1350
De Ruyter - Dutch Light Cruiser

  • move
Veniamin Litvin shares with us his 12th feature on the Model Shipwrights with a Pacific Cross Roads, 1/350 scale kit; De Ruyter Dutch Light Cruiser: Battle of the Java Sea (27.02.1942).
De Ruyter Dutch Light Cruiser
The HNLMS De Ruyter was a 6650 ton Light Cruiser of the Royal Netherlands Navy. She was commissioned in 1936. Due to the economic turmoil of the time, the De Ruyter was ill-equipped as her guns were no up to par with similar cruiser designs around the world at that time and her armor was not adequate enough. Her primary function was to aid in the protection of the Dutch East Indies to fend off attacks from Imperial Japan. The ship would see action at the Battles of Bali Sea and Badung Straight before meeting her demise during the Battle of the Java Sea. The De Ruyter, as part of the ABDA (American-British-Dutch-Australian) fleet, was surprised by two IJN Heavy Cruisers on the night of 27th of February 1942 and was struck by one torpedo from the IJN Haguro and sank taking 345 men of here crew with her to the bottom.
The Build
Veniamin Litvin used the Pacific Cross Roads 1/350 Scale kit with a few other upgrades for this project:

Photo Etch - Alliance Modelworks, Rainbow, North Star and Fly Hawk

Added Details - L'Arsenal and Hasegawa

Figures - North Star, WMM and L'Arsenal.

Paints - WEM, Tamiya and GSI

Decales - PacificCrossRoads and Selfmade sets
Painting
Painting scheme of the camouflage on Veniami's explains how the "model differs a lot in comparison with well known Polish schemes." Veniamin enlisted help from one enthusiast from Netherlands, who worked in Netherlands Navy archive & studied documents of WWII period. They found that the British Admiralty created several variants of camouflage for Dutch Ost-India ships based on colors used for Royal Navy. It was revealed that there were three basic camouflage colors RN-507a, 507b, 507c. The green color in those schemes was ruled principally out. Veniamin goes on to say: "Working with singular color picture of De Reuter, I choose relevant colors taking into account that Dutchmen used paints which were in stock of their base in Surabay. Paints were mixed up with the purpose to get the most alike standard British colors. Also it became clear that all horizontal surfaces were painted dark-grey, almost black color. Thus I understand that my camo scheme isn't the ultimate truth. Also my model carries shields on all Bofor guns – I made them basing this on the photo of the cruiser.

Model Shipwrights would like to thank Veniamin Litvin for sharing his Dutch Light Cruiser, The De Ruyter, with us.
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move
  • move

About the Author

About Veniamin (Litvin70)
FROM: KRASNOYARSK, RUSSIA


Comments

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL! Cheers, Joe
APR 03, 2015 - 06:51 PM
Veniamin, superb! This model is meaningful to me as my father was aboard USS HOUSTON at the Battle of the Java Sea.
APR 03, 2015 - 08:51 PM
Beautiful work Veniamin, the De Ruyter and Tromp are two ships I've been wanting to build for a while and now seeing your work I so want to build one even more.
APR 03, 2015 - 10:28 PM
Thank you gentlemen!
APR 04, 2015 - 05:17 AM
Great Job and a very interesting subject.
APR 05, 2015 - 02:14 AM