1/700 HMS Barham (HP Models)
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by Jerry Lloyd |
1/700 HMS Barham (HP Models)
HMS Barham was built by John Browns on the river Clyde completing in 1915 at a cost of nearly £2.5 million, after service at Jutland she was modernised between 1931-34 when here armour and AA fit were strengthened and her funnels trunked into one, my model depicts her in late 1940 when fitted with a 20 round fixed elevation UP (unrotated projectile) AA rocket launcher on B turret which fired a 32 inch long canister containing 3 parachutes, 900 ft of wire and a bomblet of 8 oz of TNT, it fired up to a height of about 1000 ft then the rocket would burn out and the parachutes deployed with the bomblet on the wire drifting back down, it was fired in ten round salvos the idea being that an aircraft would snag the wire and drag the bomblet onto the plane but the parachutes were very visible and easy to avoid by fly over or around them. In 1940 HMS Barham had an armament of 8 x 15 inch, 12 x 6 inch, 8 x 4 inch, 32 x 2pdr pom-poms plus the useless UP rockets, her top speed had dropped to only 22 knots, she had an EIIT (Extending MK II Turret) catapult firing a Supermarine Walrus multi-role amphibian popularly known as a ‘Shagbat’. HMS Barham was lost in the Med in November 1941
