added to the fittings on the stern, I also noted that this only had one depth charge thrower on each side compared to our vessels.


As for untidy, from what I could make out there were a few cables hanging around for possible temporary lighting as the engines had not been running, hence the one hanging off the railing, the final picture had covers over the majority of the open items and guns and what appears to be hung just inside the engine room cowl, I also noticed the cowls around the funnel were all in different orientations with the starboard side one looking like it was pointing at the funnel itself.


After another search using helitrope as a starting point, I believe they are light fittings.

[tonyH]

Agreed, they could easily be working lights, certainly from the one hanging off the rail on the starboard side. It just seems odd that it features in the kit.

[lmagna]

Hi Tony


For fear of taking over Kiyo's build completely the pictures and comments are very interesting to say the least.


I think I am leaning more toward some kind of high intensity light as for what the fixture is. Blackout conditions while reloading DCs was probably not all that important as the convoy would have pulled ahead by that time and the submarine knew full well where the corvette was! not to say that it was left on all of the time but it's elevated location could make it useful over a wide area. But then some kind of sensor disk also fits in quite well.


As for your [size=0px]HMS Agamemnon, I think she will make a great looking model. I have a soft spot for many of the pre-dreadnought battleships. She was of course already obsolete on the day she was launched. I think that if you can find a picture of her in the dazzle paint taken from a more broadside angle you will see that it does in fact extend down the length of the ship.. [/size]

[tonyH]

Looks like it's definitely a 4 or 8 lamp yardarm group (lamp), 2-3ft diameter, depending which one, made of brass with white enamel inside face. Got this from an ex-RN Engineering PO mate earlier today. He's pretty certain.
Cheers
Tony

[Netleyned]

Defo a yardarm group as stated.
From its position facing aft it could be used as an overtaking light, switched on to signal
to a following vessel to come past.

[warspite]

As for this, the closer you look, it has the appearance of a microphone / speaker, definitely not a bulb, so no signal light, the brass items are light fittings as they are screwed to the bulkhead and seem set at regular intervals, being brass during fit out and probably painted when the ship is finished so no external reflection.

[tonyH]

Yardarm groups are, apparently, for area lighting so it would take the form of a ring mount fitted with, in this case 8 bulbs, in a bowl reflector.

[Backerther]

Hi participants in the above discussions;
I am enjoying your exchange of various opinions joyfully which I ,of course, do welcome while building my Snowberry.
And I have finished as far as page 35 of the kit instructions as in the pics below.♬～♪～♬～♫～
1/2/3;mounted aboard Snowberry
4/5;Just for fun
6/7;Page 35 stage.!!


Kiyo

[warspite]

Looking under Yardarm lights, something similar comes under a 'cluster light' and makes reference that norman ough refers to it as a fog light, in any respect the assembly is not that seen on any pictures as a davit with the bowl on the end, the davit is still missing between the depth charge deck below.


Looking really good there Backerther

[tonyH]

The photos are of a ship built for the French Navy. Their spec may have called for the davit to be up-top, in which case it was a handy place to lash on a work light

[Backerther]

Hi warspite;


Thank you for your kind comment.!
The build seems to be over in the mid-March...


Kiyo

[Backerther]

Hi all;
My Snowberry has come up to this stage based on the instruction manuals page37 of whole 45 pages.
The rest of parts is becoming less and less naturally.!♫～♪～♩～
Many small fittings were added onto the deck-house and deck by which she is forming a final appearance...

[lmagna]

Looking very nice Kiyo. Getting very close to launch day.

[Backerther]

Hi Lou;


Yes,for sure,the day seems to come in sight at not so far away distance...
But after fitting works be done,I intend to modify partly the inside of the ship including a final check to get her launched
on my local lake where is rather notorious for its rough surface frequently throughout a year....Check and check intensively not to lose the ship on the lake before launching.


Kiyo