Having seen, fallen in love with and purchased the M15 kit at the Wickstead show last year, I decided to make a sister ship. Ship's Doctor is building M18 which has the 9.2inch MkX gun as per the kit, but having seen, and been intrigued with the 9.2inch gun MkVI, I decided upon building M19.
There were not enough mountings of the sort used by the Cressy class Armoured Cruisers and so older guns from the Endymion class cruisers were used. These ships were being modified for coastal bombardment and were to be fitted with an all 6inch gun armament, thus their single 9.2 inch equipments were redundant.
I began with the superstructure and weapons because I like that sort of thing and getting the complex stuff out of the way first will allow me to push the hull and finishing along at the end with a better idea of what time I need to complete. All through this build I have referred to the Ian Buxton book on Big Gun Monitors and also I.V. Hogg's book Naval Gun, which by chance had a side plan of the very gun and mount that I needed!
Settle down with a cup of tea and a biscuit or two. Here we go...
First off, the superstructure.
This was built as per the kit with just the semicircular searchlight platform ends moved forward. The layout of the bridge and roof fittings are somewhat different and will be covered forthwith.
The Bridge on M19 is smaller than that of M15 and threw up some interesting questions such as where the chart table went on sucha diddy floor plan?
The bridge is further back than on M15 with the space forward being used as an open air wardroom with canopy!
I sculpted the blast mats from Milliput
The chart table was fitted to the right hand side of the railings and supported on braces.
And has a sloping roof to keep the worst of the elements off.
This is the kit 6pounder gun modified to become the early High angle weapon for anti aircraft defence. A raised section was made from pine strip and clad in plastic onto which the kit gun was fitted. The assembly was then
put onto the kit pintle and painted.
