HMS Vanguard
HMS VANGUARD
(the last battleship ever built)
The VANGUARD is my third ship, and a HUGE switch from the little cruisers I had been using (the only ships bigger are the USS Iowa and IJN Yamato). In fact, its battery alone weighs more than my past two ships total weight! This ship was not a kit and is entirely scratch-built. Doing this was not any cheaper than a kit, was much more work, and took longer to do...
SO WHY WOULD ANYONE GO THROUGH THIS TROUBLE?
It actually started because a college student of mine wanted to get into the hobby (obsession?) and wanted to build a battleship, but not one that lots of other people had already built (the kits). He had scale plans of the HMS Vanguard made up and wanted to use my tool shop to cut out all the wooden ribs. He accidentally ordered enough wood to do two complete hulls, so he suggested I cut out two of each piece at a time from our template...
VIOLA, MATCHING VANGUARDS!
Model STATS (1:144 scale per IRCWCC rules)
Length: 67.8" Beam: 9.0" Weight: 38.58 lbs (42.43 lbs max)
Speed: 24 sec/100' 4 Props: 4 (3-blade 1.25" diam.) and 1 Rudder (6.0 square inches!)
Only the 2 center props are driven in the model, but I like to mount the same brass props on the "dummy" shafts (required for scale accuracy to the original ship), so that if I lose a drive prop I have the spare mounted readily available on the ship.
Part of the desire of building the HMS Vanguard is that there is no kit of this ship (and hence few others are ever seen). Of course, that means that part of the challenge of building this ship is that there is no kit of this hull... This ship is my first attempt at building a hull from scratch by cutting out and gluing plywood ribs and keels. After all this work, I made the internal armor from clear plastic soda bottles so I would still be able to see the wooden parts.
There are no other 7 unit ships, so there were no pre-made rudders to buy from those guys who make kits in our hobby. I was able to fashion a rudder of the proper size by cutting and then soldering together two thin sheets of brass over a brass rod.
At left you can see the two electric motors that turn the two driven props. The motor mounts are simply pieces of aluminum I bent and drilled (in alignment with the threaded holes already on the motors). This makes the motors very easy to remove if necessary. You can also see the pump situated between the two drive motors. The pump sits all the way against the bottom of the hull actually between the double keel. The rest of these spaces will be filled in and act as a water channel which will direct water down into the pump well (allowing the pump to prime and begin pumping as soon as any water begins entering the ship. The clear tubing is the exit tube the pump forces the water up out of the ship through.
In this ship I decided to group my six cannons into three dual batteries (dual sterns, dual port side-mounts and dual starboard side-mounts). Only the three largest ships in our hobby (Yamato, Iowa, and Vanguard) are allowed to put their side-mounts paired up like this (the idea is that the two bb's will hit close together and do more damage, making it a real killer in close).
For more information and pictures on the scratch-building of these monsters
click to go to VANGUARD CONSTRUCTION PAGES
The original (actually 10th) HMS VANGUARD
Laid Down: 2nd October 1941
Launched: 30th November 1944
Comissioned: 9th August, 1946
Length: 814 ft.
Beam: 108 ft.
Weight: 51,420 tons (full load)
Complement: 1500
Armor:
Main Belt: 14"
Deck: 6"
Turrets: 13"
Armament:
primary: 8 x 15"/42 cal Mk1 Mountings (in 4 turrets)
secondary: 16 x 5.25"/50 cal Mk1 (in 8 turrets)
AA: 73 x 40mm AA/56 cal Bofors (10 x 6, 1 x 2, 11 x 1)
Engines/Power:
Boilers: 8 Admiralty 3 Drum small tube type with superheaters
Turbines 4 Parsons single reduction geared turbines
Shafts: 4 ( 2 x 5 bladed inner props; 2 x 3 bladed outer props.
Horsepower: 130,000 shp.
Maximun Speed: 29.75 knots.
Oil Bunkerage: 7000 tons of oil.
Endurance: 9000 nautical miles at 20 knots.
If you want to know more, I highly recommend "The Life & Times of the Royal Navy"
(the ULTIMATE HMS VANGUARD WEBSITE)