In case you hadn't heard, exactly a week ago - Saturday, 3/17/08 - the RAN Leander-class cruiser HMAS Sydney-II was located in deep Indian Ocean waters off Western Australia, just two days after and 12 nautical miles away from the discovery of her assailant, the "Q-ship"-type (i.e., disguised) armed merchant cruiser DKM Kormoran. None of Sydney's crew survived, and Kormoran did not actually see the Australian cruiser sink, before herself succumbing to damage sustained in the battle with Sydney that day, November 19, 1941.
We're going to mark the occasion of these discoveries by modeling (for a start) HMAS Sydney, for which I invite one and all to join us, in a group build. This project has already generated so many pics and interesting offshoots that I will let each sub-topic create its own, separate thread; the posts below being organized into a compendium of reference pics, plans, news from the wreck sites, etc., to which one and all can refer as needed.
Although intending to bull through this build solely from reference pictures - that is, without any decent plans - we certainly won't pass up this opportunity now to use some - straight from the Australian National Archives - which I recently found at the Finding Sydney Foundation website.
The following is my doctored version of the above plans; rectified and with rigging and railings largely removed, making for much clearer interpretation, IMHO:
Click for Full-Resolution [LARGE!] Plans
If you find any mistakes which I made - not introduced errors, as I didn't add anything, but incomplete cleanup (as I have already some few myself) - please let me know and I will upload a corrected version(s).
The following are some remarkable pictures I was able to find on-line; the first to be released (4/4/08) by The Finding Sydney Foundation, showing HMAS Sydney as she lies today, on the floor of the Indian Ocean. Between each pair I have inserted a graphic locating (as best I could determine) each picture on the ship, likewise adapted from a Finding Sydney Foundation on-line graphic, and the quoted captions are transcribed directly from those found with each pic, on-line:
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"'A' turret (left), with its gun housing destroyed and with the foredeck rent back over its twin gun barrels...'B' turret (right) showing evidence of a direct hit between gun barrels and damage to turret roof."
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"(At left,) Sydney's badly damaged compass platform, bridge and remnants of the base of the Director Control Tower...(at right) Upturned searchlight platform torn away from forward funnel."
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"A deep sea anemone adorns Sydney's main deck (left)...Areas of Sydney’s teak decking remain remarkably intact(right)."
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"Midships kedge anchor (left)...(at right,) Port side cradle for aft 27 foot whale boat (missing)."
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"Some of the many portholes visible on Sydney’s port side (left)...(at right,) This cluster of four 5.9-inch shell hits within a line 20-feet high clearly demonstrates the deadly precision of the German gunnery."
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"The front of the gun housing of 'X' turret (left), credited by the Germans with inflicting the mortal blow on Kormoran...(at right) Wreckage strewn on top of 'Y' turret."
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"A capstan in the centre of Sydney's stern (left) sits elevated above the collapsed main deck with the two bollards in the foreground folded inward because of the same collapse...One of Sydney's port propellers and shafts (right) dislocated from its normal position against the hull."
All Above Photos: The Finding Sydney Foundation
Incredible. These are awesome times to be a ship modeler; amazing times to be a naval historian.
The following are all the pics of Sydney which I've been able to acquire so far:
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All the above 9 pics show Sydney in overall gray - sometimes appearing very light, as in the standard pre-war livery - however brightness on these ancient, copies-of-copies-of-copies can be very deceiving. Moreover, the left pic in the center row shows turret tops and anchor deck appearing darker than the vertical surfaces - particularly considering the high overhead sun angle (discernable from the visible shadows) - so that this is almost certainly a wartime camo scheme.
Also, the two end pics in the top row, as well as the second-from-left in the bottom row, were all captioned "1940"; the year in which Sydney went to war in the Mediterranean, beginning in May.
Likewise, the following pic of her forward funnel after the July 9, 1940 battle off Calabria shows a solid, rather light gray:
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According to Alan Raven's Warship Perspectives - Camouflace Vol.I: Royal Navy 1939-1941, it was in Alexandria in November, 1940, that Sydney was first painted in a disruptive camouflage scheme:
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Although some of these camo features do not match Raven's drawings perfectly, they do agree in all major respects.
Raven states this scheme was worn through Sydney's return to Australia in October, 1941, after which she was repainted in a different scheme (see below). Therefore the rightmost pic, showing as it does the Sydney, Australia bridge in the background - and which was indeed captioned "1941" - must have been taken in October/November 1941; not long before this repainting.
The only pic known to show any part of Sydney as-sunk is of this recovered (Carley Float) life raft:
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Its monotone surface yields no clues (the model of Sydney in front of it is in overall gray, but this, too, proves nothing), however, again according to Raven, Sydney was repainted into a so-called "dark hull / light upperworks" camo scheme and remained so, presumably, until sunk.
Raven says the color of turret tops and wood decks in unknown, however based on the above picture showing these, I would guess her turret tops and metal decks/roofs remained a darker gray, while her wood decks were natural wood.
So there's what we've got - looks like a pretty simple conversion from the original Leanders (I'm doing it from the old Airfix Ajax kit, for example); insofar as decks and superstructure, just relocating the gun platform and catapult turntable.
If anyone has any more info on this - or any more historical descriptions/pics of HMAS Sydney - please pipe up or send it in, as you prefer!
Modifying Ajax into Sydney will also require rebuilding the stern deck area including the superstructure. I have an article with drawings somewhere, let me dig it up and I'll upload it to my freewebs account and post a link. It's available elsewhere online (I unfortunately lost the link) so no problems. With proper funnels and aircraft, rebuilding the aft deck is no problem, its all geometric shapes and just one deck…
…Here's the link to the article. It's a pdf file and covers the Leander and Arethusa class ships. It's pretty good on accuracy, and with some PE and, of course, Matty's conversion set, and we have an excellent Sydney. Hope this info helps everyone.
The one thing I still really needed to address was the plan view of the after superstructure - especially under the AA gun deck. And I can't believe I didn't remember the old Airfix Magazine on-line archive - I've mentioned it before: the Dave Cov website!
Although Avery, your link didn't "take", above, I just successfully followed the URL I had filed - found the piece the May, 1977 article - and downloaded the PDF of it, slicker'n sh**!
And you were so right; the article says all the RAN Leanders had the same aft superstructure - to cut directly to the chase - check this out:
(You're welcome! )
The Moral of the Story: Always, but ALWAYS, when you're bashing on an old Airfix kit, check the Dave Cove website first for relevant articles on it!
More on the how I composited the above graphic, and even how it compares with some of our reference pics, when I get the time (prob'ly this weekend)... And THANK YOU again, sir, for the reminder!
I'd completely forgotten I had downloaded that with the intention of building Sydney. I didn't remember until I noticed the shape of the aft superstructure and began to wonder where I could find plans.
Don't know why the link didn't work, here it is again (for my own personal gratification!)
This group build is open to anyone, building in any scale any kit, conversion and/or scratchbuild to depict HMAS Sydney-II, at any point in her career. I am going to depict her as-sunk and - as anyone who knows me could no doubt guess - to do so by converting/upgrading from the Airfix 1/600 Leander-class kit; HMS Ajax:
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Various boxings of this kit have looked like either of the pics at left (the bottom a photo of the actual mold), or various combinations thereof. I am also going to call on Airfix' HMS Belfast (right), in the same scale, for substitution/upgrade parts to make a decent Sydney.
The first and most obvious example of which will be the funnels:
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Technically an Amphion-class modification to the original Leanders, Sydney (and her RAN sister Perth and Hobart) did not have the single, large funnel of Ajax, but had instead two straight, more conventional funnels as shown in the background profile view of Sydney. I printed the latter at exactly the scale of the Ajax kit - actually measuring out to 1/605 (based on length overall); note how well one of the funnels from my Belfast kit compares.
Its teardrop cross-section (inset; upper left) is also a near-perfect match for the funnels Sydney carried:
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At left is Sydney's forward funnel, after receiving shell damage in her shootout with the Italian navy off Calabria on July 9, 1940. The ship pictured at right is not Sydney - as proven by the glimpse of twin-4" gun barrels at right; Sydney had only single 4"45cals (see below) - but the after funnel is undoubtedly identical. So the above Belfast funnel, with only some minor changes (Minus, of course, the highly realistic dent in the side. ) , will make an excellent basis for the conversion parts.
The last pic, though again not exactly of Sydney herself, does show a Supermarine Walrus floatplane on the catapult - which is exactly what Sydney carried, too, at the time of her sinking - and this is another substitution required for the Ajax kit:
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At bottom are the Walrus parts from the Belfast kit; the best Walrus, if I'm not mistaken, of any Airfix kit.
And a luck thing, too, as the Ajax floatplane (top) is clearly not a Walrus. At first - based on the wingtips and tail - I guestimated it was meant to represent a Blackburn Shark. However I then learned (for the first time) of another inter-war RN floatplane whose fuselage and odd, observer-only canopy is clearly what the mold is depicts: the Fairey SeaFox:
Interesting.
Be that as it may, I turned to the Belfast Walrus and (predictably) took it in hand for further improvement:
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Wearing the now-typical Matty's Models' "purple sunglasses" - when you see an aircraft master getting tricked out like this, you know it's going to end up with killer window framing (brass; PE), with glass-smooth windows in between.
Meantime the engine part (bottom) is getting an actual, radial engine - laid up from some tiny PE gear-like disks. (I don't even have a clue what many of these parts were supposed to represent, in the first place! ) Anyway, the Sydney conversion will get one of these improved Walruses too.
But again, anyone who knows me could also predict that I wouldn't just pirate the above from my (otherwise pristene) Belfast kit, without also molding them for (unlimited) duplication in resin.
And I decided, while I'm at it, to also significantly improve on the Ajax' main battery guns:
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Somewhere in between the Ajax kit turret, at far left and the Belfast kit triple-mount turret (next to it; at center) is a twin turret looking more like the actual RN 6"50cal MkVs shown at bottom. Note their sides have significant slope to them, which the Ajax part lacks - as well as the rounding along the top front edge and other, more subtle features. All these will be put into a custom, replacement turret which I am developing in 1/550 scale, shown at top right.
This new Matt Stein Models RN Twin-6"50cal turret will look just fine on the 1/605 scale Airfix kit:
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And it already looks better than the OOB part (top) - even though its width has not yet been completely shaved down and front face not yet completed.
Not only look better, but the improvement will be comprehensive:
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A curious feature of the Airfix Ajax turrets: they had receptacles for moveable gun barrels - in the typical, Airfix "trapped-T" configuration - and yet for the barrels the kit provided only little sticks; to be fixed immoveably in place. The Matty's Models RN Twin-6"50cal is going to remedy that - with recreation of the Airfix moveable gun sockets (left, at bottom); suitable to accept the individually-moving gun barrels (center) of the Airfix Suffolk kit. Thus, the new turret will allow individually-elevating barrels and other features of the real thing, as shown by the picture of Sydney herself, at right.
Including details like the "shoelace"-looking sighting hatches between the guns, for which a foundation - to depict doors either closed or opened, as usual - is being laid in the attachment of PE snippets (center). Truly, these are going to be nice upgrade parts, when completed.
This build also requires replacement of the kit's twin-4" gun mounts with RN single open-mount 4"45cals:
Here I'm sprucing up the (already pretty decent) OOB part from the Airfix 1/600 Hood kit (left); adding the raised deck and enhanced PE detail (right) to better resemble the real thing (center). If this proves a feasible and sufficient improvement I will also consider mass-producing this as a Matty's Models upgrade product.
So these are all the specific conversion/upgrade parts I'm anticipating developing for this build:
And this is the deal I will offer: A FULL SET of the above parts to anyone participating in this group build and submitting pics documenting their of conversion of the Airfix Ajax - or any kit or scratchbuild which will use these parts to depict HMAS Sydney-II.
On an entirely voluntary bases I am currently putting together a display for the new Marine Discovery Centre at Terrigal NSW dealing with various subjects of Australia's maritime history. I aim to cover three subjects initially, which I would like to unveil in March 2011.
My first subjects are from the few months in late 1941 until mid 1942. I am looking to use illustrations and models to cover a brief history of the fall of Singapore, the bombing of North Australia and the IJNs fore-ray into the indian ocean which include the HMAS Vampire getting in harms way many times during that time.
The second would be the battle of Coral Sea. Using mainly die-cast planes to illustrate the weapons of the opposing forces
The third would be on the HMAS Sydneys (both 1&2) there is of course a very good 350 scale model kit of SMS Emden which Sydney 1 sank. I intend using this with brass detailing and a computer drawn illustration of HMAS Sydney 1 in this part of the display. For my HMAS Sydney 2 part of the display and I would love to use a modified Airfix Ajax.
I would be very interested in the parts you mention to convert the model. I am mostly retired now but I have been both a professional photographer and graphic designer and would be happy to assist with providing you with any illustrated information regarding the use of your parts. I would also include an acknowledgement in the planned display case of you assistance if you wish.
Peter, you are already doing exactly what you "should", sir - all I ask is that you will submit progress updates to us, on your Sydney-II build (including some pictures!), and I will be happy to send you (at least) a full set of all the parts which I produce, for this conversion.
Regarding which, the current status is that development has lain fairly idle for about six months now, after a drop-off in responses (note prior posting dates). However the prototypes are all still in qeue, with plans for each one's next developmental step(s), which I will resume as of today.
Meantime, Peter, your (roughly) 1-year's deadline for completion sounds like a very realistic fit - and in addition to the above, I can also offer you prototype "seconds", as they exist today, to the extent I can spare them and you can use them, right now - for which I may well take you up on your offer of some graphics, if feasible. I'll eMail you separately on that.
So, Welcome to ModelFleet, Peter - glad to have you aboard, and we're thrilled to have you join The Deal on the Group Build of Sydney(-II), buddy!
...Matty, (I) just read your (private email) about HMAS Sydney turrets for the Airfix Ajax kit. Not sure what this is about, but are you aware that there is an Aussie who makes a Sydney / Perth / Hobart upgrade in resin?
...I got one but have done nothing with it...It is a bit crude, especially the funnels...and I previousy got some sets of 6-inch twin turrets which are sold separately and not bad, with a view to using them to upgrade the Airfix Nelson... (the) Sydney conversion parts came complete with an Airfix Ajax, and are in (my) attic...
...I think the chap who sold it (calls himself "leroyfox" on ebay) ...I definitely got the 6-inch twin turrets from (this guy)...but I don't recall whether it was OzMods who made it. It might have been as they also did a 1/600 Daring which looks rather like a copy of the Airfix kit!!...He advertises it from time to time on ebay...If you do not know about it, I will send you the reference next time he advertises it...I (am recovering from an) operation last Thursday (12 Feb), and my movements are (a) bit restricted at the moment, so I can't get into the attic to look at the kit...I'll let you know when I get to the kit...
Thank You, Billy - and I know OzMods does (or did, at least) make a 1/600 Daring kit (in resin, IIRC). At their website (the above link), I could not find either this, the Sydney conversion set nor the separate, RN twin-6" turrets - however their HTML plays hell with my older browser (and gets worse every time they "upgrade" the site), so I can't verify whether they may actually not be listed - perhaps simply OOP - by now.
So, when you can get to your set(s), it would be great to have you confirm exactly where they came from, and send us some pics, buddy.
Meantime, best of luck on your speedy recovery, Billy!
I am in on this, I have a stripped Airfix Ajax hull I have been contemplating for quite some time, and this gives me the inspiration I need to tackle her as Sydney.
Just excellent to have you - and I see you're even going to do the Airfix conversion as well. Now I'm definitely gonna go into town and buy some more resin tomorrow; a whole 'nother set of conversion parts gonna need casting!