HMS Tiger, C20

This is my completed light cruiser HMS Tiger, build from the Matchbox/ Revell kit from the 1970's. The Tiger and her sister ship Blake were converted from all-gun cruisers in the 1970's into "Helicopter and Command Cruisers", to help deal with the Soviet submarine threat. The aesthetics of the completed ships is best described as "controversial", but they did play their role well in the Cold War.

I suspect my kit was a Revell one, based on the colour of the plastic, but I got it from an eBay bargain, so it arrived on a shoe box, and without instructions...

This was a very simple kit, with little in terms of detail, so I decided from early on the use the Atlantic Models photoetch set. There were no major fit issues, but some significant sink marks had to be dealt with. I also corrected the height of the hangar "box", which was too low in the model, compared to the real ship. The quadruple Seacat launchers are an improvisation made from mixing plastic and photoetch parts, since neither version resembled the real thing. Rigging was done with human hair. I home printed the decals for the Seaking helicopter. The aerials on top of the bridge and hangar are made from cut tungsten wire.

Even with the addition of the photoetch this ended up being a relatively quick build (for me at least), taking one month from start to finish, including 2 weeks away from home for the end of year holidays.

For images of the construction, please visit https://www.marcellorosa.com/1-700-hms-tiger-c20. As always, feel free to contact me if you plan to build this kit and need any tips.

7 additional images. Click to enlarge.