Building a British Carrier Deck Diorama

[Catch22]

Hi guys,

I'm thinking of building a diorama of the deck of HMS Victorious in January 1945, which had 1834, 1836 (Corsairs) and 849 (Avenger IIs). I'd like to have some deck crew, a crane, a Corsair of 1834 (Leslie Durno's aircraft, from the Aces build), as well as an Avenger. Here are the problems I face:

Are there British deck crew sets in 1/48?

Is there a British crane kit?

How would I go about getting the Avenger's wings to fold? There's an excellent conversion set for the Accurate Miniatures kit (of which I have 3), but it is $46, and I could probably get the Hobby Boss kit for less!

What would the texture of the deck be? I have photos showing the colour, but I'm not sure of how it would feel.

Thanks guys.

 

[A4K]

I think Terry will be your man here Cory, but I'll have a look through my stuff just in case I have anything.

Nice project btw!

 

[Catch22]

Thanks Evan! I figured he'd be the man. I have various pictures of decks and a couple of cranes, but as for kits I have no idea.

 

[Airframes]

The decks were armoured steel, with a 'non slip' surface. I think this was basically sand or similar mixed in with the coating, which seemed to be a greyish green.
As for figures, I don't know of any RN figures in 1/48th, but there are US deck crew which could be adapted/converted, especially if on the PTO/SEAC. Likewise, various other figures can be converted, some just by the paint colours used, and the Tamiya Panzer Service crew and other similar ones are ideal.
You might have to scratch-build a crane, or look at maybe adapting a 1/43rd scale die-cast crane, if a suitable sty,e can be found. There might even be something in the '0' Gauge model railway stuff, or maybe even from ship / maritime accessories.
The wing fold for the Avenger shouldn't be too difficult to cut and position, and I think I've seen a wing-fold mechanism kit, possibly in PE, possibly from Eduard. If not, then it would be tricky, but not too difficult, to scratch build.
Hope this helps.

 

[Catch22]

Thanks Terry, I'll have a look around. I have horrible amounts of figure sets so hopefully I'll have something suitable.

UPDATE: Eduard doesn't have a PE set for the wings, and besides the set mentioned above, I can find nothing for conversion sets that are still in production. Maybe this will be my first serious scratch building project!

 

[Catch22]

Found these:

Squadron.com

 

[Njaco]

Cory, I got several books on Carriers last summer. I'll check and see if I have some pics to scan for you. You sure you want to do this in 1/48? thats gonna be huge!!!

 

[Airframes]

Tamiya also do US deck / aircrew Cory, and the only thing which would need changing in these and the Eduard set, apart from uniform colours, would be the shape of the 'other ranks' caps.

 

[Catch22]

Cory, I got several books on Carriers last summer. I'll check and see if I have some pics to scan for you. You sure you want to do this in 1/48? thats gonna be huge!!!

That would be great Chris, thank you. And yes, 1/48th it is! I'll be dismantling an old tank diorama, so they'll end up swapping places. It will only have the 2 planes on it, so it won't be really crowded. Maybe in the future I'd add another Corsair, but that'd be a ways down the road. I REALLY need to start taking a bite out of this stash before I get too many more kits.

Alright Terry, I'll have a look. I must have missed the Tamiya set, unless you mean the set that has a bunch of pilots and a couple crew?

Out of that entire stash of people kits, there were only 2 groups of 1/48: a Hasegawa pilot set, and a Dragon BoB Luftwaffe ground Cree and equipment set. Most of the figures are pilots, but there are a couple crew in pushing positions, meant for pushing a cart and a Bf 109. I'll be able to put ca less heads on those two and use them.

 

[Catch22]

I just remebered that we have (or at least had) a USAAF ground crew set that is the same idea as the Navy one I linked to. I couldn't find it however, and I fear it may have been used as crew for the B-29. I'll have to dig around more tomorrow.

 

[Catch22]

Would a mod be able to move this to Start to Finish builds? May as well use this as my build thread as well.

I had forgotten I had colour photos of a British carrier deck.

 

[Gnomey]

Would a mod be able to move this to Start to Finish builds? May as well use this as my build thread as well.

Done. Looking forward to seeing this progress.

 

[Catch22]

Now, to focus on the Avenger. I have various photos showing the details of the inside of the wing around the fold. Most of the time it's shown as white, but in the first photo it appears to be a green colour. I'm assuming this is US Interior Green?

Now, the Avenger has to be of 849 Squadron, as that's the only Avenger Squadron that was on the Victorious at the time. The only photo I've really found of one from that Squadron happens to be the one Terry was originally going to build for the PTO GB, and it was taken in January 1945, so it would have certainly been on the carrier at the time Durno made ace. I have everything except the codes for this plane, though I may be able to use scratch on letters like I used for my previous Avenger. It's the 4th one down.

The remaining photos are just general photos showing British decks with its hustle and bustle. I think I'm going to forgo the crane, as I couldn't find anything even close and it's not in a lot of the photos.

 

[Catch22]

Thanks to whoever moved it!

Some more:

 

[vikingBerserker]

Great pics fellas!

 

[Airframes]

Good stuff Cory, looking forward to the build. Far as I've seen so far, the wing fold on the Avenger was mainly white, the factory-applied colour, but grey, or green chromate etc would be equally accurate I think.

 

[dirkpitt289]

That is a great collection of photos... I look forward to the build

 

[Njaco]

Cory, I finally have a few days off so I'll go through those books I have including some with profiles of Avenger.

 

[Catch22]

Awesome, thanks Chris!

 

[woljags]

i think fleet air arm aircraft are my favorite subject and will be looking forward to following your progress although i would be trying this in a smaller scale due to the size