by Peter Ohm
1/1250 HMS Furious, 1942 (Neptun)
HMS Furious was the last of Jackie Fishers three *large light cruisers* to be launched and was originally designed to support the landings on the Baltic Coast in WW1. When this plan failed to be implemented the ship was rebuilt for a new purpose. In place of the 18 in gun turret ahead of the bridge a 50 meter long flight deck was installed witha hangar underneath for aircraft. After landing attempts on the forward flightdeck were abandoned as being far too dangerous to men and material. As the lightly built hull was insufficiently rigid to withstand the firing of the aft 18 in gun it was decided to build another hangar in its place with a flight deck above.
It is in this configuration that in 1918 HMS Furious launched the raid on the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern. Seven Sopwith Camesl destroyed L54 and L60.
In 1922 Furious was was rebuilt again taking into consideration the lesson learnt. All superstructure including the funnel was removed and in its place the full length flligtdeck above two hangars was installed. This allowed Furious to carry for her time-a large airwing.
A flying off deck led out of the upper hangar over the bow. There was no Island-instead t there were two pods at the fwd outboard edges of the upper flight deck-one for air operations the other for conning the ship. The exhaust gases were led aft via trunking tubes behind an ‘ egg crate ‘ grille along the hangar sides ; smoke being expelled from openings in aft end of the flight deck, -or out of two vents at the lower aft quarters when flight operations were taking place. The disadvantages of having a well-heated hangar were soon realised! -and this design idea was not repeated.. Incidentally—the IJN also experienced this problem with Kaga in her original configuration.
During the 1920 and 30’s Furious was used extensively for training and strategy practice of carrier based operations.
She had a major re-fit in 1939. A small bridge on the stb side was fitted and her AA armament was increased to 12 x 4in in twin turrets as well as 4 x 8 barrel pompoms. The upper hangar was closed at its forward end as the ever increasing size of carrier aircraft precluded the use of the flying off deck.
During WW2 Furious served with the homefleet and the Meditarrenean fleet. She was instrumental to the success of Operation Pedestal- the supply convoy for the defence of Malta in 1942, during which over 30 Spitfires took off from her deck to re-einforce the defence of the Island. She also partook in the landings in North Africa, Operation Torch, as well as an attack on Tirpitz in Altjaford in 1943.
Very much worn out she was placed in reserve in 1944 and finally scrapped in 1948 after a long and illustrious career.
Having seen Jim Baumann’s 1/700 HMS Furious at Modelwarships.com I simply knew I had to have a model of this ship in my chosen scale of 1/1250!- albeit at a later date- August 1943 as at Operation Pedestal.
The model is based on a much re-worked 1/1250 whitemetal casting from Neptun models in Germany. Despite all my alterations and refinements the basic model is very good and well cast.
I ascertained at first inspection that the flight deck did not sit level athwartships and longitudinally-a common problem with cast models. Other issues were the crudely cast 4 in guns, carley floats that were the incorret pattern for RN as well as detailing problems aft. Additionally 2 x 20mm Oerlikons and splintershields needed to be added astern of the Pompoms to replace the cast-on Carley floats.
First of all the hull was altered so that the flightdeck lay level—this was effected by using a grinding tool as well as inserting material to achieve the correct shape. The incorrect Carley floats were also ground away and replaced with castings of my own manufacture.
The splintershield were all thinned using the grinding tool. The hull and hangar sides ahead of the
Smoke apertures were corrected according to photos ( boats out and new bulkhead structure) as well as adding platforms. The antenna supporting structure has also been refined and the gunbarrels have been replaced with conically shaped copper wire of 0.4 mm diameter.
Inspired by Jim B’s 1/700 model I removed all the solidly cast catwalks and drilled out all the openings along the side of the flighdeck. The catwalks were made of various pieces of scrap Pe and stretched sprue.
The mast with the radar lantern was also scratchbuilt-certain things cannot be achieved by casting alone in this small scale.!
I was faced with a personal dilemma; ought I use the solid cat radio masts…? Or should I scratchbuild some finer replacements…?
Afte my initial success with the catwalks I started experimenting…!
After nine attempts I succeded in manufacturing all six radio masts using 0.1m copper wire and stretched sprue. Each mast took around 1.5 hours to make; I was glad I rose to the challenge-there is simply no comparioson to the solid masts I uded on my model of HMS Victorious!!
Last additions were a small antenna mast and the window frames for the pods at the fwd edges of the flightdeck.
I used the scheme as portrayed in Alan Ravens camouflage book Nr IV. I made my own drawing of the exact proportions of the scheme based upon all the illustrations and photos I could find from various sources-such as Warship Profile, Videos from the Imperial War Museum and images from the internet amongst many.
I painted the Camouflage scheme MS1, B5, B6 and MS4a-based on my own interpretation of scenes studied in the video "Colour Camera at Sea"( showing HMS Furious immediately before Operation Pedestal at Gibraltar )
The scheme on the flightdeck is basically the same as in 1941-except that the decklines are now less visible , dashed rather than continuous. Ther colours I used for the deck were MS1,507b (or MS3)and 507a.
I used Humbrol paints mixed to match the colour chips from Snyder & Short applied by brush. I applied the painst very thinly with a few coats in order to achieve a credible result.
Weathering was done with washes and drybrushing using Humbrol paints again.
In conclusion;
At Last! After building and modifying models of the ships of the Royal navy in 1/1250 for the last 30 years I have now added HMS Furious to my collection. Just need to park a few Spitfires in tropical scheme on the flightdeck….
