1/600 HMS New Zealand (Airfix conversion)
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by Kevin Dekker |
1/600 HMS New Zealand (Airfix conversion)
HMS New Zealand was an Indefatigable class battlecruiser that was present at Dogger Bank and Jutland without suffering major damage or casualties, despite her very light level of protective armour. The cost of building her was donated by the colony of New Zealand who along with the British public were demanding the British government build more, not less, Royal Navy battleships, something hard to imagine happening in today’s world. Australia also paid for their own ship of this class and operated it as part of their own fleet until the start of the war when she joined her sister ships in the battlecruiser squadrons.
With an operational life of only 12 years from 1910, it’s amazing to consider how far warship design had progressed in that brief time, as the far larger and faster HMS Hood was already in commission with 15 inch guns compared to New Zealand’s 12 inch weapons, and twice the belt armour thickness.
This model is based on the hull of the 1:600 Iron Duke, reduced in length and beam, and with added sheer forward and aft. The deck was cut, spliced, and changed in plan to use the existing fore and aft barbettes, while the wing barbettes were cut out of Iron Duke superstructure sections. The hull secondary armament casemates were filled in.
Main turrets were reused, with rounded surfaces filed flat, angled rear panels replaced with flat ones, and barrels shortened.
Ship’s boats for the Iron Duke were a pretty good match for those carried on the battlecruiser and so were reused, as were the funnel sections which formed the front and rear sections of the two larger funnels.
The supporting struts of the forward tripod were reused, as well as the twin search-light fittings.
Replacement superstructure was based on drawings found in one of RA Burt’s “British Battleships” volumes, and by referring to photographs.
Several of the superstructure mounted guns were almost entirely hidden when the positions were shuttered, and they are almost impossible to make out in photographs. I therefore decided to model the port side positions fully shuttered, but the starboard guns opened and swung out on the beam, thus covering both options.
