Don't know if I spelled it right, but I just read over on Modelwarships that Trumpeter has this one in the works. There is a site posted where you can look at pictures of it and if you read Chinese......

Well we were wondering where Trumpy would go next and I guess we got our answer. Non-American and Japanese Battleships. This means that my hopes for a Littorio and Rodger's for a Warspite in injection 350 may actually come to fuitition in our lifetimes.

Well if there is any truth to the reports about Trumpy copying resin kits then you may have a better chance of getting your wish than I do. Is there even a 1/350 resin Warspite?

Personally I like the idea of this BB. The Richelieu and Jean Bart were such unique looking ships that they'd really look good in plastic.

I'm just amazed, please but amazed, that they haven't done a kit of the "Twins" Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. (Geese that's even harder to spell than Richelieu.

There is no resin 1/350 Warspite, thought Yankee Model Works has said if they get 25 firm orders (that means you have to plunk down a deposit), they'll do one. If you are interested, e-mail Chris Decker: [email protected]

Remember, since it's resin, it will retail for over $400, but Chris says anyone who pre-orders one will get it for a discount.

As for the Richelieu, it certainly looks like the Richelieu. I like the way they've done the planking on the deck.

GOOD GOD....
PRINZ EUGEN IN 1/350 PREETY PLEASE....

You've got to understand Martin that $400 is about 1/2 what I paid for my last car. I still have to wait and hope that SOMEBODY comes out with the greatest battleship of all time in PLASTIC.

and which would that be?

HMS WARSPITE of course.

A partial list of her career.
Battle of Jutland
Battle of Narvik, where she helped to wipe out the German destroyer force.
Battle of Matapan, where she helped think three Italian cruisers.
Battle of Calabria, where she, arguably, hit a target with the longest ranged shot ever fired by one moving ship against another.
Battle of Crete
Operation Husky, invasion of Sicily
Invasion of Salerno, where she survived hits by three German guided bombs, of the type that sank the much more modern Italian Roma.
Invasion of Normandy, where she operated with one propeller shaft gone, two damaged, and one turret out of action.

She even managed to cheat the breakers yard when she parted her tow rope on the way to being scraped and had to be scraped where she ran aground on Prussia Cove.

If any battleship had a more active career I'm not aware of it.

AAA... Matapan... , where Italians get their b_t_s kiked all over meditarian...
Pola, Zara and Fiume... names of the cities in ocupied former Yugoslavia...
They are not much of a soldires, but they had build beautifull ships.

I might argue the New Jersey as she had an extremely long career albeit mothballed a considerable time. But World War 2, Korea, Viet Nam and Desert Storm. And I might also argue for the Bismarck because she took on both the Hood (15" guns) and the POW and blew Hood out of water and pummelled POW so bad she had to run away.Or my all time favorite the Yamato which mounted those huge 18 inchers and absorbed so much damamge before she met her demise.

Steve,
POW didn't run away, she was ordered to withdraw.
Captain Leach asked for a court martial to dispell allegations that he ran away.
He claimed the problems with his turrets (the reason he was ordered to withdraw?) had been virtually fixed and his ship was fully able to continue the engagement.
Tom

You're picking words on me Tom, the point I was trying to make in my statement was that in combat the Bismarck sank one equal ship and severely damaged the other. Irregardless of circumstances regarding the withdrawl, the Bismarck whipped her butt and if she had hung around much longer more than likely would have gone down then instead of 2 years later. Which is why I nominate the Bismarck as the greatest post Dreadnaught battleship. The whole statement is based on speculation. The Bismarck gunners were hot that day and right on target.

Steve,
Not my intention, but point taken.
One thing that has bothered me is why POW wasn't present at the Bismarck's sinking?
I know she shadowed with the two cruisers for a while, and they were there. Maybe it was a fuel issue.
Tom

This all but it's still fun.




HMS HOOD, much as I love her, was hardly an equal match to Bismarck. It wasn't because she was a battlecruiser nearly as much as it was that she was 20 years older than the Bismarck, and never modernized. Most all of the unmodernized BBs of WW1 vintage didn't stand much of a chance against modern WW2 era weapons. HMS PRINCE OF WALES was brand new, not even close to being battle ready, and one or more of her main guns were inoperable after firing only one shell. (BTW Tom I'm really interested in knowing your source when you said POW was ordered to break off and that her gun problems were resolved.) New as she was, and really shouldn't have even been there, POW did manage to score a mission ending hit on the Bismarck when she damaged fuel storage on the German ship.




Yes, it was lack of fuel. POW had sailed with the HOOD a day earlier than KGV and to sail all the way up to the Denmark Straight, then down south again while shadowing Bismarck. That plus British ships weren't nearly as fuel efficient as they should have been and the KGV class was pretty short legged.

Steve, if Bismarck was so fantastic why did she do so poorly in her last action? Granted she couldn't steer, but she should have been able to shoot. Did she, or he if you go with German tradition, even land a hit on the KGV or RODNEY?

Personally I maintain the Bismarck was the most overrated BB of all time based pretty much solely on one lucky hit and the fact the British played to her strength by moving so close in the last battle that their shells were ineffective against her side armor. If KGV and RODNEY had stayed at normal battle ranges and had their shells hit the decks Bismarck would have sank much faster and without the debate of her being scuttled.

Rodger,
Here's one source:
http://www.navweaps.com/index_inro/INRO_Bismarck_p1.htm
The account is in three parts, and was originally published in Warship International #2 1994
There's also a pretty comprehensive article on the loss of the Hood also in three parts. Maybe a bit conjectural because of the lack of suvivors but interesting reading none-the-less.
In the Hood account there's mention of a 15" shell from Bismarck that they 'found' when the POW was docked sometiime after the battle. It was a dud but if it had exploded it would have been bad news for the ship.
TTFN
Tom

I have to agree with you Rodger that Bismarck was over-rated, just trying to be Devil's Advocate. I think the true debate is btwn the Iowa's and Yamato's. The leaning goes to the Iowa's because of the radar controlled guns. But God help any ship that would have been hit by a salvo from those 18.1" guns from Yamato

Based on the poor gunnery showing by the Japanese in earlier gunnery duels, the Iowa's may not have had much to worry about...

Rodger,
Sorry, my bad I've given you the wrong link
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-016.htm
I presume the order to disengage came from Admiral Wake-Walker aboard HMS Norfolk as the time taken for the Admiralty to answer (and time to code and send the message to the Admiralty and code and send the reply from the Admiralty etc.) would take considerably longer.
I take the above presumption from my interpretation of a quote from 'Engage the Enemy More Closely' page 298 by Correlli Barnett.
All the Best
Tom