Reduced my led pile a little further by starting work on some long held 1/3000 Navwar Italian ships, some of which are needed for a scenario this coming weekend.....nothing like upcoming game requirements to get a bit of motivation going 
Cleaned up 10 destroyers, 10 cruisers, 4 battleships and 1 carrier (the Aquila which was never fully completed).

Carefully drilled out 1mm holes for extra masts on the cruisers and battleships using me rotary drill (without any bloodletting or broken drill bits  )

Prepared bases (couldn't fit the complete name "Luigi Di Savoia Duca degli Abruzzi" on the base so just called her "Abruzzi" in the end.

Next challenge is to figure out how to evenly paint the diagonal red/white aerial ID stripes on the foredeck of each ship.....paint deck white first then dip an old marker pen in red paint to make 2 lines which can then be painted between?   

Looking forward to seeing these on Saturday

I've just done it with white background and a horizontal 00 brush.

Photos later

GTHe worst thing on WW2 Italians is those deck stripes. (I know that is stateing the blindingly obvious) Anyone know why they did it, must have attracted a wondering torpedeo armed Wimpy, Beaufort or later Beaufighter ?

Because they had a tendancy to attract their own air force without them!!!

Work in progress

Quote from: ianrs54 on 14 July 2020, 04:08:41 PM
GTHe worst thing on WW2 Italians is those deck stripes. (I know that is stateing the blindingly obvious) Anyone know why they did it, must have attracted a wondering torpedeo armed Wimpy, Beaufort or later Beaufighter ?

During the latter stages of the Battle of Calabria/Punta Stilo on 9 July 1940 the Italian fleet was attempting to withdraw and was in fairly close proximity to the British fleet when an Italian air raid of some 100+ aircraft arrived. In the confused situation some 50% of the planes attacked their own ships. Naturally the Regia Marina were not impressed and amongst other measures decided to paint the foredecks of their ships with red and white diagonal stripes.

Nice job on the models Lemmey 👍

Quote from: pierre the shy on 15 July 2020, 02:49:01 AM
During the latter stages of the Battle of Calabria/Punta Stilo on 9 July 1940 the Italian fleet was attempting to withdraw and was in fairly close proximity to the British fleet when an Italian air raid of some 100+ aircraft arrived. In the confused situation some 50% of the planes attacked their own ships. Naturally the Regia Marina were not impressed and amongst other measures decided to paint the foredecks of their ships with red and white diagonal stripes.

Nice job on the models Lemmey 👍

Well at least they got stuck in, didn't go home with full loads

Nice work there Lemmy!

Looking good, Will.

Cheers - Phil

Quote from: ianrs54 on 14 July 2020, 04:08:41 PM
GTHe worst thing on WW2 Italians is those deck stripes. (I know that is stateing the blindingly obvious) Anyone know why they did it, must have attracted a wondering torpedeo armed Wimpy, Beaufort or later Beaufighter ?

It's not about the combat effectiveness, it's about the looking good whilst steaming up and down the med! 

Italian ship yards got bonuses if the ship went faster than the design spec, so bits got left off. Course in any sort of weather British ships could steam rings round them. Better seakeeping

Quote from: ianrs54 on 16 July 2020, 09:21:21 AM
Italian ship yards got bonuses if the ship went faster than the design spec, so bits got left off. Course in any sort of weather British ships could steam rings round them. Better seakeeping

And the heaviest thing when it comes to displacement savings is ... armour.

Never mind, we'll get some admiralty chap to rewrite the doctrine and assert that "Speed is armour".


Yeah, but can it outrun a fully-laden stringbag?

(Not while anchored).

If that sounds disrespectful, it's not intended that way.

One of the best "what if" Naval settings is France Vs Italy in the Med (Assuming WW2 didn't break out).

Bismark couldna out run Stringbags, but her flak couldna hit cause they were too slow.

Here are mine so far!

https://madlemmey.blogspot.com/2020/07/13000-italians-fleet-for-naval-thunder.html

Eight Navigatori class destroyers


Top view for stripes!


Do I get the other 4 so I own all 12? 


Collioni and Bende Nere Cruisers (Collioni was sunk before she could have he air recognition stripes done)


Lovely looking ships, pity they had very little armour


Menacing?

They look cracking, Will ! 

Cheers - Phil

Very nice Lemmey 

I'll try painting the deck stripes freehand when I get round to them.

My painting has been deferred by "real world" events for the past few days, hope to be able to get back to some next week, but we'll see.

Has anyone ever tried using wee brushes with very long bristles to paint lines/stripes ?

It's only something that's occured to me after I saw a bit of a TV show called "The repair shop", that Von was watching the other day.
The operative was using a brush like that to paint 'lines'......OK.....On something somewhat larger than a 10mm figure, but I'd imagine the principal would be the same.

She seemed to have MUCH more control doing the lines with a long bristle brush......because it holds (relatively) much more paint, and so she could do the lines much more smoothly.

Just a thought...Never tried it myself.....I'm not even sure that brushes like this, suitable for painting wee figures, even exist.

Cheers - Phil

I use Posca paint pens. Or a Sharpie.