Published Mar 18th, 2016, 3/18/16 5:52 pm
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Royal Navy Battleship HMS Queen Elizabeth (1913) 4:1 Scale
Hello folks – here’s my latest build. The lead ship of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class battleships. I’ve got a few different configurations of the ship, with more planned to eventually represent her full career.
The History
Genesis and Design
The Royal Navy’s 1912 Construction Programme called for three new battleships and one new battlecruiser. The design for the battleships was to be effectively a minor upgrade to the previous Iron Duke class – a ship carrying five twin 13.5” turrets and steaming at 21 knots on coal-fired boilers.
However in October 1911, Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty (essentially the politician with responsibility for the navy), and he was keen for the new ships to make a bigger stride forward. For one thing, rumours abounded that Germany’s latest ships were more powerful and armed with bigger guns than their previous ships, and Churchill knew that the British public always wanted their new battleships to be a big improvement on previous classes. He wanted to make his mark.
The Admiralty had already ordered the development of a new 15” (381 mm) gun, intended to be used on battleships ordered in future programmes, but it wouldn’t be ready for the ships of the 1912 programme. New naval cannon designs generally had a thorough process of design, prototyping and testing before they were ready to be used. Churchill demanded that the new guns should be brought forward and used for the 1912 programme battleships, even though it meant taking the huge risk of going straight from the drawing board to production.
It was soon realised that a ship with five such turrets would be quite a bit larger than planned, and that the ships could be made smaller and more affordable by losing the midships ‘Q’ turret – they could still fire a heavier broadside with eight 15” guns than the Iron Duke class could with ten 13.5” guns. However this was additionally risky – if the 15” gun proved to be no good and the ship had to use the older, smaller guns, it would be notably undergunned. Still, the designers pressed ahead.
Another thought then emerged: in removing the midships turret, there would be more room for machinery and the ships could be made faster than the standard 21 knots, and that the best way to achieve this would be with oil fuel rather than coal. Oil was more efficient, produced less smoke and didn’t require teams of stokers, but crucially Britain had lots of high quality coal and relied on foreign sources for its oil. Churchill immediately set out to guarantee a supply of oil by having the government invest heavily in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
The final design was a ship armed with four twin 15” turrets and intended for a speed of 25 knots on oil fuel – making it the first design that can be considered a “fast battleship” when compared with its peers. The Admiralty decided that with the increased speed, they would just order four of the new battleships rather than three and a battlecruiser. The four units were to be named Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, Valiant and Barham. The government of the Federated Malay States - a part of the British Empire - offered to pay for another capital ship; the Admiralty happily accepted and added a fifth unit to the class, to be named Malaya.
Construction
HMS Queen Elizabeth was laid down at the Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on Trafalgar Day (21st October) 1912, launched on the 16th October 1913 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 22nd December 1914. It soon became apparent that the BL 15” Mark I was a truly excellent naval gun and the risk had paid off. That design of gun would see venerable service with the Royal Navy through both World Wars and could easily be considered the ‘greatest’ British naval gun.
Although the main armament proved to be spot on, the secondary armament wasn’t so successful. The class were designed with sixteen 6” guns in casemates; twelve forward/amidships beneath the forecastle deck, and four towards the stern beneath the quarterdeck. These guns were soon found to be very ‘wet’ and difficult to use in rough seas, and the four aft 6” guns were so wet they were virtually useless. Queen Elizabeth was the only ship of the class to complete with the four aft 6” guns in place, and they were soon removed and the casemates plated over. To compensate somewhat for the lost guns, two 6” guns were fitted in housings on the forecastle. Her sister ships were still under construction at this point, and completed with the modification already in place. The leftover guns were later used to arm the M29 class monitors.
Service History
Queen Elizabeth briefly joined the 5th Battle Squadron after commissioning – a squadron which would become famous as the vanguard of the Grand Fleet when made up of her sister ships – but she was destined to never truly be a part of that famous squadron. Soon after commissioning, she was assigned to serve as the flagship of the Dardanelles Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. The Dardanelles campaign was an Anglo-French naval operation to attempt to force the passage of the Dardanelles strait and land troops at Constantinople to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Because the modern Royal Navy dreadnoughts of the Grand Fleet were needed in the North Sea to face off against the German High Seas Fleet, the Dardanelles Fleet was made up mainly of obsolete pre-dreadnoughts, with a handful of the Royal Navy’s oldest battlecruisers also attached. Queen Elizabeth was the only modern battleship assigned – indeed, the newest and most powerful battleship in the navy. However, she played a limited role. She was too valuable to risk to the minefields and shore batteries, and couldn’t afford to fire too many rounds because she only had limited ammunition and no replacement barrels for her main guns.
After the failure of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, she returned to Britain and spent much of 1916 in refit, missing the Battle of Jutland. She was prepared for the role of the new flagship of the Grand Fleet for Admiral Beatty, who had recently taken command. She served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet from 1917 until it was disbanded in 1919, and then as the flagship of the Atlantic fleet in the years immediately following the war, from 1919 to 1924. The Royal Navy was much reduced at this time due to the Washington Naval treaty, but as some of the navy’s newer and most powerful ships the Queen Elizabeths were retained.
When the time came to modernise the navy’s WWI era battleships, the Queen Elizabeths were at the top of the list. They were the fastest and most effective ships, and much more easily upgradeable than the slightly newer-but-slower Revenge class. She received her first major rebuild in 1926-1927, which mainly centred around adding torpedo bulges and trunking the funnels in addition to other smaller alterations. She spent most of the next decade serving with the Mediterranean Fleet before entering drydock for a much more substantial rebuild in 1937-41, from which she emerged as an almost entirely different ship. Her machinery was stripped out and replaced, her casemate guns removed and plated over, new secondary armament added in turrets on deck, a new tower bridge structure added, aircraft launching facilities added and a vast upgrade made to the fire control equipment.
Upon completion of her rebuild in early 1941, she served with the Mediterranean Fleet. In December she was mined by Italian Frogmen in Alexandria harbour, causing serious damage. After being patched up, she steamed across the Atlantic to receive more significant repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard in the USA. The repairs lasted until mid-1943. She served in the Home Fleet and then the Eastern Fleet for the remainder of WWII, before being sold for scrap in 1948.
The Build
The build is in 4:1 scale (or 1:4 if you prefer to write it that way round), meaning that each block edge represents 25 cm. The ship is therefore 787 blocks long (not counting the sternwalk).
As ever with my builds, there’s no interior.
The intention with this build has been to do several modified versions to represent her at the various stages of her career. I’ve labelled the project as 100% complete, because I’ve considered the ship ‘finished’ with the WWI configurations. The remaining variants may follow as and when I get around to them. Far too many things on the build list!
Original Configuration, 1914
This build represents the ship as originally designed and sent on sea trials. She flies a single Government Service Ensign at the foremast. This is a blue ensign defaced with a horizontal anchor and is flown by British warships when no other ensign is appropriate – in this case because she’s on trials and not yet commissioned. In this version, the aft casemate guns can be seen (abeam of Y turret), and also the sternwalk.
Flagship of the Dardanelles Fleet, 1915
By the time she steamed to the Dardanelles, Queen Elizabeth’s aft casemate guns had been removed and the casemates plated over. Two 6” guns were installed on the forecastle (roughly abeam with the main ships’ boats and just behind the aft funnel). She is depicted flying two White Ensigns, and a Vice-Admiral’s flag at the foremast for the fleet commanding officer, Vice Admiral Sir Sackville Carden.
Flagship of the Grand Fleet, 1917-1919
As part of her 1916 refits, the sternwalk and the pair of forecastle 6” guns were removed. She is depicted here flying three White Ensigns and an Admiral’s flag for the Grand Fleet’s commanding officer, Admiral Sir David Beatty.
She is also flying a set of signalling flags from the starboard foretop, as follows:
They are (top-to-bottom) the compass pennant, ‘B’ and ‘I’. The compass pennant indicates that the fleet will change course, and that the lead ships of the columns will maintain their bearings and distances from the lead ship, and ships in columns will maintain their bearings and distances from the lead ship of the column. This effectively means that the fleet formation will be maintained through the course change. There are alternative pennants to signal different ‘types’ of course change. The flags ‘B’ and ‘I’ are a directional indicator, meaning that the course change is to the East North East. With various combinations of signal flags, any direction on the 128 point compass – or an exact number of degrees - can be indicated.
(Note that the Royal Navy flags of this era differ from the current international flags. These ones are taken from the Navy Signalling Handbook 1913)
1926-1927 Rebuild
Still to do
1937-1941 Rebuild
Still to do
Sister Ships
I’ll look into doing her sister ships at some point – particularly if I can find suitable differences from Queen Elizabeth herself to make for separate builds. Warspite is likely, especially given that her final rebuild was different from Queen Elizabeth’s. I’ll see if I can find enough differences for the others too.
Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Hello folks – here’s my latest build. The lead ship of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth class battleships. I’ve got a few different configurations of the ship, with more planned to eventually represent her full career.
The History
Genesis and Design
The Royal Navy’s 1912 Construction Programme called for three new battleships and one new battlecruiser. The design for the battleships was to be effectively a minor upgrade to the previous Iron Duke class – a ship carrying five twin 13.5” turrets and steaming at 21 knots on coal-fired boilers.
However in October 1911, Winston Churchill became First Lord of the Admiralty (essentially the politician with responsibility for the navy), and he was keen for the new ships to make a bigger stride forward. For one thing, rumours abounded that Germany’s latest ships were more powerful and armed with bigger guns than their previous ships, and Churchill knew that the British public always wanted their new battleships to be a big improvement on previous classes. He wanted to make his mark.
The Admiralty had already ordered the development of a new 15” (381 mm) gun, intended to be used on battleships ordered in future programmes, but it wouldn’t be ready for the ships of the 1912 programme. New naval cannon designs generally had a thorough process of design, prototyping and testing before they were ready to be used. Churchill demanded that the new guns should be brought forward and used for the 1912 programme battleships, even though it meant taking the huge risk of going straight from the drawing board to production.
It was soon realised that a ship with five such turrets would be quite a bit larger than planned, and that the ships could be made smaller and more affordable by losing the midships ‘Q’ turret – they could still fire a heavier broadside with eight 15” guns than the Iron Duke class could with ten 13.5” guns. However this was additionally risky – if the 15” gun proved to be no good and the ship had to use the older, smaller guns, it would be notably undergunned. Still, the designers pressed ahead.
Another thought then emerged: in removing the midships turret, there would be more room for machinery and the ships could be made faster than the standard 21 knots, and that the best way to achieve this would be with oil fuel rather than coal. Oil was more efficient, produced less smoke and didn’t require teams of stokers, but crucially Britain had lots of high quality coal and relied on foreign sources for its oil. Churchill immediately set out to guarantee a supply of oil by having the government invest heavily in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.
The final design was a ship armed with four twin 15” turrets and intended for a speed of 25 knots on oil fuel – making it the first design that can be considered a “fast battleship” when compared with its peers. The Admiralty decided that with the increased speed, they would just order four of the new battleships rather than three and a battlecruiser. The four units were to be named Queen Elizabeth, Warspite, Valiant and Barham. The government of the Federated Malay States - a part of the British Empire - offered to pay for another capital ship; the Admiralty happily accepted and added a fifth unit to the class, to be named Malaya.
Construction
HMS Queen Elizabeth was laid down at the Portsmouth Royal Dockyard on Trafalgar Day (21st October) 1912, launched on the 16th October 1913 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 22nd December 1914. It soon became apparent that the BL 15” Mark I was a truly excellent naval gun and the risk had paid off. That design of gun would see venerable service with the Royal Navy through both World Wars and could easily be considered the ‘greatest’ British naval gun.
Although the main armament proved to be spot on, the secondary armament wasn’t so successful. The class were designed with sixteen 6” guns in casemates; twelve forward/amidships beneath the forecastle deck, and four towards the stern beneath the quarterdeck. These guns were soon found to be very ‘wet’ and difficult to use in rough seas, and the four aft 6” guns were so wet they were virtually useless. Queen Elizabeth was the only ship of the class to complete with the four aft 6” guns in place, and they were soon removed and the casemates plated over. To compensate somewhat for the lost guns, two 6” guns were fitted in housings on the forecastle. Her sister ships were still under construction at this point, and completed with the modification already in place. The leftover guns were later used to arm the M29 class monitors.
Service History
Queen Elizabeth briefly joined the 5th Battle Squadron after commissioning – a squadron which would become famous as the vanguard of the Grand Fleet when made up of her sister ships – but she was destined to never truly be a part of that famous squadron. Soon after commissioning, she was assigned to serve as the flagship of the Dardanelles Fleet in the eastern Mediterranean. The Dardanelles campaign was an Anglo-French naval operation to attempt to force the passage of the Dardanelles strait and land troops at Constantinople to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Because the modern Royal Navy dreadnoughts of the Grand Fleet were needed in the North Sea to face off against the German High Seas Fleet, the Dardanelles Fleet was made up mainly of obsolete pre-dreadnoughts, with a handful of the Royal Navy’s oldest battlecruisers also attached. Queen Elizabeth was the only modern battleship assigned – indeed, the newest and most powerful battleship in the navy. However, she played a limited role. She was too valuable to risk to the minefields and shore batteries, and couldn’t afford to fire too many rounds because she only had limited ammunition and no replacement barrels for her main guns.
After the failure of the Dardanelles and Gallipoli campaigns, she returned to Britain and spent much of 1916 in refit, missing the Battle of Jutland. She was prepared for the role of the new flagship of the Grand Fleet for Admiral Beatty, who had recently taken command. She served as the flagship of the Grand Fleet from 1917 until it was disbanded in 1919, and then as the flagship of the Atlantic fleet in the years immediately following the war, from 1919 to 1924. The Royal Navy was much reduced at this time due to the Washington Naval treaty, but as some of the navy’s newer and most powerful ships the Queen Elizabeths were retained.
When the time came to modernise the navy’s WWI era battleships, the Queen Elizabeths were at the top of the list. They were the fastest and most effective ships, and much more easily upgradeable than the slightly newer-but-slower Revenge class. She received her first major rebuild in 1926-1927, which mainly centred around adding torpedo bulges and trunking the funnels in addition to other smaller alterations. She spent most of the next decade serving with the Mediterranean Fleet before entering drydock for a much more substantial rebuild in 1937-41, from which she emerged as an almost entirely different ship. Her machinery was stripped out and replaced, her casemate guns removed and plated over, new secondary armament added in turrets on deck, a new tower bridge structure added, aircraft launching facilities added and a vast upgrade made to the fire control equipment.
Upon completion of her rebuild in early 1941, she served with the Mediterranean Fleet. In December she was mined by Italian Frogmen in Alexandria harbour, causing serious damage. After being patched up, she steamed across the Atlantic to receive more significant repairs at the Norfolk Navy Yard in the USA. The repairs lasted until mid-1943. She served in the Home Fleet and then the Eastern Fleet for the remainder of WWII, before being sold for scrap in 1948.
The Build
The build is in 4:1 scale (or 1:4 if you prefer to write it that way round), meaning that each block edge represents 25 cm. The ship is therefore 787 blocks long (not counting the sternwalk).
As ever with my builds, there’s no interior.
The intention with this build has been to do several modified versions to represent her at the various stages of her career. I’ve labelled the project as 100% complete, because I’ve considered the ship ‘finished’ with the WWI configurations. The remaining variants may follow as and when I get around to them. Far too many things on the build list!
Original Configuration, 1914
This build represents the ship as originally designed and sent on sea trials. She flies a single Government Service Ensign at the foremast. This is a blue ensign defaced with a horizontal anchor and is flown by British warships when no other ensign is appropriate – in this case because she’s on trials and not yet commissioned. In this version, the aft casemate guns can be seen (abeam of Y turret), and also the sternwalk.
Flagship of the Dardanelles Fleet, 1915
By the time she steamed to the Dardanelles, Queen Elizabeth’s aft casemate guns had been removed and the casemates plated over. Two 6” guns were installed on the forecastle (roughly abeam with the main ships’ boats and just behind the aft funnel). She is depicted flying two White Ensigns, and a Vice-Admiral’s flag at the foremast for the fleet commanding officer, Vice Admiral Sir Sackville Carden.
Flagship of the Grand Fleet, 1917-1919
As part of her 1916 refits, the sternwalk and the pair of forecastle 6” guns were removed. She is depicted here flying three White Ensigns and an Admiral’s flag for the Grand Fleet’s commanding officer, Admiral Sir David Beatty.
She is also flying a set of signalling flags from the starboard foretop, as follows:
They are (top-to-bottom) the compass pennant, ‘B’ and ‘I’. The compass pennant indicates that the fleet will change course, and that the lead ships of the columns will maintain their bearings and distances from the lead ship, and ships in columns will maintain their bearings and distances from the lead ship of the column. This effectively means that the fleet formation will be maintained through the course change. There are alternative pennants to signal different ‘types’ of course change. The flags ‘B’ and ‘I’ are a directional indicator, meaning that the course change is to the East North East. With various combinations of signal flags, any direction on the 128 point compass – or an exact number of degrees - can be indicated.
(Note that the Royal Navy flags of this era differ from the current international flags. These ones are taken from the Navy Signalling Handbook 1913)
1926-1927 Rebuild
Still to do
1937-1941 Rebuild
Still to do
Sister Ships
I’ll look into doing her sister ships at some point – particularly if I can find suitable differences from Queen Elizabeth herself to make for separate builds. Warspite is likely, especially given that her final rebuild was different from Queen Elizabeth’s. I’ll see if I can find enough differences for the others too.
Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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*Jaw drops* I havta get meself one of those!