+++ DISCLAIMER +++
Nothing you see here is real, even though the model, the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!
Some background:
The J, K and N class was a class of destroyers of the Royal Navy, launched in 1938 in three flotillas or groups and with names beginning with "J", "K" and "N", respectively. Their design was intended as a smaller follow-on from the preceding Tribal class and incorporated one radical new idea that was a departure from all previous Royal Navy destroyer designs: the adoption of a two-boiler room layout. This reduced hull length and allowed for a single funnel, both reducing the profile and increasing the arcs of fire of the light anti-aircraft (AA) weapons. However, this also increased vulnerability, as there were now two adjacent large compartments with the resultant risk of a single well-placed hit flooding both and resulting in a total loss of boiler power. This illustrates somewhat the Admiralty's attitude to the expendable nature of destroyers, but destroyers were lightly armored and fast vessels, anyway, meant to survive by avoiding being hit at all. From this perspective, the odds of a single hit striking just the right spot to disable both boiler rooms simultaneously were considered remote enough to be worth risking in exchange for the benefits given by a two-room layout.
A significant advancement in construction techniques was developed by naval architect Albert Percy Cole. Instead of going for transverse frame sections which were unnecessarily strong, but held together by weak longitudinals, Cole opted for extra strong longitudinals and weaker transverse frames. Another advancement was changes to the bow design, which was modified from that of the preceding Tribal-class design: the clipper bow was replaced by a straight stem with increased sheer. This change was not a success and these ships were very wet forwards. This shortcoming was rectified from the later S class onward by returning to the earlier form.
Despite the vulnerability of the boiler layout, the design was to prove compact, strong and very successful, forming the basis of all Royal Navy destroyer construction from the O class up to the last of the C class of 1943–1945.
The armament was based on that of the Tribals but replaced one twin QF 4.7 in (120 mm) Mark XII (L/45) gun on mounting CP Mk. XIX with an additional bank of torpedo tubes. These mountings were capable of 40° elevation and 340° of training. Curiously, 'X' mounting was positioned such that the blind 20° arc was across the stern, rather than the more logical forward position where fire was obscured by the bridge and masts anyway. This meant that they were unable to fire dead astern. With the tubes now 'pentad', a heavy load of ten Mk. IX torpedoes could be carried. AA armament consisted of a quadruple QF 2 pdr gun Mark VIII on a Mk. VII mounting and a pair of quadruple 0.5 in Vickers machine guns, which were later replaced with more effective 20 mm Oerlikons.
These ships, when completed, had a comparatively heavy close-range AA armament. Fire control arrangements also differed from the Tribals, and the dedicated high-angle (H/A) rangefinder director was not fitted. Instead only a 12 ft (3.7 m) rangefinder was carried behind the nominally dual-purpose Director Control Tower (DCT). In the event, the rangefinder was heavily modified to allow it to control the main armament for AA fire and was known as the "3 man modified rangefinder". These ships used the Fuze Keeping Clock HA Fire Control Computer.
In 1940 and 1941, to improve the anti-aircraft capabilities, the ships had their aft torpedo tubes removed and replaced with a single 4” gun QF Mark V on a HA Mark III mounting. The relatively ineffective multiple 0.5-inch (12.7 mm) machine guns were replaced with single 20 mm Oerlikons, with a further pair added abreast the searchlight platform amidships. The high-speed destroyer mine sweeps were replaced with a rack and two throwers for 45 depth charges, and a Type 286 Radar air warning was added at the masthead alongside Type 285 fire control on the H/A rangefinder-director.
H.M.S. Jubilant was the last J-class destroyer to be ordered in March 1937, and she was the last one to be built, by Harland & Wolff at Belfast, Northern Ireland. Her keel was laid down on 30 May 1937. She was launched on 15 October 1939, and commissioned 13 November 1939.
Initially, Jubilant was allocated to the Home Fleet and arrived at Portsmouth on 11 January 1940 and carried a uniform light grey livery. On 3 February she left for the River Clyde en route to Rosyth, arrived on 7 February and operated with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron on convoy escort duties.
In April and May 1940, she took part in the Norwegian Campaign. On 11 April Jubilant ran aground off Fleinvær while hunting German merchant ships entering the Vestfjord. Her boiler room was flooded, and she was holed forward. Overall damage was limited, though, and she was successfully towed to Skjelfjord where an advanced base had been improvised. Despite air attacks, temporary repairs were made, and she was towed home a month later. She arrived at Greenock in Scotland on 16 May 1940 where additional temporary repairs were carried out, before proceeding on 19 August to the Tyne for permanent repairs and major modifications.
These modifications centered around the experimental outfit of the destroyer with heaver 6 in guns. The idea behind the bigger guns was to give the ship not only higher firepower in direct confrontation, but even more a bigger range for ballistic shots, so that the ship could support major battleships in land target shelling missions. Being lighter than cruisers with the same type of weapon that were typically tasked with this kind of mission and benefiting from less draught, the light destroyer could operate closer to enemy shores, and its higher speed and agility would offer sufficient protection from counter fire. The Admiralty was interested enough in the concept to allow a ship to be converted as a pilot for field tests, and Jubilant was chosen for the conversion.
This resulted in a thoroughly revised main armament, which now experimentally consisted of four single QF Mk. III 6-inch 40 caliber naval guns in fully enclosed turrets, which replaced the J-class’s former three QF 4.7-inch twin gun mounts. The QF Mk. III 6-inch guns were leftover stock material from wrecked WWI cruisers, and they had an effective range of up to 15,000 yards (14,000 m) at 28° elevation versus 12,000 yards (11,000 m) at 24° of the former 4.7 in guns. They were the heaviest type of gun that a British destroyer had carried so far, and the concept was later further explored with the L- and M-class ships, even though these would be outfitted with more modern weapons.
For the new configuration, “A” and “B” turrets were simply replaced, but for the rear-facing “X” and “Y” stations, the rear deck and superstructure had to be modified. The AA ordnance was re-arranged and modernized, too, including the replacement of the rear torpedo launcher unit with a single QF 4-inch Mark V (102 mm) AA gun with a circular splinter protection wall, which was part of the contemporary standard upgrade program for the J- and K-class ships. 20mm Oerlikon guns (in single and twin mounts) replaced the former 0.5 in machine guns, and two depth charge launchers were added amidships.
Other changes comprised a closed bridge for better crew protection and a new coincidence rangefinder, optimized for ballistic gunnery. A Type 279M radar was fitted, too, a naval early-warning radar developed during the war from the Type 79 metric early-warning set. It initially had separate transmitting and receiving antennas that were later combined into single-antenna operation. This set also had a secondary surface-search mode with surface and aerial gunnery capability and used a Precision Ranging Panel, which passed accurate radar ranges directly to the HACS table, an analog computer.
After repairs and trials were completed in August 1941, Jubilant reappeared as 'a new ship from the water line down', carrying a disruptive light Admiralty scheme in greys and blue, and she returned to Scapa Flow on 17 August 1941. On 9 September she left Greenock, escorting the battleship Duke of York to Rosyth. Later that month she was employed in patrolling the Iceland–Faroes passage to intercept enemy surface ships.
On 6 October 1941 Jubilant left Hvalfjord, Iceland, together with the battleships Penelope and King George V, escorting the aircraft carrier Victorious for the successful Operation E. J., an air attack on German shipping between Glom Fjord and the head of West Fjord, Norway. The force returned to Scapa Flow on 10 October 1941.
Jubilant was then assigned to Force K based at Malta and departed Scapa on 12 October 1941, arriving in Malta on 21 October, where she received a distinctive camouflage in then-popular Mountbatten Pink that – in a rather uncommon fashion – retained some remnants of her former livery. On 8 November, she sailed together with two cruisers and other escorting destroyers from Malta to intercept an Italian convoy of six destroyers and seven merchant ships sailing for Libya. During the ensuing Battle of the Duisburg Convoy on 9 November off Cape Spartivento, the British sank one enemy destroyer (Fulmine) and all of the merchant ships.
On 23 November, Force K sailed again to intercept another enemy convoy and sank two more merchant ships west of Crete the next day. On 1 December 1941, Force K sank the Italian merchant vessel Adriatico, the destroyer Alvise da Mosto, and the tanker Iridio Mantovani.
On 19 December, while operating off Tripoli, Jubilant struck a mine but was not seriously damaged, although the cruiser Neptune and the destroyer H.M.S. Kandahar were sunk by mines in the same action. Jubilant was sent into the dockyard for repairs and returned to service at the beginning of January 1942, still wearing her distinctive pink-blue livery. On 5 January, she left Malta with Force K, escorting the Special Service Vessel Glengyle to Alexandria (Operation ME9), returning on 27 January, escorting the supply ship Breconshire. She left Malta, again with Breconshire on 13 February 1942 and an eastbound convoy aided by five other destroyers, Operation MG5, returning to Malta on 15 February, with the destroyers Lance and Legion. On 23 March, she left Malta with Legion for Operation MG1, a further convoy to Malta. Breconshire was hit and taken in tow by Jubilant and was later safely secured to a buoy in Marsaxlokk harbor.
Jubilant was holed both forward and aft by near-misses during air attacks on Malta on 26 March. While in the island, she was docked and repaired at the Malta Dry Docks. Day after day she was attacked by German aircraft and the crew worked to fix a myriad of shrapnel holes, so many that she was nicknamed H.M.S. Colander, and when these had been plugged with long pieces of wood, H.M.S. Urchin. In this guise she sailed for Gibraltar on 8 April and on the next day was repeatedly attacked from the air. She arrived in Gibraltar on 10 April, with further damage from near-misses. The damage was extensive and would have required several months at home after temporary repairs in Gibraltar. Eventually, Jubilant's repairs had been reconsidered, and it was then decided to send her to the United States for a major overhaul. She accordingly left Gibraltar on 10 May 1942, for the Navy Yard at New York via Bermuda, arriving on 19 May. She was under repair until September and arrived in Norfolk, Virginia on 15 September, proceeding, again via Bermuda, to Portsmouth, England, which she reached on 1 October 1942.
Jubilant arrived back at Scapa Flow on 2 December, now carrying a dark disruptive Admiralty scheme consisting of green and grey tones and remained in home waters until the middle of January 1943. Then she left the Clyde on 17 January for Gibraltar, where she arrived on 22 January. She had been allocated to the 12th Cruiser Squadron, in which she operated with the Western Mediterranean Fleet under the flag of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham during the follow-up of Operation Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa. In the new theatre of operation, Jubilant received once more a new camouflage, this time a high contrast scheme consisting of very light grey and black.
On 1 June 1943, Jubilant could finally be deployed on a mission that she had been re-designed for. Together with the destroyers Paladin and Petard she shelled the Italian island of Pantelleria, during which her 6 in QF guns proved to be very effective. The force received enemy gunfire in return and Jubilant was hit once but suffered only little damage. On 8 June 1943, with the cruiser Newfoundland and other ships, she took part in a further heavy bombardment of the island. A demand for its surrender was refused. The same force left Malta on 10 June, to cover the assault (Operation Corkscrew), which resulted in the surrender of the island on 11 June 1943. On 11 and 12 June Jubilant also took part in the attack on Lampedusa, which fell to the British forces on 12 June 1943.
On 10 July 1943, with Aurora and two other destroyers, Jubilant carried out a diversionary bombardment of Catania as part of Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily. The flotilla then moved to Taormina where the railway station was shelled. On 11 July, Jubilant left Malta with the 12th Cruiser Squadron as part of Force H to provide cover for the northern flank of the assault on Sicily. During the remainder of July and August, she took part in various other naval gunfire support and sweeps during the campaign for Sicily.
On 9 September 1943, Jubilant was part of Force Q for Operation Avalanche, the allied landings at Salerno, Italy, during which she augmented the bombardment force. Jubilant left the Salerno area on 26 September at the beginning of October was transferred to the Levant in view of a possible attack on the island of Kos in the Dodecanese. On 7 October, with the cruiser Sirius and other ships, she sank six enemy landing craft, one ammunition ship and an armed trawler off Stampalia. While the ships were retiring through the Scarpanto Straits south of Rhodes, they were attacked by Ju 87 "Stuka" dive-bombers, but, although damaged by a bomb, Jubilant was able to return to Alexandria at 22 kn (25 mph; 41 km/h) and avoid further hits.
On 19 November 1943 the ship moved to Haifa in connection with possible developments in the Lebanon situation. Towards the end of 1943, she was ordered to Gibraltar for Operation Stonewall, anti-blockade-runner duties, in the Atlantic. On 27 December, the forces in this operation destroyed the German blockade-runner Alsterufer, which was sunk by aircraft co-operating with Royal Navy ships. Jubilant returned to Gibraltar on 30 December and took part in Operation Shingle, the amphibious assault on Anzio, Italy, providing gunfire support as part of Force X with USS Brooklyn on 22 January 1944. She also assisted in the bombardments in the Formia area during the later operations.
On 18 February 1944, Jubilant was leaving Naples to return to the Anzio area when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-410. A torpedo struck her in the engine room and was followed sixteen minutes later by another torpedo that hit in the boiler room, causing her immediate sinking; 97 of the crew, including the captain, went down with the ship and 86 survived.
General characteristics:
Displacement: 1,690 long tons (1,720 t) (standard)
2,330 long tons (2,370 t) (deep load)
Length: 356 ft 6 in (108.7 m) overall
Beam: 35 ft 9 in (10.9 m)
Draught: 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m) (deep)
Draft: 17.5 ft (5.3 m)
Complement: 178
Propulsion:
2× Admiralty 3-drum boilers with geared steam turbines, developing 44,000 shp (33,000 kW)
Performance:
Top speed: 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range: 5,500 nmi (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Armament:
4× QF 6-inch Mark III (150 mm) 40 caliber guns
1× QF 4-inch Mark V (102 mm) AA gun
1× twin 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft machine cannon
2× single 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft machine cannon
1× quintuple 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tube
2× throwers and 1× rack astern with 30 depth charges
The kit and its assembly:
Again, this is a modified H.M.S. Kelly from Matchbox, this time even an original boxing. The main motivation was a livery in/with Mountbatten Pink, though. As a side note, “H.M.S. Jubilant” was not built, but it was the name of the last J-class cruiser. It had been ordered in 1937, but the ship was cancelled in December 1937.
Even though I wanted to keep things simple, I found some spare parts that justified modifications. For instance, I had four turrets from my recent USS Fletcher conversion left and decided to integrate them into the British destroyer, posing as single but bigger caliber guns. For a staggered position of the two rear gun stations, I used the short rear cabin that the Matchbox kit offers as optional part and added a console on the rear deck for the Y turret. The X turret was placed on top of the cabin, just like the original gun mount.
The AA ordnance was modified, too. The 4 in GF gun instead of the rear torpedo mount is OOB and an optional part. The original quad (and pretty clumsy) 4x 0.5” AA machine gun amidships was replaced with a twin gun s from an Aoshima 1:700 ship weapon set. This is originally intended for Japanese ships, but it’s whifworld, after all, and many weapon stations look quite similar to their British counterparts.
For a slightly different silhouette I gave the bridge a roof, cut from 1.5 and 0.5 mm styrene sheet, and re-arranged the directors and searchlight station on top of it. I also added a radar antenna array to the upper mast.
As an extra I added some rigging to the mast, made from heated plastic sprue material – simple, but it improves the model’s look considerably.
Painting and markings:
The more exotic part, at least visually. Mountbatten Pink, also called Plymouth Pink, was a naval camouflage color resembling greyish mauve – it was not a bright pinkish tone, rather a pragmatic mix of light grey (whatever was at hand) with red lead underwater primer, which had a yellow-ish touch, much like brick red. The paint was first used by Lord Mountbatten of the British Royal Navy during World War II, hence its name. After noticing a Union-Castle Line ship with a similar camouflage color disappearing from sight, he applied the color to his own ships, believing the paint would render them difficult to see esp. during dawn and dusk, daytimes when ships were highly vulnerable. However, the pink shade was more popular than effective. While the color was met with anecdotal success, it was judged by experts to be just equivalent to neutral greys at best and would make ships with the color more obvious under certain conditions at worst. However, for some time and esp. in the MTO, the color was very popular and widely applied to all kinds of ships.
Most of the time, RN ships were painted overall with this tone. Later, the application became more refined and the superstructures above deck received a lighter shade than the lower hull, lowering the contrast above the horizon. Sometimes, Mountbatten pink was integrated into Admiralty multi-color schemes. One of these rather rare cases was H.M.S. Anchusa. This was a Flower class corvette, which carried a medium blue grey (rumored to be B20) panel amidships, with the rest being uniform medium pink. As a side note: there’s a 1:350 model of this ship available, and it’s funny to see how different modelers interpret the pink shade, ranging from a pale grey with only a slight pinkish hue to a deep, purplish brick red! However, Anchusa became the conceptual basis for my Jubilant livery. Another inspiration was H.M.S. Kenya, a Crown Colony-class cruiser, which carried a more complex/disruptive scheme in two shades of Mountbatton Pink, using two shades of the pink tone on the hull and superstructures for a shortening effect with lighter areas at bow and stern. This livery had earned the ship around 1942 the nickname "The Pink Lady".
The combination of both inspirations became a four-tone scheme with low contrast, with two shades of pink and two of bluish grey. The pink tones were both mixed with Humbrol 70 and 129, with slightly different ratios for the lighter and darker shades. I generally went for lighter tones, due to the model’s small size and the fact that there apparently was no clear definition of the Mountbatten pink tones. The bluish tones were supposed to be contemporary B5 and B6, guesstimated with Humbrol 128 (which appears quite greenish in the surrounding pink context!) and a mix of Humbrol 47 and 96. The latter turned out to look brighter/less grayish than expected, but I left it that way because the mix blended well with the other colors. The scheme looks quite exotic, but could have worked well due to the little contrast between the different colors and the overall dull impression.
The deck was painted with Revell 47, simulating a painted wooden deck with 507b. Horizontal metal surfaces on the upper decks as well as the tops of the turrets were painted with the same color. Lifeboats and rafts became light grey, as if taken over from a former camouflage and for some contrast to the rest of the ship.
The model was painted in separate elements and slightly weathered with a highly thinned black ink wash and some Sienna Brown water color for rust stains here and there. The many, well-visible portholes along the hull and on the superstructures were added with a thin felt tip pen. A similar pen was used to create the boot topping and the muzzles on the guns and torpedo launchers. Finally, the kit segments were sealed with a coat of acrylic matt varnish before final assembly and rigging.
With the experience from the recent build of the same kit, work on this one was surprisingly easy and quick, and I was happy that I had spare parts at hand to change the look of the ship at least a little. The camouflage looks interesting - one can assume that it was manned by unicorns and that glitter steams in clouds out of the funnel. But in the end I find the pink/blue scheme to be quite effective, esp. in low light and also in front of land background. It's not a confusion approach, even though the blue divider seems to separate the ship into two parts, when seen in front of a proper environment, but as a concealment measure the paint mix works IMHO surprisingly well.
