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History
The Admiralen
class of destroyers were built for the Royal Netherlands Navy in the mid
1920’s to provide some counter to the threat of the Japanese fleet in the
Other
than Van
Galen the Admiralen
class all spent their time after commissioning in the Far East and led a fairly
peaceful life until the Japanese invasion of
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Kortenaer formed part of Doorman’s fleet at the
The
Model
The
model is the H-P Model Piet
Hein kit, which shows the ships as originally fitted. The kit is
basically accurate although a little short on detail and some of the smaller
parts benefit from replacement. This
kit had been in the stash for a couple of years, mainly because research was a
difficulty and it was obvious that there would need to be some detailing work to
be done. To the rescue came my
friend Michel Baartmans, who ordered some plans from the NVM plans service in
the
The main initial work was to replace the funnels. The kit parts are solid and to drill out enough of the interior to hollow them out seemed like a pain, so instead I used the originals as a template and used brass sheet to roll this around them, trimming to the correct shape. I then cut off the angled base of the resin funnels and after much sanding and filing came out with the correct shape. Fortunately, steam pipes would hide any seam, so the end result was much better than the originals. The bridge also required some work. I replaced the windows with ladder stock, blanking some of these out as required with PVA. It can’t be seen on the finished model but there is also detail and crew on the bridge. I thought it would be at least partly visible when completed but it turned out to be wasted effort. Bridge wing supports were added from a Gold Medal Model set. I can’t remember which, the open bridge was detailed with the emergency steering platform, range finder and radio loop being scratch-built. There are in fact lookout positions as well using seats from the 1.1” USN AA from White Ensign Models. Again I don’t think these show up on the photos. A number of deck and superstructure fittings including vents, winches, cable reels, hatches, doors, piping, ammo lockers, etc where from a combination of GMM and WEM photo-etch or scratched with brass rod, these are all really needed to give the ship the busy and cluttered look of these ships.
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Main
armament in the kit was poor. The 4.7” guns carried only a simple curved
shield on those mounts on the main deck. These were not well reproduced in the
kit. I scratch-built the guns
instead with a combination of trimmed down Skywave US 5” mounts, pedestals
where made from the kit part removed and various bits of photo-etch. Shields are
paper. Depth charge rails and throwers were also scratch-built. Two of the kit
boats were replaced and detailed with WEM’s
ship’s boats set. The motor boat wasn’t bad so I added some detail and a
windshield from ladder stock. Masts are built from brass rod, the crane rigging
was taken from a cut down GMM US
battleships set. Until replaced by a
later Fokker model, Kortenaer carried something
called a Van Berkel W-A floatplane. A
little research showed this to be a license built version of the Hansa-Brandenburg
W12, an aircraft first used by
Once the ship was generally complete, I set about adding some awnings from wire and cigarette paper, this is painted with thinned down PVA, which gives a nice rippled effect when dry as though it is flapping in the breeze. Since I had gone to the trouble to add detail to the torpedo mounts only to find they wouldn’t also be visible, I used one of the photos of the Admiralen class ships as inspiration and decided to show some torpedo maintenance in progress. This meant hollowing out one of the tubes to allow the torpedo to be shown being removed, then making a torpedo. Building fins out of paper for a 1:700 scale torpedo is not recommended, especially after losing the third set. Final details came from GMM ultra-fine railings painted black with the stanchions picked out and netting cut from the same set. Canvas dodgers are thinned down PVA painted. Painting is with Humbrol enamel, I had to mix the approximate shade of grey, as information on the exact colours of the time are a little hazy. To reflect the oil based paints used at the time there is a little yellow added. Deck is dark grey, with wooden decks and linoleum on the bridge in WEM teak and corticene respectively. The RNN found that destroyers with steel decks operating in very hot climates made life uncomfortable, so they often used coconut matting walkways, which are the brown strips visible on the decks, these are again cigarette paper. Rigging is with fly-tying coloured with black marker. The aerial spreaders are more ultra-fine railings rolled around brass rod.
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Finally
I weathered the ship only lightly to reflect the non-combat setting, just a
little streaking and rust from pastels and some softening down of the darker
colours. To portray something of the intended setting, a little more web time
came up with a set of plans for a traditional outrigger canoe found in
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