Hi Folks

New to the site. I am curious if anyone knows if there was or is a model of the old Tribal class destroyers from WWII. In particular I am wondering about a model of the Athabaskan although a model of any other ship would do as conversion is easy.
I lost a family member on the Atabaskan and am interested in doing a model of the ship to go with the rest of my memorial collection.

Airfix makes a 1/600 scale Tribal, HMS Cossack to be exact, class. I know they make it as part of a 4 destroyer set, with the other three being HMS Campletown, HMS Hostspur, and a German Narvik class. I seem to recall they've also released a Tribal by itself, but I could be wrong.

http://www.shipmodels.co.uk/660_1_21882.html

I don't know what changes, if any, were made between the RN Tribals and the RCN/RAN ships.

Many thanks for that link and info Halfyank. To the best of my knowledge and research all of the Tribal class destroyers were basically the same regardless of being RN/RCN. All of our Canadian Tribals were built in British shipyards. I came acoss a model built buy a fellow named Ryan Cameron. He used the Iron Shipwrights HMS Zulu as the basic ship and then made modifications. I have not been able to track down either Ryan or the model he used. This sounds like a very viable option. Thanks again

Hi Joel,
I think Revell used to make a Tribal as well. It was a two ship kit with the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal.
My sources list two Tribal's named Athabaskan (i) was lost in April '44 and the other broken up in '69.
For (i)
At the very least you'll have to replace 'X' gun mount (higher gun at stern) with a twin 4" AA mount; swap the positions of the searchlight and quad pom-pom; find 6 x 20mm oerlikon cannon and cut down the after funnel.
Haven't got a picture of Athabaskan anywhere so I can't tell you much
about the radar outfit.
(ii)
Seems she had different armament.
8 x 4" AA (4x2); 4 x 40mm (?) and 4 x 20mm.
Reading your posts I think your trying to model the first one (i), as the second was built in Halifax and not commissioned until after the war.
All the best.
Tom

Tom beat me to the punch, as far as the armament. I just noticed in my sources that the Commonwealth Tribals, RCN/RAN, had three 4.7" twin turrets, and 1 4" DP twin. I didn't know about the funnel or other items. You may be able to find a twin 4" from another kit, and do the surgery on the funnel and leave it at that, and have a pretty close match.

Tom, Rodger

Thanks much for the info. Tom you were right. I wasn't very specific about which Athabaskan I was refering too. I did want to do the WWII destroyer. I had an Uncle serving on that ship and he was killed when it was sunk. That is the main reason behing me doing this.
I have actually received a 1:600 kit of the HMS Cossack. Unfortunately this is far too small for me to convert. But having said that I have found a fellow modeller who has converted a 1:350 HMS ZULU to the HMCS Athabaskan. If you are interested in taking a look it can be seen at http://steelnavy.com/ISWAthabaskanRC.htm. His name is Ryan Cameron and has provided me with much of the same information as you. As well WEM is releasing a 1:350 Tribal this summer. I am now awaiting it's release.
Ryan also pointed me to a book called The Unlucky Lady which is a great book about the ship. Suprisingly it also contains a few photo's of my uncle as well as many good picture of the ship.
I will let you all know how it goes later this summer when I get the WEM kit.Thanks again for all the help folks. Your a great bunch.

Take Care

Joel,
Pleased to be of assistance to you.
Sounds like a good book. It's always good to see pics of family to help remember them.
John Schnyder (I think that's the name I'm looking for) from WEM also frequents this site and if you have any problems I'm sure he'll help if he can.
Looking forward to details of your future build.
All the best
Tom