28mm NAVAL VBCW (PART TWO) - AKULA'S INSANITY DOCUMENTED

The invariable rule of wargames projects - and building a VBCW Aircraft Carrier group "in 28mm scale" must surely count as a "wargames project" - is that someone, somewhere has done it before you.

Just when you thought it was truly impossible to build a 1/60 aircraft carrier, up pops a 10 foot long model of the Royal Navy's very first flat-top, HMS Argus, in full "dazzle camouflage" scheme:

HMS Argus in "28mm scale" - 10 foot long.

The nutjob crazy wargamer who produced all 10 feet of the 28mm HMS Argus (when contemplating a 28mm carrier, you, of course, are sane - it is only he that is crazy) for a wargames show more than a decade ago (Fiasco 2009) was none other than LAF Member Akula, and his very entertaining build thread is still preserved on the Lead Adventure Forum. A flavour of the thread can be gathered from the very first response (by Rudi Geudens) - "Right mate, beware of those nice young men in their clean white coats: they're coming to take you away...." - but it also covers how the carrier was built and crewed, plus the aircraft stored upon it. In no particular order, lessons from Akula's experience:

(1). the choice of HMS Argus was inspired, in that it was only 560 foot in length, or "10 model feet" at 1/56. Later and larger carriers (such as Ark Royal at 800 feet in length) would have required a model of nearer to 15 feet. This would point to any model of a 28mm VBCW carrier being more of an "escort carrier" (typically 500 feet long) than a "fleet carrier" (typically around 900 feet long);

(2). uniquely but obviously, for a model aircraft carrier, there has to be an inter-relationship (of whatever type) between the scale of any crew figures (Akula - 28mm), the scale of the ship (Akula - 1/56) and the scale of the planes on the flat-top itself (Akula - 1/48). If the scales of any of these elements do not work together, the result will simply look odd. Quite why Akula opted for 1/48 scale planes as opposed to the smaller 1/72 option is unknown. Nevertheless, his cleverly converted 28mm crew (utilising the RND hats from the Gripping Beast line of separate heads) must have "looked right", in his opinion, both next to the planes and "on the deck";

(3). from memory, the 1/56 scale HMS Argus was only used in an "as docked" scenario at Fiasco 2009. Again, this was clever - but not something that the intended "Bristol Fleet" can emulate. To the contrary, the "Bristol Fleet" has to "manoeuvre at sea" for the purposes of the "Assault on Newquay" Big Game (Autumn 2022), which puts an additional stress on building an appropriate "carrier group".

(4). Finally, there is no record of how Akula actually transported his HMS Argus to the show.........

An elegant "transport solution". Not HMS Argus, but the USS Nevada modelled in 1/15 scale
for "Tora, Tora, Tora" and apparently still occasionally produced for parades in Los Angeles.