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Wednesday, 4 December 2024

Bucket List Project: Fletcher Pratt 1:600(ish) game of The Battle of the River Plate [Model Collection] HMS Achilles

This is a long standing project of mine, ignorant to the disrespectful advice on how silly and large a scale it is to play it in. True to Airfix 1970's childhood fashion, three plastic cruiser kits versus a pocket battleship kit .. recreating "The Battle of the River Plate" (see below, the final ship model for the collection, an Airfix HMS Ajax which has to be converted to its Leander class sister HMS Achilles .. which I believe is to do with the positioning of the AA battery? I will find out as I thinks there is an online copy of an Airfix magazine I need to read .. as I am not the first wanting to do this):   


The rules I intend to (first) use are Fletcher Pratt .. then we will see where that takes me. With this purchase I now have:
  • HMS Ajax (Airfix 1:600) 
  • HMS Exeter (Waterline 1:700 or an Old Russian 1:500 kits)
  • HMS Achilles (Airfix 1:600 conversion)
  • KM Admiral Graf Spee (Airfix 1:600 or Waterline 1:700 KM Deutschland)
Lets see how long it tales me to make and paint them. 

Update: 

From Bankinista, many thanks: Airfix Magazine Nov 1965 has an article on converting the Ajax kit to the Achilles at the time of the River Plate:
https://www.davecov.org/modelling/refer ... rsions.pdf
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4 comments:

  1. Martin Rapier4 December 2024 at 08:00

    That looks like a fun thing to do although it was always a shame that Airfix didn't do waterline versions of their kits. My Graf Spee was blown up with fireworks at some point in the mid 1970s!

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  2. ian drury4 December 2024 at 13:58

    Having played our version of Fletcher Pratt at full scale in London, I recommend getting a laser measurer (as used by architects) which makes measuring ranges of ten or twelve feet rather easier than using an enormous tape measure.

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  3. Geordie an Exiled FoG5 December 2024 at 00:22

    That would be an interesting to to play with Ian, analogue [or digital, certainly tactile] realism

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  4. Geordie an Exiled FoG5 December 2024 at 00:23

    Fireworks are a glorious way for a plastic model ship to meet its end Martin

    ReplyDelete