The Atom Furnace: The Enemy Below

I enjoy submarine war films. Some are a bit cheesy propaganda type, but there was a war on in the 40's so it is understandable and they were terrific. But one of my favorites is the subject of this and future posts.
While searching Hobbylinc for a spring "lockdown" project I came across the USS England, a Buckley Class Destroyer Escort (famous in the Pacific for sinking 6 enemy submarines). This Trumpeter Kit was less than $25. Great, but you get what you pay for-more about that later. Anyway I thought about "The Enemy Below" because the fictitious USS Haynes - 181 - is a Buckley Class DE (identified as such by the crew of the U-Boat they chase). The actual ship used in the movie is the USS Whitehurst, Buckley class DE. For those familiar with the plot the Haynes gives chase to the U-Boat with the climax of the Haynes being torpedoed, but fooling the U-Boat to the surface and ramming the sub. Destroyers ramming subs actually did occur! The most notable is the USS Borie which rammed the surfaced U-405 in 1943.

Back to the model. I thought of an homage diorama to the movie, so I plowed ahead and ordered the kit.

Upon it's arrival I soon realized that to put the kind of detail into it that I wanted I would need to add Photo etch parts. the kit came with only PE for the depth charge racks and nothing else- no ladders, railing etc. Another couple sawbucks later, the "Tom's Model Works" PE for the USS England arrived. Now I was set, or so I thought. Again, more about that later. As Chef Robert Irvine says "Let's Get To Work"!

I did not take many photos initially. But my brother (Littlebro) thought I should join the Atom Furnace as an author and Blog the building of the USS England aka USS Haynes. The kit comes with a two piece hull above and below the water line. All of the photos are of the above the waterline hull construction. Here the single piece steel deck is on the hull along with the forward 3" gun tub and the "Hedgehog Projector" right behind the tub. What is a hedgehog projector?? I had never heard of it until I found out on line during my research of the DE's armaments. A Royal Navy invention, it is a forward firing 65LB contact projectile weapon of 7 inch diatmeter. The projector tosses these "bombs" about 900 yards in front of the ship and they explode on contact with an object, unlike depth charges which explode at a set depth. Amazingly the Hedgehog has a 5.7 to 1 kill ratio as compared to the 60 to 1 ratio of the depth charge!! Who Knew??

A few other assemblies are started.

Here we begin to see the extra detail the result of the extra purchased PE. The 20MM AA go from the simple two piece in the kit to a 5 piece construct with the PE added.

This is the aft 3" gun in it's tub with ammo lockers, PE floor grating and painted. I paint all assemblies as I produce them. Many parts I paint while still on the sprue. Note that the side depth charge projectors are also installed and painted.

The painting of the ship is simple as compared to my previous Dreadnought builds. Navy Blue (my mix), Gray, Silver and a thinner/black weathering wash.

This shows the installation of the PE depth charge roll off racks at the stern. The PE provided in the kit was used for this since it was Trumpeter and not after market.

Likewise for the depth charge projectors.

This shows the extra PE used for the life raft mounts. The inside of raft is cut out and replaced by PE along with delicate support. I did not use this procedure for the forward rafts as they lent themselves to pin drilling out the raft bottom grating as seen below.

A progress photos, aft.

As with the previous Dreadnought builds I use the PE Bins (for flotation ropes and devices); however due to photographs viewed I noted that the Bins have knee bracing. I cut up extra pieces of PE to add said bracing.