Airfix 1/600 HMS Warspite

An In Box Review by Ian Wilkins

Probably the most famous modern ship of the Royal Navy along with Hood, Warspite saw service in both world wars and underwent a variety of appearance changes over her long career. She entered service in April 1915 and did not complete scrapping until 1955.

This is another venerable old kit from the Airfix range and is currently available. It is one of the better quality Airfix releases, not as good as their top kits like Repulse, KGV, or Prinz Eugen, but it carries a reasonable level of detail and seems quite accurate. The kit depicts Warspite in her late 30s appearance after her last and most radical refit where a new style tower bridge was added.

The mouldings are very good considering this kit's age, there being no flash present and no sinkmarks. The hull is nicely done showing interesting detail along the anti torpedo bulges. Gun barrels are fine enough but have exaggerated muzzle flare which needs to be sanded off.

The hull moulding measures six scale feet short of Warspite's actual length. Warspite and Barham were longer that their sisters by four feet so if you are interested in extreme accuracy the kit is a good compromise for all ships in the class.

This kit would no doubt make a good basis for conversion projects especially considering the large number of appearance changes that ships of this class went through. Converting to WWI appearance would be require the removal of the previously mentioned bulges, however, - a less that trivial undertaking. Perhaps making a waterline model would be the answer.

The re-release of this kit and Iron Duke by Airfix are very welcome. Hopefully more will follow in the near future.