HMS Lion
Commander: Michael Raue, T.O.N.E. (Armidale) Battle Squadron.
Photo: Daniel Large
HMS LionThe 2nd ship of the 2nd last class of British Battleships, HMS Lion was the follow on design to the King George V class of "treaty" battleship. Designed with 16" guns and even thicker armour than the "Iowa" class HMS Lion was intended to do 30 knots. HMS Lion was laid down in 1939, just before the outbreak of WWII. Within 2 months of the start of the war (October 1939) all work was suspended, never to restart.Our HMS Lion represents the vessel as designed in 1938 and is constructed on a fiberglass hull created by her skipper, Michael Raue. Running as an unarmed vessel in January 2001, HMS Lion was the "Last Man Standing" at the end of the final battle of the AusBG's AGM Battle in January 2001, the last armed vessel (RMS Littorio) having retired in a sinking condition after a long pursuit of the Lion. Commissioned as an armed vessel during the Sydney Battle Squadron's October 2001 battle, HMS Lion sank USS Indiana before being sunk in turn by VNS Richelieu after having run aground.
Reworked yet again before the January 2001 3 day meet in Armidale and repainted in a lovely green / grey, HMS Lion was one of the most reliable vessels on the pond, managing to get home
from every engagement until the "Last Squadron Standing" battle where she sank USS Massachussets was sunk by the USS Alabama.
Due to the care and attention of her skipper, HMS Lion is now one of the most reliable vessels in the Australian Battle Group.
Type
Status
National Battle Honours
Rule Exemptions granted by the Technical Officer to this vessel
Statistics
Construction Notes from her builder, Michael RaueTONE battle squadrons HMS Lion was laid down on December 25, Christmas Day 2000 and launched in the AusBG Australia day meet on 25 Jan 2001. Originally I was going to build a KGV class battleship but as the rules relegated this class to 7/32 cannons I decided to make a Nelson class. However the lack of heavy rear protection and having the guns unable to fire at certain bearings ahead were a worry for me. When I realised the Lion class had been laid down and could therefore be built I immediately did some measurements and began making a plug for a mould. Lack of plans did not hold me up at all.In the January 2001 meet she ran as an unarmed warship and was declared lost on her first run as the aerial fell into the hull near the engines and I lost control of her. On her next run she did better as people thought she was armed and left her alone. In the Last Man Standing battle of that 2001 January weekend her paint scheme combined with speed and avoiding tactics saw her survive to be declared the "Last Man Standing". Lion didn’t hit the water again seriously until late 2001. This time however she was armed with a set of 3 X 1/4in triple turrets from Cranfield Cannons (CMS). I carried out test firings for a few weeks and then decided to get some serious practice in. I contacted the Newcastle Battle squadron and the Sydney Battle Squadron about coming meeting in Newcastle and Sydney (on the same weekend). I was invited to join in the fun. That weekend I ran her ragged for the 2 days. The Littorio and Indiana pounded her on Saturday morning and afternoon in Newcastle but she survived. Afterwards Richard Simpson and I drove to his house in Sydney where we stayed up to 1:00am replacing the 2 outer engines that had died for some reason and repairing my other ships for the Sunday’s battle. On Sunday it was the turn of the French warships from the Canberra Battle group to attack her at the Sydney meet. She handled well and with Richards help I was able to sink my own merchant ship the USS Mission Capistrano, which had been leant to the French for the day. Knowing that I’d get sunk sooner or later I decided to stick the Sunday afternoon skirmish out to the end and as a result was sunk by the combined efforts of Dave Howard and Bill Kirwan. After pulling her out, draining, patching and testing HMS Lion was back on the pond in 20 mins. I couldn’t believe it. I took her home satisfied but not by 100%, feeling that a major refit was in order. She was stripped of everything except the outer shafts and rudders. Rotation servo was turned upside down and brought closer to the forward cannon. Gas bottle and main battery were moved 70mm forward, and the engines were pushed to the outside of the hull allowing the rear cannon to be turned around and dropped 20mm more into the hull The inner shafts were then aligned inward to converge their wash more onto the rudder, rather than being parallel and the outer 40mm 4 blade props were swapped with 35mm 3 bladed to slow her down. I knocked out the old un-reinforced resin cap rails and added new fibreglass reinforced ones with Aluminium blast shields, then I removed one 2.7ah battery from her bow and with no ballast she sat beautifully on the boot line at 16kg. A coat of grey all over and she was looking good again. Prior to the Jan 2002 meet I decided that some detail was in order and added a Walrus Amphibian, 20mm aa in tubs, octuple bofors AA (Chicago Piano’s), railings and searchlights on the superstructure and both funnels and lifeboats on the aft superstructure. All of this was all shot off over the weekend by many of the willing participants in the 2 days of battles. Some of the fittings were returned with smiles as to how nice they were, others I suspect became trophies. |
