For
almost ten years between the wars, the Royal Navy had a standardized fleet
destroyer design. From the A Class,
laid down in 1928 through the I Class,
laid down in 1936, over 70 fleet destroyers had been built with minor
improvements from the preceding class. The basic design was very long in tooth
by 1936 and considerably inferior, a least on paper, with most foreign ships
going into service. The Tribal Class,
also laid down in 1936, was the first break in the pattern. These very large
destroyers were an attempt to answer the large destroyers of Germany, Japan,
France, Italy and the United States. They were too large and expensive to be the
pattern for a new line of fleet destroyers. In addition to the cost, they were
designed to be heavy on gun power but were weak on torpedo attack with only one
quad torpedo mount. The Royal Navy needed a new fleet destroyer design.
The J Class, laid down in 1937,
was this new design. Everything was fresh with no negative legacy from the
earlier standardized designs. Larger, faster, more heavily gunned, the J
Class now set the standard for the Royal Navy until the advent of
the war caused the admiralty to design cheaper, more quickly built and more
significantly inferior Emergency War Designs. The design was so successful that
the K Class and N
Class, laid down from 1937 through 1940, were substantially
identical. However, the Admiralty again felt compelled to match foreign designs
with the next fleet destroyer design.
With
the J Class, the six(3x2) 4.7-inch Mk
XII guns were in open mounts with splinter shielding protecting the front and
sides of each mount. In fighting these guns, the crew was subject to the effects
of weather and heavy sea. For all of the years since the end of Britain’s
Wooden Walls of the sail Ships of the Line, the crusty old admirals, retrenched
in the admiralty puffed that having gun crews open to the elements was good for
them. It was claimed that this would harden them and make them better than the
farmboys manning the guns in foreign "wantabee" navies. If
manning guns open to the elements was good enough for them, it was good enough
for the new recruits. However, by the late 1930s Japan and the United States had
gone to completely enclosed mounts. By then it painfully clear that gun crews in
an enclosed mount could concentrate in ranging and firing their guns, free from
the obvious degradation of their efforts that would be caused by fighting the
enemy and the weather concurrently. Clearly if a destroyer was taking it green,
a gun crew would be greatly distracted in their efforts to prevent their being
washed away. Additionally, any action the North Atlantic in winter or in the
Arctic, would pose significant difficulties to the crew of any open gun.
The Admiralty responses were the L Class,
laid down in 1938 and the follow-on M Class,
laid down 1939 through 1941. After floating a number of alternate designs,
including one Super-Tribal design mounting six 5.25-inch guns, the Admiralty
chose a slightly enlarged version of the J Class.
The design was six feet longer, one and ½ feet wider and 230 tons heavier than
the ships of the J Class. The new
design retained two torpedo mounts but they were reduced to quad tubes from the
preceding quintuple tubes. A new 4.7-inch gun was adopted, the Mk XI 50 calibre
gun. Although the gun had a lower muzzle velocity than the Mk XII guns of the J
Class, they had a heavier shell and a longer range of 21,240
yards at 45 degrees elevation. With the new, fully enclosed Mk XX turret design,
the elevation could be increased to 50 degrees with each gun of the twin mount
being able to be independently controlled and fired. A new, combined, Low Angle/
High Angle LA/HA director was mounted that would allow the same director to
function for surface engagements or anti-aircraft fire. The new director and the
enclosed mounts were significantly heavier than the fittings found the Js.
While
the class was being built and before any of them were launched, World War Two
erupted. As with the First World War, the Admiralty was faced with new
urgent requirements and great expansion. Britain did not have the resources to
answer all of the Royal Navy’s needs. There was a supply problem with the new
enclosed 4.7-inch gun mounts, as the new mounts took almost twice (1.8) the time
to construct as the open mounts of the J Class.
In an effort to speed ships into service, four of the eight L
Class were regunned. Lance,
Larne, Lively
and Legion received eight 4-inch HA
guns in open mounts instead of the six 4.7-inch guns in enclosed mounts. The Laforey,
Lightning, Lookout,
Loyal and all eight of the M
Class were fitted with the designed enclosed mounts. The units
receiving the enclosed mounts, also generally substituted a single 4-inch HA gun
mount in place of the aft torpedo mount. Matchless
and Marne later removed the HA gun
and remounted the second set of torpedo tubes. The first units completed
received two quad .50 Vickers MG AA mounts but as they proved ineffective, they
were replaced by 20mm Oerlikons. Later units received the Oerlikons from the
start.
There was a divergence between the L Class
and the M Class in operational
deployment. Since half of the L Class
were equipped with open 4-inch guns, this class generally operated in the
Mediterranean Sea, until some were deployed to the Indian Ocean. Since all of
the M Class had enclosed mounts and
they were the only class with enclosed mounts until the end of the war, the
entire M Class were "arcticized’
with extra insulation and heating and specialized in operations in the frozen
seas of the far north. Of the M Class
the name of the Marksman
was changed to Mahratta. The M
Class is sometimes called the Marksman
Class after this lead ship. However in May 1941, shortly before
her launch at Scott’s Shipyard, the yard underwent a bombing attack. Marksman
was hit and had all of her engine machinery wrecked. She was also blown off her
keel blocks. She had to be rebuilt from keel up in a new berth with her new keel
being laid down in August 1941. It might be superstition or part tradition but
the ship was renamed Mahratta to
separate the ship from her unfortunate start as Marksman.
Myrmidon was transferred to the
Polish Navy in 1942 and renamed Orkan.
Almost
all of the operations of the M Class
were in the far north, mostly on escorts to the Murmansk convoys. In May 1942 Matchless
had to torpedo the fatally damaged cruiser Trinadad.
Marne, Martin,
along with Onslaught caught and sank
the German minelayer Ulm in the
Barents Sea in August 1942. Duty was not exclusively in the north. Matchless
and Marne had been detached for a
couple of months in the summer of 1942 for Malta convoy escort and in the fall
the class moved south to support the Operation Torch landings in North Africa.
In 1942 the class was also fitted for tropical service. Normally "winterizing"
to optimize operations in the far north, provided uncomfortable habitation in
the war waters of the Mediterranean or off of Africa, as the extra insulation
made such ships sweat boxes in a warm environment. The Admiralty apparently
tried to alleviate this problem with the M Class
by the tropical installations. It was during this service that the class
suffered its first loss. Martin was
sunk by U431 north of Algiers on
November 10, 1942. On November 12 Marne
had her stern blown off by U515 but
was towed to safety at Gibraltar and repaired in England. She was back into
service on January 31, 1944.
Throughout 1943 Matchless, Milne
and Musketeer operated in
anti-submarine support groups in the North Atlantic. These three plus Meteor
were involved in the chase and sinking of the Scharnhorst
off of the North Cape in December 1943. Musketeer
and Matchless were close enough to
engage the German battleship near the end of the action, after Scharnhorst
had been heavily damaged by the Duke of York.
Milne also sank the U289
off Norway on May 31, 1943. Arctic duties continued in 1944 with Mahratta,
ex-Marksman being lost on February
25, 1944 when struck by two torpedoes in the Barents Sea. Also during that
month, Meteor along with Whitehall
sank the U314. Later the year Musketeer
and Meteor were reassigned to the
Mediterranean for mopping up operations. While back in the south supporting
Operation Avalanche in the landings in southern France in the summer of 1944, Meteor
along with Lookout sank the
German TA24 and TA29.
Orkan ex-Myrmidon
served the Polish Navy mostly on Arctic and Atlantic convoy duty until she was
sunk by U378 with an acoustic torpedo
in the Atlantic on October 8, 1943.
As new
construction at the start of the war and also because they were bigger and more
capable than the hastily built ships of the Emergency Construction Programs of
the war, the five surviving British units of the M
Class continued to sail on with the Royal Navy. Musketeer
was the only member of the class to be sold for scrap by the Royal Navy. On
December 6, 1955 she completed her last voyage to the scrapyard. Milne,
Matchless, Meteor
and Marne received a new lease on
life when on August 16, 1957 they were sold to Turkey. (Bulk
of history from British Destroyers 1892-1953 by Edgar J. March;
and Destroyers of World War Two by M.J. Whitley)
The WEM Musketeer
If you grew up in the United States, one of your favorite yearly
events had to be Halloween. Although not recognized as a holiday, it was and
still is one of favorites among kids of all ages. The most obvious allure was
the copious amount of free candy that could be netted by the energetic juvenile.
Another satisfaction came from the exploration of the neighborhood on your quest
for the Seven Cities of Gold. No Spanish Conquistador or explorer in search of
the riches of the Americas could be more motivated than the millions of kids
that dress up as their favorite monster and slip through the evening and night
of each October 31 in search of their sweet loot. As you went to each house with
the greatest expectations, you wondered whether you would find the Mother Lode.
Oh no, more candy corn; yuck, another candy orange slice; ho-hum another stale
marshmallow pumpkin and then it happens. What was that that went into your bag?
You reach in and there it is, the fabled treasure, the Seven Cities of Gold of
Coronado and Fountain of Youth of Ponce de Leon rolled into one- the full size
candy bar deluxe, the greatest treasure that could be found by any ten-year old
sugar junkie. Most of us who grew up with the "Trick or Treat" of
Halloween will have similar pleasant memories. So what does this have to do with
a resin model warship?
As ship modelers, we are also forever searching, but in our case for that
perfect model, which is so seldom found. Then, there it is! As you open the box
and remove the components for the White Ensign Models 1:350 scale model
of the HMS Musketeer you think;
Eureka! Bingo! The Mother Lode! Paydirt! This kit has it all and produced to the
highest standards. No trick here! It is a treat of the first order!
When
I reviewed the White Ensign Models 1:350 HMS
Janus (click for review of the WEM
HMS Janus), I was happy to find an error, something that was not
perfect. There was a bit of resin splash on the bridge face. It wasn’t much
but it was something. It allowed me to say that the kit was not perfect, as I
had found a casting error. Well, those British Tricksters, those perfidious
Albions, those nasty hobbits of WEM have closed that door. Try as I
might, I could find no imperfections with the WEM HMS
Musketeer. The casting quality is flawless, no bubbles, no
breakage, no splash, no problems. Later I did successfully locate an error,
not a defect, on the photo-etch fret.
The hull
is in two parts, divided at the waterline. This allows the modeler to build the Musketeer
in a full hull or a waterline format. I like to build my 1:350 models full hull
and I prefer one piece full hulls, so I don’t have the problem of mating hull
halves and filling seams. If you have been building 1:350 scale resin ships for
any length of time, you will undoubtedly come across two dreaded problems with
mating hull halves. In some models, one is caused by different shrinkage rates
of the upper and lower hulls, requiring minimal to significant adjustment with
sandpaper. The other problem often found would be large seams, requiring a
significant investment of filling and sanding in an effort to remove the seam.
Neither of these problems appear on the hull halves to the WEM HMS
Musketeer. Indeed, for the last year with every kit that I have
seen from WEM, I have been struck by one salient point in their hull
castings. The upper and lower hull halves are so well designed, so well cast
that the joinder seam is about as minimal as could be expected. There still is a
seam that needs to be filled and sanded but it is so small as to only require a
minimum touch-up filling. Without a doubt, WEM has the best fitting hull
halves for two piece hulls, that I have seen.
The other sixteen resin parts were likewise devoid of errors or damages.
These parts include superstructure and bridge parts, stack, the three gun
mounts, director, ship’s boats, one platform, one deck house and one torpedo
mount. The WEM HMS Musketeer portrays
the ship as she appeared in 1943, after she had substituted a single open mount
4-inch AA gun for the second set of torpedo tubes. The parts have a very slight
amount of resin flash that is easily cleared from the parts with a hobby blade.
Overall, there is far less clean-up required with this kit than is found in the
kits of almost any other resin manufacturer. The only evidence of casting sprues
or casting vents were a few small convex circles on the bottom of the larger
pieces. Another apparent characteristic of WEM casting is that solid
bulkheads, splinter shielding, breakwaters and other thin planes of metal are
probably slightly thicker than scale. Undoubtedly, this allows the pieces to be
cast without defects, holes or breakage. Frankly, I prefer this approach as it
is easier to thin a flat plane with a little sanding than to fill and repair
damaged structures.
White Metal Parts
Most of the
smaller parts are done in white metal, rather than resin. There are 43 of these
parts replicating the smaller fittings on the ship. The largest of these is the
foremast with crows nest. Other items are the quad pom-pom and mount, 4-inch AA
gun, searchlight 4.7-inch gun barrels, K guns, depth charge racks, small
directors, carley floats, shaft supports and propellers. The overall quality is
very good with some of the larger pieces requiring minor cleaning for removal of
fine seam lines. Using white metal for the gun barrels and mast, rather than
resin is a very definite plus for WEM. Long thin shapes such as barrels,
are very susceptible to warpage in resin. Using white metal for these neatly
sidesteps this problem. I also really like the fact that the propellers are
executed in white metal as resin propellers are extremely vulnerable to breakage
and defects. As with the resin parts, the white metal parts for Musketeer
were without defect or breakage.
Brass Photo-Etch Fret
There he is
with his Jack-O-Lantern grin, the Grand Goblin of Brass, Peter Hall and as
usual, he has a treat for you, his photo-etch fret for the Musketeer.
OK, I’ll admit it, I love Peter Hall’s brass creations. There is something
about looking at the lustrous metal with the light and shadow created by the
3-dimensional etching and further enhanced by the contrasting textures of shiny
smooth versus textured satin finish brass that is very enjoyable. In a way a
brass fret from WEM is like an overflowing bag of halloween loot. WEM
always tends to cram ten pounds of treats into a five-pound bag. They are indeed
treats and not some other substance.
The biggest item is an absolutely gorgeous deck plate for the 4-inch AA gun.
With the 3-D relief and use of the two types of finish, this plate has a
beautiful almost spider web appearance. For the early units, the fret contains
the two quad Vickers mounts and all receive extra brass framing for the quad
pom-pom mount. The fret comes with name plates for the four 4.7-inch armed units
of the L Class and the seven British
units of the M Class. Nameplates for
the Polish Orkan are not included. It
is with the nameplates that I finally caught an error in the WEM Musketeer
kit. Hallelujah, I have them now! I am not defeated in my incessant quest to
unveil error! My inquisition may continue! All of the M
Class name plates are right except the pair that say HMS
Marksman. That ship was never launched or sailed under that name.
After being damaged in an air attack before launch, it was disassembled, rebuilt
from the keel up in another berth, launched as the HMS
Mahratta. The fret has no plates for HMS
Mahratta. I realize perfectly that if you are building 10 of the
11 Royal Navy destroyers of the L Class
or M Class that mounted the 4.7-inch
guns, the omission of the Mahratta
name plates will have absolutely no impact upon your build. But what of those
poor unfortunate teeming souls yearning to build the Mahratta?
I must shed a tear, as there are no nameplates for them.
The
rest of the fret comes with all the bells and whistles for which WEM
photo-etch. Eight generous runs of railing in three different types are
included, including curved railing that follows the sheer of the bow. Seven
small runs of splinter matting are included. With other frets on British
subjects, splinter matting is often overlooked. However, it was a classic
British tactic to provide additional anti-splinter protection and was very
frequently found on Royal Navy destroyers. Yagis, other radar, vent grills,
davits, anchor chain, inclined ladders, vertical ladders, ship’s boats
fittings, carley racks, bridge wing supports, Oerlikons, staffs, siren brackets,
antennae, spacers, handrails, stove pipes, accommodation ladders, yardarms,
depth charge rails; about any small fitting you can envision is found on this
fret. I was struck by two, almost miniscule items that were included, two small
signal lamps. WEM provides two items that are about the size of the
trainable door lights sometimes found in police cruisers. That is attention to
detail!
White Ensign Models completes the components with brass rod and a decal
sheet with funnel markings and pendant numbers.
 |
Box, Decals & Instructions |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Instructions
Ditto!
I ought to start using this to reflect my statements about the instructions
found in every kit produced by White Ensign Models. As I have said many
times before, WEM is the King (or Queen in the case of Caroline) of
instructions. The best in the industry, the best in the world. You can find
criticism about almost every company’s instructions, except those from WEM.
I cannot recall ever reading any negative comment from anyone about the
instructions produced by this British company.
With Musketeer the instructions
are eight pages in length in the usual comprehensive WEM format. Page one
has a photograph of the ship, short history and ship’s specifications. Page
two has a photo and textual listing of the smaller parts, along with general
assembly instructions. Page three shows the photo-etch fret with every brass
part identified and described. Pages four through seven displays 19 modules or
steps for the assembly of Musketeer.
Each step is illustrated with one or more well drawn pictures accompanied by
text. You cannot become confused as to the assembly, WEM will not let
you. The last page, as usual, has a striking full color plan and profile that
besides being a work of art, doubles as color chart and painting guide. The
title photo above is a small portion of the profile on this sheet.
Verdict
A Masterpiece of production. State of the resin art. A superb replica of the
last and best British fleet destroyer design before the time constraints of war
forced the Royal Navy to accept inferior designs, based solely on their speed of
construction.
It is Halloween. With the White Ensign Models HMS
Musketeer, I know I have my treat. Do you have yours?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
