1/350 Trumpeter French Battleship "Richelieu" by Louis Carabott

The Richelieu was a battleship of the French Navy, lead ship of her class. She served during World War II, on the Vichy Regime side, notably fending off an Allied attempt on Dakar, and later with Allied forces in the Indian Ocean in 1944 and 1945. She was used during the Indochina War, and served into the 1960s.

Derived from the Dunkerque class, Richelieu and Jean Bart, as well as the unfinished Clemenceau and Gascogne, were designed to counter the growing threat of the Italian Navy. Their speed, armour, armament and overall technology were state of the art and compared favourably to contemporary rivals. The turret arrangement for the main battery of eight 380 mm guns was unusual, with two 4-gun turrets located forward.

In the context of the Treaty of Washington, the quadruple arrangement had the advantage of saving weight on turret armouring, compared to four double turrets, while retaining the same firepower. The drawback was that a single lucky shot immobilising one of the turrets would effectively put half the main artillery out of action. On the other hand, the entirety of the main artillery was able to fire forwards, as the ship closed in to her enemy, in an angle where she made the smallest possible target.



Richelieu in September 1943, after refit. Aircraft equipment have been removed from the aft deck and replaced with anti-aircraft artillery

The Richelieu class, with their 380 mm main artillery, were the most powerful battleships ever built in France. The keel was laid in October 1935 in Brest. Richelieu was launched in January 1939, and sea trials began in January 1940.

(sourse: French battleship Richelieu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

 

I am going to portray this battleship in a diorama prior leaving the USA after it’s refit programme in 1943 painted in the MS3X Haze scheme. I will explain the intentions of the diorama as I go along. The kit is not bad but as usual much detail and corrections as one can see from the pics have to be added to achieve the required result. The first thing was to take off the lower part of the hull since it’s going to be a waterline model.

I then concentrated on the funnel assembly and this was detailed accordingly. With extra piping and alterations to the original parts of the kit. I must add that I got invaluable assistance from Sebastien Lausdat with very rare photographs of the battleship. The lower part of the superstructure was then tackled which wasn’t too much of a problem.

This is not going to be a difficult build apart from the scratchbuilding of the other stuff in the diorama which I will explain later on….The difficult part is going to be the painting of the ship which will be a real challenge.



I Worked for a while on Fuel Depot’s section.

 

Took a break from the ship and did some work on some very fiddly bits that will go with the diorama....they were all fashioned out of photoetch left overs and bits and pieces from here and there...still some work to be done on them ....they r e not even glued together yet and painted of course....I enjoyed this bit...

 

Just finished the basics of the small Harbour cargo ship which will be incorporated in the Richelieu diorama. It's entirely scratchbuilt....

 

Hull and decks completed minus bofors, turrets, oerlikons and superstructure....regret the quality of the pics but my camera is kaput I thinks if you may notice the colours are all different

 

Well here's some pics of the French Beast minus it's superstructure , waist oerlikons ..rigging etc....launch boats were scratchbuilt and fine detail addes to the bofors quadruple antiaircraft guns ...will now continue a bit on the wharf ......hope u like the picsin nannu pec What a Face!!!

 

Now concentratingt on vehicles and miscellaneous equipment...here's a utility barge which will be next to the bow of the ship for anchor repairs....Decided to make train longer ...so bigger engine, a large diesel.....which I enjoyed doing also new cabooses all scratchbuilt... different vehicles fashioned out of the original ...the one with the tarapulin ....as well a s to give you an idea...a boathouse and harbour lights...have to get this beast ready for Catania and yes already checked it fits in the overhead rack.

 

Finally I managed to finish the main body of the ship. Some details will be added afterwards