by Bob Nandell
1/600 HMS Warspite (Airfix)
The grand old lady of the British fleet, HMS Warspite, fought at Jutland in World War I and everywhere from Norway to Normandy in World War II. Unlike its hapless sister, H.M. S. Barham, Warspite eluded enemy torpedoes but was heavily damaged by a glide bomb off Salerno. The Queen Elizabeth Class battleships had many configurations in different re-builds between wars, but Warspite emerged with a huge 'block-house' forward superstructure that made her distinctive. Warspite ran aground in 1947 while being towed to the breakers yards and had to be broken up at site. Photographed here along with the long-discontinued Airfix kit of Warspite, is one of the diminuative H class destroyers, which serves as a size indicator.
