This is the Mirage Hobby 1/400 kit of HMS Campbeltown in Operation CHARIOT, the raid on St Nazaire in March 1942.
I did this as a kit review for IPMS/USA. You can read the whole review, with historical notes, here. What follows is a short extract of text and pix.
Background
I don't know why we need fictional action movies -- there are more than enough tales of derring-do in the real world and in my book Operation CHARIOT, the raid on St Nazaire, is right up there near the top. It's heavy stuff and certainly deserving of a better movie than "Attack on the Iron Coast".
USS Buchanan was one of the 50 flush-deck, 4-stacker Lend-Lease destroyers provided to the United Kingdom in 1940. As part of the new 'Town' class, she was modified and renamed HMS Campbeltown and engaged in Atlantic convoy duties. Campbeltown was selected for the main role in CHARIOT and refit started only 17 days prior to the raid. She was stripped of everything non-essential to reduce her draft and account for the addition of armor protection for commandos and the bridge, increased quick-firing weaponry, and 24 depth charges, about 4 tons explosive power, to be placed in the bow. She had enough fuel for a one-way trip. In the attack force were MGB 314 (the headquarters boat), MTB 74 (a special torpedo boat), 16 motor launches (ML's), and two escort destroyers who also towed the smaller boats which did not have the fuel for a round trip.
I don't have exhaustive knowledge of the subject, but I'm not aware of any other 'St Nazaire' Campbeltown kit. This review opportunity came at just the right time -- I had just pulled my Airfix 1/600 HMS Campbeltown (in its 1941 configuration) off the shelf, assembled my references and some White Ensign aftermarket, and was ready to start the conversion of that kit to the St Nazaire configuration.
The Kit
Evidently Mirage has issued other flush-deck '4-stackers' before, so what you get is one of those kits plus a new sprue (CN) for the Campbeltown mods. In general I found a mixture of quality -- there are some hefty parts, the ladders and the usual railings, tubs, etc -- and some very tiny finely detailed parts, such as masts, vents, etc. There is some flash and some seams but no hard clean-up work. Many of the fine parts have heavy attachment points and are under stress. During assembly, many that weren't already broken, did so when cut from the sprue, no matter how careful I was.
The instructions usually have 2 images per step -- an exploded view of the parts to use and then a picture of the completed assembly. The problem is the images are gray-scale solid-model renderings and not very clear, especially on some of the busier steps -- there isn't enough contrast to see detail clearly. There are a few incorrect part numbers and some historical errors on the instructions. I relied very heavily on other reference drawings.
There is a problem. Typical RN flush-decker destroyers had 6 20mm gun mounts -- the 6 guns and shields are on sprue X. Campbeltown had 8 20mm mounts -- and sprue CN has 8 new shields, 6 of which are unnecessary as they are identical to those on sprue X, BUT it does NOT have 2 extra 20mm. I took 8 from the 1/350 scale spares box, added some PE shields -- although a bigger scale, they are much smaller than the kit guns and look good enough -- problem solved.
What else ? Well, I deviated from OOB and added some PE -- anchor chains, ladders, railings, etc, all from Gold Medal Models. All photo-etch is fastened tightly to the model with Gator's Grip Acrylic Hobby Glue.
Here's a couple pictures of the model before paint. Where you see white (card stock) or metal (P/E) or the 20mm guns/shields, it is something I've done to the basic kit.
Paint and Finishing Up
The instructions state that the ship was repainted overall a dark grey. My references indicate it was repainted overall in "Mountbatten (Plymouth) Pink", the standard for in-channel operations. FYI, we're not talking "Operation Petticoat" pink here, it's much more of a light purple, at least to me.
I used the White Ensign Royal Navy Colour Coats range. Initially it looked like a one-color scheme, nothing fancy, but further study showed it to be somewhat blotchy. I opened the paint tin and asked my wife, who is the color expert in our house, what color it was -- she said, "oh, pink-ish purple with some gray and brown". Then I showed her the color profiles and she suggested I should just do a light coat over some dark patches and such.
I sprayed the upper deck surfaces WEM's RN01, AP507a Dark Grey, then gently applied that also along the sides, preserving much of the primer, clear spots, etc, but hitting other areas heavy. Then I oversprayed with WEM's RN18, Mountbatten Pink, on the sides only, keeping it pretty thin. The upper decks were not painted Pink but I didn't worry much about overspray either.
If Campbeltown flew any flag, it may have been from the jackstaff on the diagonal 20mm platform -- but the heroic prints of course show the White Ensign at the mast and that's how I did it.
I had quit spraying 'Pink' when I was afraid it would get too heavy. Unfortunately much of the 'Pink" got lost in the pictures I took. Next time I'll need to play with this more -- try for a better balance between how it looks in person versus how it looks in pictures. Also, a colorized picture now suggests to me that the 'Pink' was applied over a Western Approaches scheme, which it is likely that Campbeltown carried before selection for this mission -- so I think I'll go that route.
Summary
Campbeltown is tough to portray because there aren't any manufacturing drawings -- they hacked it into shape and sent it off. Reference drawings are based on a few available photographs. So, by those standards Mirage has produced a good representation of Campbeltown with some exceptions, but those aren't hideously wrong.
The kit is just frustrating -- the lack of contrast in the instructions, a few errors, but mostly the amount of breakage of small, thin, fine parts -- either on the sprue or while trying to get them off. Because of this, it has to be for experienced modelers.
Nonetheless, I like my little model and rather had fun bouncing back and forth between the kit and references. If you want Campbeltown at St Nazaire, without a DIY project, then you should consider this kit. I'll use what I learned here when I do get my Airfix Campbeltown out for conversion.
