Naval WWII "Heavy Metal"

Ahoy there sailor!

Over the Xmas holidays I managed a couple of 'late nights to myself' with a 'brandy and lemonade' (yes I was raiding the drinks cabinet in the small hours) putting together my last two 1/1200 unmade kits from the Airfix "Sink the Bismarck" party pack box set, the mighty KM Bismarck herself and one of her taunting shadowers, HMS Suffolk (see below):  

I have to say, it was not a chore, but something I have been meaning to do for a long, long time. My naval wargaming comes in fits and starts, but the 1/1200 scale KM Bismarck kit is a "quick assembly" pleasure to put together (see below). Note: I already have one done from the Revell 1/1200 waterline series, as well as possessing a 1/1200 metal kit, but I think the Airfix one is far superior (or am I just getting nostalgic?), a side effect perhaps of already having the 1/600 scale model kit available to shrink down (and thus 'reduce' any modelling errors). 

HMS Suffolk was another delight (see below), again Airfix make her in 1/600 too so the same short odf "error reduction" is probably at play here again. 

As per my original "Sink the Bismarck" post way back, I was extremely lucky to be gifted two of these RN County class cruisers in my "Sink the Bismarck" set by some kind Airfix "packing elf" (I just hope no one was one short somewhere else in the world). I briefly toyed withe idea of converting the second 'County' cruiser into the historic "scouting cruiser" partner (HMS Norfolk) but when I discovered it was slightly more fiddly than "raising up and filling in" the lowered stern (HMS Suffolk has a stern that drops down just a tad for an eighth of the ships length) I "passed" and will  happily call her HMS Berwick (an identical Suffolk sister that did sterling convoy work) or generically refer to her as "an eight inch RN cruiser".