HMCS British Columbia: Battlecruiser of the Great White Nor
Posted: 22 Aug 2014, 18:31
So, you all know that I'm a Sherman guy. But I'm also a wargamer, and this model was inspired by one. Back in 2011, I participated in a play-by-email, limited-intelligence game of the opening days of the Great War in North American waters. I commanded HMCS Niobe, the first naval vessel commissioned by Canada. Other players had British, French, and German vessels. I captured a German freighter slipping out of New York on the opening night of the war, and later came across another sitting well off the shipping lanes along with a British prize. They were waiting for another vessel, and that turned out to be the raider Kronprinz Wilhelm which I overhauled and sank. But what of the Germans? Wireless soon told the tale; the Karlsruhe had bombarded ports in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and was making for the open Atlantic south of Halifax. Allied vessels converged, and in a howling gale at night a few miles off Halifax Karlsruhe went down along with a British and a French cruiser. Niobe, racing to the sight of gunfire, arrived in time to rescue survivors from all three.
That got me thinking...Canada's Senate in actual history had narrowly voted down a bill that would have had Canada fund three Queen Elizabeths just before the war. My thought was, how might that have been reconsidered had Canadian ports actually been shelled? I came to the conclusion that Canada would want to build ships which could run down any raider, and that meant a battlecruiser. In 1914, the most advanced battlecruiser in the world had just been launched in Britain for Japan, the IJN Kongo. So I kitbashed 1/700 ships to make mine: A Kongo, a Hood, a Prince of Wales, and an Alabama, on the assumption that Canada built two sister ships, rebuilt them prior to WW2, and used them through the war. I even wrote a detailed alternate history of both ships, just to amuse my wargame buddies.
So this is HMCS British Columbia. The model won first place at the IPMS Vancouver show in 2012, I think more for the novelty and story than for the modeling skill. It was definitely a different project, and a lot of fun. She's finished in the Western Approaches camo scheme, worn by Atlantic convoy escorts.
That got me thinking...Canada's Senate in actual history had narrowly voted down a bill that would have had Canada fund three Queen Elizabeths just before the war. My thought was, how might that have been reconsidered had Canadian ports actually been shelled? I came to the conclusion that Canada would want to build ships which could run down any raider, and that meant a battlecruiser. In 1914, the most advanced battlecruiser in the world had just been launched in Britain for Japan, the IJN Kongo. So I kitbashed 1/700 ships to make mine: A Kongo, a Hood, a Prince of Wales, and an Alabama, on the assumption that Canada built two sister ships, rebuilt them prior to WW2, and used them through the war. I even wrote a detailed alternate history of both ships, just to amuse my wargame buddies.
So this is HMCS British Columbia. The model won first place at the IPMS Vancouver show in 2012, I think more for the novelty and story than for the modeling skill. It was definitely a different project, and a lot of fun. She's finished in the Western Approaches camo scheme, worn by Atlantic convoy escorts.