Kriegsmarine Flower Class Flak Ship for Telford

[JamesPerrin]

You've definitely set yourself a challenge but it's going to be exciting to see this come together in time for Telford.

[bluesteel]

More work on the Flakship positions today. I've located and nicked one 2cm Quad from my Hasegawa Wirbelwind, as well as using two Bofors guns (as per Pauls suggestion) for the twin guns at the rear. Then I too a slightly more 'What-If' route for the large deck wide oval Bandstand placing a spare 88mm in it. My reasoning being that it was the largest and most impressive mod gun position and just a single 3.7 would look rather lost. Perhaps it may have even been intended for an 88, nobody knows. The one blurred photo shows one largish AA gun which looks bigger than the 37mms at the rear - but probably not an 88. But my ship designers managed to get their mits of an 88, so there it is



All I need is another 20mm Quad from somewhere...

[bluesteel]

A 254 Squadron Blenheim during a mast height run over a French dock sees a captured French Flower Class Corvette being refitted as what looks like a really capable Flakship.



Little does the pilot know that he'll be back less than a month later to lead his Squadron mates on an attack on a convoy protected by one of these...

[bluesteel]

More work on the Flakship today, all the fiddly deck furniture and enclosure of the top bridgehouse. Only two weeks to Telford and it's going to be a race to the wire to get it finished in time:

[JamesPerrin]

Looking great Julian, will the little blue chaps becoming too?

[bluesteel]

Looking great Julian, will the little blue chaps becoming too?

Yes, the little blue chaps will be little dark blue/grey/black chaps to man the Helm and the Flak guns, from the Revell German Navy set. I may also supplement with a few modified German WWII Army figures if I have the time.

[bluesteel]

3 Blenhiems make a low level attack on a German Flakship straffing the decks to keep the Flak gunners attention away from the Beaufighters starting their run from the other side. In fact the Beaufighters have a long run up as they have just taken off from East Coast USA...!




Need to work on adding a sea effect onto the bases and finish of the final paintwork and crew for the ship and the diorama will be as finished as it can be, well for this Telford anyway...

[JohnRatzenberger]

This will look very neat !!!
Great job on the Flak-Flower ...

[bluesteel]

Now in it's dark sea grey. Not sure why I bothered though as it's not far off the shade of the grey primer!

















Just the railings, wires, chains and a few tweaks to the guns to go, then pick out the few areas in colours other than the majority grey.

[JamesPerrin]

Keep going Julian! We really want to see this one finished

[bluesteel]

All done bar the rigging, a couple of machine guns on the bridge and a few more crew for the 88. There's a little more colour, but I'm not sure about the life-rafts, painted as per instructions but they look a little like cake decorations!

[JamesPerrin]

Bravo, Julian!

[bluesteel]

I'd be inclined to tone-down the ropes on the life rafts from pure white to biscuit-coloured. Maybe even a light grey-brown. You could do it by spraying a filter over it, I think.

You're right Brews, I think I'll try a biscuit/beige wash over the white might do the trick. It'll probably be easier to apply by hand.

I'm going to give it a couple of days rest now while I complete my torpedo dropping Wellington and the RAF Neptune, as I now have the Freightdog Models 'Gods of Sea and Fire' decals sheet with 3 schemes for RAF Neptunes.