BUILDING THE OZMODS 1/600 RAN DARING CLASS DESTROYER
HMAS VOYAGER

By Simon Wolff

History

Three Daring class destroyers were built in Australia for the Royal Australian Navy. Named Voyager, Vendetta and Vampire respectively and based on a modified British Daring class design, HMAS Voyager was the first to be delivered. She was launched 1st May 1952 by the wife of the then Prime Minister John Menzies and commissioned 12th February 1957.

The Daring class in Australian service were employed as gunfire support ships and escort to the RAN Flagship the carrier HMAS Melbourne. It's armament consisted of three turrets housing two 4.5 inch guns each, six 40 mm guns, one Limbo mortar and five 21 inch torpedo tubes.

Voyager's motto was "where fate calls". Fate called on her on the night of 10th February 1964. In Australia's worst military peace time naval accident the Voyager was cut in half by the carrier HMAS Melbourne. Both ships were taking part in Naval exercises off the south coast of New South Wales. For some inexplicable reason she crossed the bow of the Melbourne, being struck at the after end of the bridge. This tragic accident cost the lives of 82 men.

The Voyager was replaced by a Royal Navy Daring class vessel named HMS Duchess, which was originally loaned to and then later bought by the Australian Government.

The last of the Daring class left Australian service in 1986. HMAS Vampire was paid off and is now moored alongside the National Maritime Museum.

Ozmods HMAS Voyager - or how to open a Pandora's box!

The kit

The kit comprises fifty-two resin parts, eight of which are not used. It consists of the hull and forward superstructure, plus forty-two assorted other parts. It came boxed with a single page instruction sheet which consisted of assembly instructions, brief history plus starboard and above view drawings. No decals or colour guide were provided in the kit.

This kit is clearly based on the old Airfix kit of the Daring class destroyer which was released in 1961. As such, the kit needs some modifications to make it 'like' an Australian Daring class.

I think this kit cost around the $40 mark when I originally bought it. On learning that there was a kit of the Voyager coming out I thought "great another ship to add to the 'dead ship' collection". I use the term 'dead ships' because this is how Skywave described, on the back of their kit boxes, ships lost or sunk ie. HMS Sheffield a dead ship!

Every modeller has a 'must have' category, which means it is a kit that has nothing to do with quality or cost.. or for that matter common sense! For me it was the Voyager. How can I describe this kit.. how about 'challenging' just for a start!.

Being turned into a resin kit the old Airfix product loses a lot of its finesse. The parts are at times rough and lacking in quality. The resin is very brittle. The major part - the hull - had many air bubble holes in it. Fit of parts is below average. A reasonable amount of putty was needed to fill gaps where the forward superstructure mates to the hull.

Thanks to a good friend in APMA I was able to replace some of the resin parts with Airfix parts which made construction much easier.

Construction started with the hull and superstructure. This required care in location as no location holes are provided. It also needed some putty to fill the obvious gaps.

Next came the three turrets. Two located forward and one aft. The resin 4.5 gun barrels lacked detail and, as they were fairly fragile and looked out of scale, I chose to replace these with stretched sprue. This section was followed by the five 21 inch torpedo tubes. The resin parts were inadequate due to poor quality. I chose to replace these using some parts from an Airfix kit and making five tubes from stretched sprue.

Next came the 40mm Bofors guns, two located on either side of the bridge and one located aft of the funnel. These again looked quite inadequate in representing the guns so I replaced these. This required some considerable work as no replacements were to hand. Ultimately I made these by converting some Japanese small calibre turrets from a Skywaves accessory set, which were cut and modified by adding a floor and rear section and cutting viewing slots. The barrels were made from stretched sprue.

Now came the major headache of all! The mast supplied with the kit, three ladder-like resin parts bearing no resemblance to the actual structure. What to do? I looked at trying to cheat by using 1/700 Gold Medal photo-etched parts, but this proved far too small and no way could I get away with using this. So, in the end, I had to resort to scratch-building the whole thing from stretched sprue. Oh the joy of cutting hundreds of little bits of sprue and the familiar 'ping' as numerous parts leapt into space and escaping into invisibility in the carpet. Actually it took only a couple of hours work. The kit drawings provided, along with photographs, gave enough information on how this should look. Doing this made the whole model look more accurate and realistic.

Another set of parts that badly needed replacing were the main director and director lobes. These resin parts bore more of a resemblance to Ned Kelly than what they supposedly sought to be. Using the kit part for the main director I sliced off the top part and built up a frame from photo etched parts, shaped to suite, and then added a small piece of plastic card for the half roof. The director lobes were replaced with bent copper wire and two parts cut from sprue runners, the 'lobes' resembling large head lights.

The resin davits presented the next hurdle and were replaced by simply making these from brass wire. The resin boats (gee have I left any resin parts on?) proved rather rough in detail so found three from a spares box.

Actually I wasn't too happy with the brass wire davits but chose to leave them on anyway as I didn't want to fiddle with the bastards anymore (ed. can I say that? Yup - RNP.)!

Next exercise in insanity involved replacing the kit Limbo mortar with one made from scratch. Actually this was not difficult. The actual item consists of three barrels raised vertically through what looks like a large wedge. A bit of stretched sprue and a piece of thick plastic card.

Next bit of 'wooden horse work' came as I hit the antennae and aerials located atop the main mast. Unfortunately the drawings provided only showed part of the array. I obtained further information from photos I took at HMAS Albatross in Nowra last year of a beautiful 1/72 model made by a member of Task Force 72, plus a number of publications which provided additional photos. The radar dish and antenna were all scratchbuilt from stretched sprue. Not a difficult task but a bit fiddly and requiring patience, something I am not known for. Again the distinct sound of more stretched sprue leaping from the clutch of the tweezers to escape into the cover of carpet.

If this goes on a bit long don't blame me as I was only the insane idiot who wanted a quick model!

Next! I Added a new antenna located between the rear 4.5 and funnel. This was made simply by gluing two pieces of stretched sprue in the shape of a cross.

Anchors, you will be glad to know that by now I had found something in the kit I felt did not need replacing and a relief to me to!

Something missing from this kit was the walkway between the forward superstructure and rear superstructure. This was one of the easiest parts to insert as it only need a thin bit of plastic card superglued between the structures.

Colours

Here I resorted to an old copy of the club APMA Magazine which has a colour chip in it for RAN ship colours. I also referred to numerous colour photos of RAN ships to help. My fear was having to mix lots of colours to achieve the right colour, but lo and behold on opening the paint drawer I found that Humbrol tin number 31 was virtually a perfect match. So I used this and added a fair amount of matt white to bring the tone of the colour down. This mix was then sprayed on.

Other areas that required painting were the decks in dark grey, a mixture of Humbrol 66/HG4 Dark Grey and matt white, with black walkways. A green circle is located under each 4.5 turret with a red cheat line. The top part of the main mast and funnel were painted black; radar dish and mast antennas are white; rear mast is hull grey on the lower half and black on the upper half.

The final part of this model involved attaching photo-etched rails from a Gold Medal Models 1/600 Naval set. My first go at fitting rails, thanks to some kindly advice from SMML subscribers I attached these using only a little super glue and the rest with a PVA (white glue). It took some work to get used to attaching ship rails but the end result made the model look more realistic. The rails were attached after the ship had been completely painted and the rails painted in the hull colour.

Onward, ever onward rode the insane ship modeller! I now made a 'sea scene' from that wonderful putty called Milliput. A long and laborious effort building it up in sections and then dabbing in the hundreds of waves with the end of a wooden artists clay-shaping tool. A lot of effort but worth it for the effect that is achieved. I found the best effect I could get from making ëseaí is to do an undercoat of matt white, followed by a Humbrol Gloss Dark Blue mixed with Humbrol Green 101. I painted a shaky line of white down the side of the hull and sweeping out from the bow wake. Then finally coating this with a thick high gloss varnish to give that feeling of depth to the sea.. or maybe I should say fathoms.. said he reaching for another sip of port!

Conclusion

As you may guess from what I have written there is a lot of work involved in making this into something even resembling a model of the Voyager. In short the kit barely resembles an Australian Daring. There are fundamental flaws in the kit's accuracy. The most obvious is too many portholes. The Australian Darings had far fewer portholes than shown in the kit, so many need filling. The main mast is woefully inaccurate and looks positively hideous. The detail on the resin parts is poor. The area aft of the bridge is very inaccurate in shape (something I didn't notice until well into the construction stage). The funnel is too small in scale. Various fitting shown in reference photos have been left off the kit. The shape of the aft director is atrocious. No colour details are provided in the kit instructions. The kit is lacking in detail and refinement. In short I would not recommend this kit unless you are prepared to put many, many (in short a couple of gallons of elbow grease) hours of extra work and effort.

Reference:

- Novel. Where Fate Calls by Tom Frame (a first class investigation into the tragedy)
- RAN Profile No.2 Australian submarines, Destroyers and Escorts (a couple of good photos)
- ABC TV Four Corners Episode on the 28th Anniversary of the loss of Voyager
- Defence public relations publication Royal Australian Navy - A brief History (wonderful colour photo of Voyager, Melbourne and Vendetta)
- July 86 issue of Model boats has useful photos of a large scale RN Daring Photos taken of Task Force 72 model of the Voyager
- Two photos from the collection of Warship & Marine Corp Museum in Sydney
- APMA Magazine Spring 1991 issue
- 1:1 scale HMAS Vampire located in Sydney at National Maritime Museum