Sinkings, Founderings, and Torpedoeings

One of the members did Yorktown at Midway with a pretty good list 4-5 years ago.

Hasegawa included one in their U-boat double kit.   Loose Cannon had a similar

I believe I saw one recently on Britmodeller of a broken tanker on the rocks

If you are going to do a diorama of two warships firing at each other, you may need a very large base.  I don't think even two cruisers or even destroyers wouild be that close during combat.  Remember the range and powerf of the ship's weapons, a battleship could shoot at many miles and rarely would a ship come too close to its opponent.  Even in 1/700th scale the size of the base would have to be 3-4 feet at least.

Not often, but has happened.  At Leyte, the Roberts got in close enough to a Japanese heavy cruiser that she couldn't depress her 8 inchers enough to get a shot.

I remember this one of the USS Franklin

https://images.app.goo.gl/ehgkW3fiVbDH6xio8

That Franklin build is amazing.

Now I think that one of the reasons not many of these are done is because there is a lack of documantation of the damage during battle, whereas after the fact there is usually photographic evidence available. You could do a nameless / faceless battle scene; that would be fairly easy. but for specific ships, a bit harder. I did a 1/700 sunk Japanese freighter dio which I gave to our CO as a memento after a working dive trip to Palau.  

I was palnning on doing a sinking Maru at some point or even the wallowing Mikuma. There's a long way between "someday: and "planing to do" to actually getting the kit and doing one though. I still have to re-tackel the Johnston at Samar at some point. The original I was working on had it's own war injury. She fell off the shelf while my wife and granddaughter were moving my hobby room guts to replace the flooring. She was lost to heavy seas and striken from the books while I was away in Dallas getting my translant. Thankfully, Goldhammer was there to supply a new kit for me so I can get back to it.

Tanker-Builder

A surfaced U-Boot and a Freighter exchanging gunfire! No one in my knowledge has ever done that as a diorama? Or two Heavies( cruisers) slugging it out, One low in the water and on her way down, But not quite at that stage yet? Or the Aircraft Carriers of either Navy, MortallyWounded and Sinking?

That last one has been covered, since it's easiert to "pose" for a diorama.

Issues of scale interfere with the other two.

With the 88 on a U-Boot you are looking at 1-3km range.  At 1/700, 1km is 1.4m, around 56 inches.  So, a 5 foot shelf is barely going to contain the two models.  Which will need to be more than a foot deep to get a 500' frieghter broadside to a sub.

With "heavies" you are looking at 8-10 mile (call it 9-12km) separation.  Five miles is a lot.  At 1/1200 scale, 5 miles is 7.9 feet--94" or 2.4meters.  So, our putative 8 foot shelf has a couple of three-four inch models on either end and a vast amount of nothing in the  middile (remember this is presupposing a 5 mile range, right where a destroyer screen might be set in--15 miles needs 24'--7.3m).

Which leaves the workaround of forced perspective.  Which is always complicated, specially for having to build the diorama to be viewed only in the one direction.  The view over a 1/1200 sub to a 1/70 sinking frieghter would be odd at best.

Potentialy possible, though.

Hi, CapnMac82;

    the main ones I was thinking about were single ships and their helpers alongside. Now as for the U-Boot and Freighter they could be done in 1/1200 for sure, because Gunter Prien even mentioned getting close after he disabled the guns to make sure the radio Room and Engines were disabled. Especially if she contained foodstuffs!

      Fresh foods were always a premium on the Unterseeboots!

I came across this fantastic diorama during a rabbit hole of a google search one day:

source: https://imodeler.com/2017/11/1350-u-boat-viic-the-beginning-of-the-end/

Yeah!

       Now there you go. That's a little radical for most modelers though, I think!

Or you could do a diorama of a allied ship capturing a U-boat that has partly sunk but was saved before it could go down.  The boats would have been pretty close.

You could do a search for such 'situations' and find a picture or two, then duplicate with models.

LoL MC, had completely forgotten about that little thing.  Funny thing, I later bought Tamiya's DD445 Fletcher in 1/350.  Go figure.

A few pics out there of U505 and the Guadalcanal.

Judging by the photos from the SBD's, you could build Mikuma OOB, put the main batteries in the right position, work in the worst of the damage, then run a propane torch over her, put a port list on her and place the time between 17:15 and 19:30, when she rolled to port and went down

Just need to find a San Juan Capistrano- ESSO Glasgow.

You could do the Glowworm ramming the Admiral Hipper.  Both kits are available in 1/700 scale.  After I read the story I ordered the Glowworm - me, mister not a ship guy.  

GMorrison

Just need to find a San Juan Capistrano- ESSO Glasgow.

 

Bill,

Is that from "Finest Hours"?

And there is also HMS Campbeltown, ramming the locks at St. Nazaire.

I always thought this was a great build of Pearl and the Pennsylvania

Aha!

   But Bill, according to that photo, the only ship that matches that area is the "Texaco Tanker" toy ship!

Yeah, Steve! 

 I believe the two destroyers were the Cassin and the Downes. They refloated the sunken one and she went to war too!

According to "Raising the Fleet", most of the machinery and the stern sections were shipped to Mare Island, and used for new hulls, keeping the names of the originals.

Cassin is the one on her side.

Yeah!

       That's what I thought, but I didn't want to mis-identify the ships.

I think Lindberg has shown it can be done with perfect historical accuracy....

....mind you, the fact that the ships are two completely different scales confuses the effect somewhat....

This is a fascinating subject. I have a couple of incomplete Revell?? Cutty Sarks and have always wanted to do a diorama of a shipwreck with them. Ship on it's side , waves breaking over the decks, sails in tatters and lots of flotsam and jetsem. But a battle scene is possible with sailing ships, and being a model, there is a certain amount of artistic licence that can be taken.....

Dodgy,

You could always convert one of those Cutty Sarks into the subject of the Wadsworth poem; Wreck of the Hesperus. Also, I'd really like to see a model of the HMVS Cerberus.

ikar01

Or you could do a diorama of a allied ship capturing a U-boat that has partly sunk but was saved before it could go down. The boats would have been pretty close

Norfolk Naval Museum did that, based on all the historical data:

This is either 1/144 or 1/96 and is close to ten foot (3m) by five.

Longer view:

Detail:

Just how crowded the case is:

modelcrazy

 

 

GMorrison

Just need to find a San Juan Capistrano- ESSO Glasgow.

 

 

 

 

Bill,

Is that from "Finest Hours"?

 

captmac82 , don't know about anyone else , but to me those pic's didn't come through . just a circle with a small stroke through it .