Mirage 1/400 - ORP Blyskawica
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History
ORP Blyskawica was one of two British designed and built destroyer leaders
delivered to Poland in the years immediately prior to the second world
war. Designed and built by the firm of J Samuel White, Blyskawica (Lightning)
and identical twin Grom (Thunder), were heavily armed, large, fast and
designed for Baltic service. Both vessels were fortunate enough to be
ordered to the UK at the outbreak of war. While Grom was sunk in 1940
off Norway, Blyskawica survived the war, to be returned to Poland and,
ultimately, preserved as a museum ship in the port of Gdansk. Blyskawica
is a unique survivor of pre-war British destroyer design and construction,
and is a worthy memorial to the role played by Polish sailors in the Second
World War.
In
1941 Blyskawica's original main armament and heavy mast were replaced,
as the ship was apparently overloaded for open ocean service. Blyskawica
emerged from refit with a main armament of four twin Mk. XIX four inch
mounts and a lighter tripod mast. Later refits saw the close range armament
of the ship improved and additional radar, making Blyskawica one of the
most formidably and adequately armed destroyers to serve in European and
Mediterranean waters. It also served to make the ship even more like its
Royal Navy contemporaries in appearance.
Mirage
make a number of kits of both Blyskawica and Grom, depicting them in pre
and early war fit, and showing Blyskawica in late war (43-44) and post
war ('67) guises. I bought and built the 43-44 version of Blyskawica,
as I was keen to practice
disruptive camouflage painting and weathering techniques, prior to completing
my build of HMS Victorious (also shown in some of the images as a size
comparison).
The Kit
The
kit is fairly straightforward and of reasonable quality both in moulding
and detail. The only real problems in construction were some gaps in fitting
the main deck aft to the hull, some sink marks in the sides of stowage
boxes and some evidence of mould damage/deterioration which shows as slight
depressions and streaks in the hull sides. It is clearly an earlier effort
than Mirage's kit of the French built Burza and Wicher, as this latter
kit is much better and more crisply detailed.
Additions
to the kit included some correction of minor detail, replacement of the
masts with brass rod and tube, opening up of the solidly moulded funnel
cowl and addition of a stretched sprue grille, replacement of kit supplied
20mm guns with etched equivalents, new 40mm barrels added to the kit base
(the barrels started life as 5.5 inch guns on the Italeri Hood) and some
additional detail to the 4 inch mounts - canvas mantlets, sighting ports
and the characteristic rear overhang. There is no specific etched set
available for these kits (a pity, as Mirage make one for their smaller
Torpedo boat kits and U-Boats) so I made do with odds and sods. Railing,
ladders and gunnery radar are from a Tom's Modelworks set intended for
KGV, the etched Oerlikons are actually 1/350 from WEM, the parbuckle stowage
and stern depth charge rails started life as girder detail for 1/500 scale
Japanese aircraft carriers. Anchor chain and the very nice anchors came
from the GMM 1/700 'anchor and chain' set. These little etched anchors
look great when completed, and the size range is sufficient to do any
kind of destroyer in 1/400 scale. Watertight doors are from the GMM 1/400
set.
Painting and Weathering
The
real fun in this kit was painting. Tape was used to mark out the 'in'
strakes of hull plating before the undercoat was applied. Once removed,
the hull had acquired the characteristic horizontal strakes of a riveted
hull.
I make no guarantees about the actual colours used to depict the Admiralty
disruptive pattern scheme. The kit instructions call out Humbrol colours
which have no real equivalents. A short discussion with John Snyder of
WEM fame came up with some possible Colourcoat RN equivalents for the
period in question, but in the end the choice was mine, so please don't
beat up on John for my mistakes.
Painting
- and weathering - started with the faded black used for the boot topping.
After this I mixed three colours to depict the typical weathering and
marine growth at and around the waterline. I christened these 'Admiralty
bleached weed', which was a white mixed with a tiny amount of green, 'Admiralty
Slime Green', which was a stronger mixture of green with white, and 'Dark
Admiralty Slime Green', which was a straight Humbrol 149. These were sprayed,
from the boot topping down, in the thinnest overlapping bands that I could
manage, followed by WEM RN antifouling red. Don't spray red first, unless
you want pink weed. Once this was all dry the masking on the boot topping
was moved half way up (to where the ship would, I hope, normally ride)
and the lightest weed colour was dry-brushed over the exposed area of
boot topping and the hull bottom.
Masking
was adjusted, and WEM Colourcoats sprayed for the decks and disruptive
scheme. Once this was dry further weathering was undertaken, this time
of the above water component of the ship. At bow, stern, and at various
points on the hull a rust mixture was used to depict waterline erosion
- this starts at a point halfway up the boot topping. Rust was also streaked
down the hull, both drybrushed and in small hard dappled streaks, particularly
below the hawse pipes and other major drain points. Darker brown tones
depict older rust while lighter and more orange shades show recent staining.
Somewhat
less rust was used above the main deck, as the crew (even in wartime)
could be expected to be able to reach and maintain these areas. I also
used the very light green/off white shade as the main drybrushing shade
to pick up the hull plating strakes and to highlight details above deck
- this is a handy shade as it makes a very nice 'dried salt spray' as
well! Touches of grey, white and brown pastel were used to show soot around
the funnel cowling. Even the props are weathered (and also stolen from
the Italeri Hood - they are better moulded than the kit supplied versions,
if a bit on the small side). They started out as dark bronze green, and
were then drybrushed with gold paint to show a fairly dull colour.
Final
touches for the build included the decals supplied with the kit, and black
decal sheet used to depict the wheelhouse windows. Rigging is a product
called 'Ezi-Line', which I had never tried before. It's meant to be used
for model railway telegraph and power lines. It's a rubbery material,
which stretches into quite thin lines - up to seven times its original
length without snapping according to the blurb enclosed with the reel
of material. It is easily anchored with superglue and works quite well.
Care needs to be taken to use a consistent 'stretch', as it can appear
thick if left too slack - the line is actually a flat ribbon, and this
is particularly apparent in its unstretched state. I'm not sure that I
would use it again for an entire ship's rigging, but it will definitely
have applications and it is always nice to try something new. One advantage
this kind of material has is that you can glue your signal halyards
into their flag bags off the model, instal the bags then stretch the lines
up to the yard arm and glue - this is a very non-messy way of completing
what is often a nerve wrackingly difficult task.
Everything was coated with Floquil flat finish, and Blyskawica was complete.
Conclusion
This
is a nice little kit and highly recommended if you want a break from more
complex builds. It has helped to pleasurably fill in the time while I
wait for the photo-etch to finish the bigger ship seen in some of these
shots. I also have the Mirage kit of Wicher, and this is little short
of superb, with some really excellent detail parts, guns, open lattice
supports for platforms and an effective depiction of the hull plate strakes
straight out of the box! I am really, really, looking forward to the Mirage
releases of four stack destroyers promised for this year, as this is a
company that improves its models with every release.
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