¹⁄700

It looks like 2010 is the year for the folks at Combrig Model Warships a new website and now with another great 1/700th scale addition to their fine range with the Battlecruiser HMS Princess Royal, 1912 .

Full details on this kitset are set out below:

Battlecruiser HMS Princess Royal, 1912
Manufacturer: Combrig Model Warships
Scale: 1/700
Regular Price: To be advised
Release date: Available now
Item code: 70279
Additional information: Waterline version and constructed of resin.

We will of course update you as and when more information comes to hand.

Images courtesy of Combrig Model Warships and Wikipedia.

Ships History

HMS Princess Royal was a British battlecruiser built before World War I, the second ship of her class, which were nicknamed the "Splendid Cats".They were significant improvements over their predecessors of the Indefatigable class in terms of speed, armament and armour. This was in response to the first German battlecruisers, the Moltke-class, which were very much larger and more powerful than the first British battlecruisers, the Invincible-class.

She served in the Battle of Heligoland Bight a month after the war began and then was sent south to the Caribbean to prevent the German East Asia Squadron from using the Panama Canal. After the East Asia Squadron was sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands by the battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible in December 1914 she rejoined the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS). During the Battle of Dogger Bank Princess Royal scored only a few hits, although one was the hit that crippled the German armoured cruiser Blücher so that she was caught and sunk by the concentrated fire of the British battlecruisers. Shortly afterwards Princess Royal became flagship of the 1st BCS, under the command of Rear Admiral Osmond Brock. She was moderately damaged during the Battle of Jutland and required a month and a half of repairs afterwards. She spent the rest of the war on uneventful patrols in the North Sea, although she did provide distant cover during the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight in 1917. Princess Royal was put into reserve in 1920 and sold for scrap in 1922 under the terms of the Washington Naval Treaty.

The Lion-class battlecruisers were designed to be as superior to the new German battlecruisers of the Moltke-class as the German ships were to the Invincible-class. The increase in speed, armour and gun size forced a 70% increase in size over the Indefatigable-class and made them the largest warships in the world. The Lion-class ships were 2 knots (3.7 km/h; 2.3 mph) faster, exchanged the 12-inch (305 mm) guns of the older ships for the same number of 13.5-inch (343 mm) guns, and had a waterline belt 9 inches (229 mm) thick versus the 6 inches (152 mm) of the Indefatigables

Princess Royal was significantly larger than her predecessors, the Indefatigables. She had an overall length of 700 feet (210 m), a beam of 88 feet 6.75 inches (27.0 m), and a draught of 32 feet 5 inches (9.88 m) at deep load. She displaced 26,270 long tons (26,690 t) at load and 30,820 long tons (31,310 t) at deep load, over 8,000 long tons (8,100 t) more than the earlier ships. She had a metacentric height of 5.95 feet (1.8 m) at deep load.

Princess Royal had two paired sets of Parsons steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine-room and drove two shafts. The turbines were powered by 42 Yarrow water-tube boilers in seven boiler rooms. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 70,000 shaft horsepower (52,199 kW), but achieved more than 76,000 shp (56,673 kW) during her trials, although she did not exceed her designed speed of 28 knots (32 mph; 52 km/h). In 1913, Princess Royal undertook maximum power trials, producing 96,240 shp for a speed of 28.06 knots (32.29 mph; 51.97 km/h) on the Polperro Mile.

She carried 3,500 long tons (3,600 t) of coal, and an additional 1,135 long tons (1,153 t) of fuel oil that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full capacity, she could steam for 5,610 nautical miles (10,390 km) at a speed of 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h).

Princess Royal mounted eight breech-loading BL 13.5-inch (343 mm) Mark V guns in four twin hydraulically powered turrets, designated 'A', 'B', 'Q' and 'Y' from bow to stern. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen BL 4-inch (102 mm) Mark VII guns, most of which were mounted in casemates. The two guns mounted above the forward group of casemates were given gun shields during 1913–14 to better protect the gun crews from weather and enemy action. The starboard after 4-inch gun was removed and, together one from Lion, were mounted on HA Mark II mounts capable of 60° of elevation in April 1917.

She was built without any anti-aircraft guns, but a single QF 6 pounder Hotchkiss gun on a HA Mark Ic mounting was fitted from October 1914 to December 1916. This had a maximum depression of 8° and a maximum elevation of 60°. It fired a 6-pound (2.7 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,765 ft/s (538 m/s) at a rate of fire of 20 rounds per minute. It had a maximum ceiling of 10,000 ft (3,000 m), but an effective range of only 1,200 yards (1,100 m). A single QF 3 inch 20 cwt AA gun on a high-angle Mark II mount was added in January 1915 and carried until April 1917. This had a maximum depression of 10° and a maximum elevation of 90°. It fired a 12.5-pound (5.7 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,500 ft/s (760 m/s) at a rate of 12–14 rounds per minute. It had a maximum effective ceiling of 23,500 ft (7,200 m). Two 21-inch (530 mm) submerged torpedo tubes were fitted on the beam; fourteen torpedoes were carried.

The armour protection given to the Lions was heavier than that of the Indefatigables; their waterline belt of Krupp Cemented Armour measured 9 inches (229 mm) thick amidships in contrast to the 6-inch (152 mm) belt of their predecessors. It thinned to four inches towards the ships' ends, but did not reach either the bow or the stern. The upper armour belt had a maximum thickness of six inches over the same length as the thickest part of the waterline armour and thinned to 5 inches (127 mm) abreast the end turrets. The gun turrets and barbettes were protected by 8 to 9 inches (203 to 229 mm) of armour, except for the turret roofs which used 2.5 to 3.25 inches (64 to 83 mm). The thickness of the nickel steel deck ranged from 1 to 2.5 inches (25 to 64 mm). Nickel steel torpedo bulkheads 2.5 inches (64 mm) thick were fitted abreast the magazines and shell rooms.[13] After the Battle of Jutland revealed her vulnerability to plunging shellfire, one inch of additional armour, weighing approximately 100 long tons (102 t), was added to the magazine crowns and turret roofs.

Lion received a fire-control director between mid-1915 and May 1916 that centralized fire-control under the director officer who now fired the guns. The turret crewmen merely had to follow pointers transmitted from the director to align their guns on the target. This greatly increased accuracy as it was easier to spot the fall of shells and eliminated the problem of the ship's roll dispersing the shells as each turret fired on their own.

By early 1918, Lion carried a Sopwith Pup and a Sopwith 1½ Strutter on flying-off ramps fitted on top of 'Q' and 'X' turrets. Each platform had a canvas hangar to protect the aircraft during inclement weather.

Princess Royal was laid down at the Vickers Shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness on 2 May 1910. She was launched on 29 April 1911 and commissioned on 14 November 1912. Upon commissioning, Princess Royal joined the 1st Cruiser Squadron, which in January 1913 was renamed the 1st Battlecruiser Squadron (BCS). Rear Admiral Beatty assumed command of the 1st BCS on 1 March 1913. Princess Royal, along with the rest of the 1st BCS, made a port visit to Brest in February 1914 and the squadron visited Russia in June.
Princess Royal's first action was as part of the battlecruiser force under the command of Admiral Beatty during the Battle of Heligoland Bight on 28 August 1914. Beatty's ships had originally been intended as distant support of the British cruisers and destroyers closer to the German coast in case the large ships of the High Seas Fleet sortied in response to the British attacks. They turned south at full speed at 11:35 AM when the British light forces failed to disengage on schedule and the rising tide meant that German capital ships would be able to clear the bar at the mouth of the Jade Estuary. The brand-new light cruiser Arethusa had been crippled earlier in the battle and was under fire from the German light cruisers Strassburg and Köln when Beatty's battlecruisers loomed out of the mist at 12:37 PM. Strassburg was able to duck into the mists and evade fire, but Köln remained visible and was quickly crippled by fire from the squadron. Beatty, however, was distracted from the task of finishing her off by the sudden appearance of the elderly light cruiser Ariadne directly to his front. He turned in pursuit and reduced her to a flaming hulk in only three salvos at close range (under 6,000 yards (5.5 km)). At 1:10 PM Beatty turned north and made a general signal to retire. Beatty's main body encountered the crippled Köln shortly after turning north and she was sunk by two salvos from Princess Royal's sister ship Lion.

She sailed from Cromarty on 28 September to rendezvous with a Canadian troop convoy and escort it to the United Kingdom. She rejoined the 1st BCS on 26 October. Shortly afterward she was detached again to reinforce the North Atlantic and Caribbean Squadrons in the search for Admiral Graf Spee's German East Asia Squadron after it destroyed the West Indies Squadron of Rear Admiral Christopher Cradock during the Battle of Coronel on 1 November 1914. She arrived at Halifax on 21 November before cruising off New York City for a period and then down to the to the Caribbean to guard against the possibility of Graf Spee using the Panama Canal. She departed Kingston, Jamaica for the U.K. on 19 December, after the East Asia Squadron had been sunk at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 7 December.

On 23 January 1915, a force of German battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Franz von Hipper sortied to clear the Dogger Bank of any British fishing boats or small craft that might be there to collect intelligence on German movements. However, the British were reading their coded messages and sailed to intercept them with a larger force of British battlecruisers under the command of Admiral Beatty. Contact was initiated at 7:20 AM on the 24th when the British light cruiser Arethusa spotted the German light cruiser SMS Kolberg. By 7:35 the Germans had spotted Beatty's force and Hipper ordered a turn to the south at 20 knots (23 mph; 37 km/h), believing that this would suffice if the ships that he saw to his northwest were British battleships and that he could always increase speed to Blücher's maximum speed of 23 knots (26 mph; 43 km/h) if they were British battlecruisers.

Beatty ordered his battlecruisers to make all practicable speed to catch the Germans before they could escape. The leading ships, Lion, Princess Royal, under the command of Captain Walter Cowan, and Tiger, were doing 27 knots (31 mph; 50 km/h) in pursuit and Lion opened fire at 8:52 at a range of 20,000 yards (18,000 m). The other ships followed a few minutes later but, hampered by the extreme range and decreasing visibility, they did not score their first hit on Blücher until 9:09. The German battlecruisers opened fire themselves a few minutes later at 9:11, at a range of 18,000 yards (16,000 m), and concentrated their fire on Lion, hitting her once. At 9:35 Beatty signalled 'Engage the corresponding ships in the enemy's line', but Tiger's captain, believing that Indomitable was already engaging Blücher, fired at Seydlitz, as did Lion, which left Moltke unengaged and able to continue to engage Lion without risk. Moltke and Derfflinger combined their fire to badly damage Lion over the next hour even though Princess Royal engaged Derfflinger during this period.

In the meantime Blücher had been heavily damaged by fire from all the other battlecruisers; her speed had dropped to 17 knots (20 mph; 31 km/h) and her steering gear had been jammed. Beatty ordered Indomitable to attack her at 10:48 AM. Six minutes later Beatty spotted what he thought was a submarine periscope on the starboard bow and ordered an immediate 90° turn to port to avoid the submarine, although he failed to hoist the 'Submarine Warning' flag because most of Lion's signal halyards had been shot away. Almost immediately afterward Lion lost her remaining dynamo to the rising water which knocked out all remaining light and power. He ordered 'Course Northeast' at 11:02 to bring his ships back to their pursuit of Hipper. He also hoisted 'Attack the rear of the enemy' on the other halyard although there was no connection between the two signals. This caused Rear-Admiral Sir Archibald Moore, temporarily commanding in New Zealand, to think that that the signals meant to attack Blücher, which was about 8,000 yards (7,300 m) to the northeast. So they turned away from the pursuit of Hipper's main body and engaged Blücher. Beatty tried to correct the mistake, but he was so far behind the leading battlecruisers that his signals could not be read amidst the smoke and haze.

He transferred his flag to the destroyer Attack at 11:50 and set off in pursuit of his battlecruisers. He caught up to them shortly before Blücher sank and boarded Princess Royal at 12:20. He ordered the pursuit resumed of the German battlecruisers, but rescinded the order when it became clear that too much time had been wasted sinking Blücher and Hipper's ships would be able to reach German waters before the British could catch them. Lion was headed home at 10 knots (12 mph; 19 km/h) when the rest of the battlecruisers caught up with her around 12:45.

Princess Royal hit Derfflinger once, but only forced in a pair of armour plates that flooded a coal bunker. She also hit Blücher at least twice, including the hit that crippled her, but fired a grand total of 271 13.5-inch shells during the battle, a hit rate of only 0.7%. She also fired two 13.5-inch shrapnel shells at the German airship L5 as it attempted to bomb the sinking Blücher, thinking that it was a British ship, despite the fact that the maximum elevation of those guns was only 20°.Princess Royal was not damaged during the battle.
On 31 May 1916 Princess Royal was the flagship of the 1st BCS, under command of Rear Admiral Osmond Brock, which had put to sea with the rest of the Battlecruiser Fleet to intercept a sortie by the High Seas Fleet into the North Sea. The British were able to decode the German radio messages and left their bases before the Germans put to sea. Hipper's battlecruisers spotted the Battlecruiser Fleet to their west at 3:20 PM, but Beatty's ships did not spot the Germans to their east until 3:30. Almost immediately afterward, at 3:32, he ordered a course change to east south-east to position himself astride the German's line of retreat and called his ships' crews to action stations. Hipper ordered his ships to turn to port, away from the British, to assume a south-easterly course, and reduced speed to 18 knots (21 mph; 33 km/h) to allow three light cruisers of the 2nd Scouting Group to catch up. With this turn Hipper was falling back on the High Seas Fleet, then about 60 miles (97 km) behind him. Around this time Beatty altered course to the east as it was quickly apparent that he was still too far north to cut off Hipper.

This began what was to be called the 'Run to the South' as Beatty changed course to steer east south-east at 3:45, paralleling Hipper's course, now that the range closed to under 18,000 yards (16,000 m). The Germans opened fire first at 3:48, followed almost immediately afterwards by the British. The British ships were still in the process of making their turn as only the two leading ships, Lion and Princess Royal had steadied on their course when the Germans opened fire. The German fire was accurate from the beginning, but the British over-estimated the range as the German ships blended into the haze. Lion and Princess Royal, as the leading British ships, engaged Lützow, the leading German ship. Derfflinger targeted Princess Royal with very accurate fire and she had been hit twice with three minutes of the Germans opening fire. Early in the battle the breech pinion gear for the left gun in 'A' turret sheared and rendered the gun inoperable for the entire battle while the other gun in the turret suffered from frequent misfires. By 3:54 the range was down to 12,900 yards (11,800 m) and Beatty ordered a course change two points to starboard to open up the range at 3:57.

At 4:11 PM Princess Royal observed the track of a torpedo fired by Moltke, pass underneath her, but it was thought that the torpedo was fired by a U-boat on the disengaged side. This was confirmed when the destroyer Landrail reported having spotted a periscope before the torpedo tracks were seen. The range had grown too far for accurate shooting so Beatty altered course four points to port to close the range again between 4:12 and 4:15. This maneuver exposed Lion to points to starboard to open the range again. However it was too late for Queen Mary which was hit multiple times in quick succession about that time and her forward magazines exploded. At 4:30 the light cruiser Southampton, scouting in front of Beatty's ships, spotted the lead elements of the High Seas Fleet charging north at top speed. Three minutes later she sighted the topmasts of Vice-Admiral Reinhard Scheer's battleships, but did not transmit a message to Beatty for another five minutes. Beatty continued south for another two minutes to confirm the sighting himself before ordering a sixteen point turn to starboard in succession. During the 'Run to the South' Princess Royal was hit a total of six times by Derfflinger, but none of these were serious.

Princess Royal was not hit, during what came to be called the 'Run to the North', after the German battlecruisers made their own turn north. Beatty's ships maintained full speed to try and put some separation between them and the High Seas Fleet and gradually moved out of range. They turned north and then northeast to try to rendezvous with the main body of the Grand Fleet. At 5:40 PM they opened fire again on the German battlecruisers. The setting sun blinded the German gunners and they could not make out the British ships and turned away to the northeast at 5:47. Beatty gradually turned more towards the east to allow him to cover the deployment of the Grand Fleet into its battle formation and to move ahead of it, but he mistimed his manoeuver and forced the leading division to fall off towards the east, further away from the Germans. By 6:35 Beatty was following the 3rd BCS as they were steering east-southeast, leading the Grand Fleet, and continuing to engage Hipper's battlecruisers to their southwest. A few minutes earlier Scheer had ordered a simultaneous 180° starboard turn and Beatty lost sight of them in the haze. At 6:44 Beatty turned his ships southeast and to the south-southeast four minutes later searching for Hipper's ships. Beatty took this opportunity to recall the two surviving ships of the 3rd BCS to take position astern of New Zealand and then slowed down to eighteen knots and altered course to the south to prevent himself from getting separated from the Grand Fleet. At this moment Lion's gyrocompass failed and she made a complete circle, followed by the rest of the battlecruisers, before her steering was brought under control again. At 6:55 Scheer ordered another 180° turn which put them on a converging course again with the Grand Fleet, which had altered course itself to the south. This allowed the Grand Fleet to cross Scheer's T and they badly damaged his leading ships. Scheer ordered yet another 180° turn at 7:13 in an attempt to extricate the High Seas Fleet from the trap into which he had sent them.

This manoeuver was successful and the British lost sight of the Germans until 8:05 PM when Castor spotted smoke bearing west-northwest. Ten minutes later she'd closed the range enough to identify German torpedo boats and engaged them. Beatty turned west upon hearing the sounds of gunfire and spotted the German battlecruisers only 8,500 yards (7,800 m) away. Inflexible opened fire at 8:20, followed almost immediately by the rest of Beatty's battlecruisers. Shortly after 8:30 the pre-dreadnought battleships of Rear Admiral Mauve's II Battle Squadron were spotted and fire switched to them. The Germans were able to fire only a few rounds at them because of the poor visibility and turned away to the west. The British battlecruisers hit the German ships several times before they blended into the haze around 8:40. After this Beatty changed course to souththe fire of the German battlecruisers and she was hit several times. The smoke and fumes from these hits caused Derfflinger to lose sight of Princess Royal and she switched her fire to Queen Mary at 4:16. By 4:25 the range was down to 14,400 yards (13,200 m) and Beatty turned two -southeast and maintained that course, ahead of both the Grand Fleet and the High Seas Fleet, until 2:55 the next morning when the order was given to reverse course.

Princess Royal and the rest of the battlecruisers reached Rosyth on the morning of 2 June 1916 where she began repairs that lasted until 10 June. She sailed later that day for Plymouth where more permanent repairs were made until 15 July and was back at Rosyth by 21 July. She was hit nine times during the battle, six time by Derfflinger, twice by Markgraf and once by Posen, with 22 of her crew killed and 81 injured. She fired only 230 rounds from her main guns, as her visibility was often impaired by the funnel smoke and fires aboard Lion and can be credited with three hits on Lützow and two on Seydlitz. She also fired one torpedo at the German pre-dreadnoughts without success.

Princess Royal had an uneventful time for the rest of the war conducting patrols of the North Sea as the High Seas Fleet was forbidden to risk any more losses. On the evening of 18 August the Grand Fleet put to sea in response to a message deciphered by Room 40 which indicated that the High Seas Fleet, less the II Squadron, would be leaving harbour that night. The German objective was to bombard Sunderland on the 19th, with extensive reconnaissance provided by airships and submarines. The Grand Fleet sailed with 29 dreadnought battleships and six battlecruisers. Throughout the 19th, Jellicoe and Scheer received conflicting intelligence, with the result that having reached its rendezvous in the North Sea, the Grand Fleet steered north in the erroneous belief that it had entered a minefield before turning south again. Scheer steered south-eastward pursuing a lone British battle squadron reported by an airship, which was in fact the Harwich Force under Commodore Tyrwhitt. Having realised their mistake the Germans then shaped course for home. The only contact came in the evening when Tyrwhitt sighted the High Seas Fleet but was unable to achieve an advantageous attack position before dark, and broke off contact. Both the British and the German fleets returned home, the British having lost two cruisers to submarine attacks and the Germans having a dreadnought battleship damaged by torpedo.

She provided support for British light forces involved in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917, but never came within range of any German forces. The 1st BCS, including Princess Royal, sailed on 12 December in a futile attempt to intercept the German destroyers that had sunk the convoy enroute to Norway earlier that day, but returned to base the following day. Princess Royal, along with the rest of the Grand Fleet, sortied on the afternoon of 23 March 1918 after radio transmissions had revealed that the High Seas Fleet was at sea after a failed attempt to intercept the regular British convoy to Norway. However, the Germans were too far ahead of the British and escaped without firing a shot. Along with the rest of the 1st BCS she guarded the interned High Seas Fleet from November 1918 until she was assigned to the Atlantic Fleet in April 1919. She was placed in reserve in 1920 and an attempt to sell her to Chile later that year was unsuccessful. She became the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief Scottish Coast on 22 February 1922, but was sold for scrap in December 1922to meet the tonnage limitations of the Washington Naval Treaty. She arrived at the breakers on 13 August 1923.

Ships History courtesy of Wikipedia.