HMS Victorious
by Paul Helfrich

1/700 HMS Victorious (Aoshima)

This was a fairly old kit, from the early issues of the 1/700 waterline series. It has the flaws of some of the other Aoshima kits - small parts a bit clunky and lacking in detail. This is particularly true of the 20 mm aircraft guns and the radio masts on the flight deck. Lacking a detail set for a WWII British aircraft carrier, I built her straight out of the box, although I did add some railings around the boat platforms from a GMM King George V set. At first I thought I could use the cranes from that set as well, but once I shaped them, I realized they were bigger than the cranes on the Victorious; so I used the kit cranes instead.

British WWII North Atlantic camouflage is a nice break from plainer schemes or from the generally darker palettes of US ships. I was a little lacking in references for the Victorious. Aoshima's painting guide is no help, as it just calls for overall light gray. Their issue of the HMS llustrious, which is probably basically the same kit, does show a colorful Western Approaches scheme, but one that I believe was unique to the Illustrious.

I found some good pictures to follow of the port side of the Victorious, showing a camo scheme of various grays and blues, but the starboard side is pretty much a guess on my part. Similarly, I found a photo of the flight deck that seemed to show an angular camouflage pattern, but the photo was black and white, so this is a guess at what the colors might have been. I'm not entirely sure if the deck camo was used at the same time as the Western Approaches scheme. There are probably better references out there somewhere than I was able to find.

In any case, it's a reasonable kit of a not widely seen subject. With a full detail set and greater skill than mine, it could no doubt be built into a museum piece.

Interesting fact about the Victorious - she briefly served in the US Navy under the name USS Robin. This was during a time in 1943 when the USS Saratoga was the Navy's only operational carrier in the Pacific. In this capacity, she helped cover the US landings on Bougainville, Munda, and New Georgia.