by Michael Griggs
1/500 HMS Royal Oak 1939 (Revell)
The 'Revenge' Class super-dreadnoughts were the last designed for the RN before World War I. Eight were planned but war cut this to five. Three were at Jutland [including Royal Oak] and between the wars these ships were the backbone of the British fleet. Always regarded as inferior to the Queen Elizabeth class because of their slower speed, they were in fact as well armed and better protected than their more famous contemporaries. The Washington treaty prevented their being replaced before World War II and so they went to fight in a war for which they had never been designed. Despite this they gave reassuring presence to many convoys, and 'saw off' several German raiders, most famously Ramilles saving her convoy from Scharnhorst and Gneisenau in February 1941. Of all the 'Rs' only Royal Oak was given any real modernisation between the wars, so it is surprising that she was the only war loss, torpedoed by Gunther Prien in Scapa Flow in October 1939.
MY model is a conversion of Revell's HMS Royal Sovereign. The funnel cap is removed, a catapult on Y turret and a new latice style crane are added and the aft director has to be raised onto the main mast [to be above the float plane].
