For years I've considered building the heavy cruiser HMS York, half-sister of the Exeter. It meets my criteria for building unusual looking models with its very tall, narrow bridge, designed to overlook a catapult and plane that were never fitted on B turret. The bridge is tiny compared to Exeter's so will give improved stability. York has the same 3.0 units as the larger County Class heavy cruisers but in a hull several inches shorter with only 3 main turrets and a low quarterdeck. My experience running the Canarias (a Kent Class hull) was that a North Carolina Class BB could out-turn it, but not by much. With the shorter hull York should have a tighter turning circle, which is an advantage over a County or a Canarias Class. The space and weight restrictions won't be a problem because I've had a lot of experience building small R/C combat models. Having the aft turret with dual BB cannons a deck lower than in the County Class is an advantage but the aft turret on York is still too far from the stern for very close range waterline targetting. Only Suffolk/Cumberland can do that because their cut-down quarterdeck starts immediately aft of Y turret. I have a great set of superstructure plans for HMS York in the Raven and Roberts book on British Cruisers of WWII and will order the Exeter hull from Strike. I still plan to acquire Piper's HMS Cumberland in Dec. and later build London or Dorsetshire on one of Steve Hill's hulls. With the exception of Warspite I've had more fun operating cruisers and other small ships than battleships. I'll probably sell two of my three battleship projects (Hood, Vanguard and Rodney), armoured cruiser HMS Minotaur, and my incomplete Japanese CV IJN Ikuma. Bob
How much would the Hood go for Bob? and is the Vanguard completed? Exeter is very manueverable so you should enjoy handling that cruiser. We built a HMS York here a loooog time ago. Even at cargo ship speeds the model still maneuvered well.
I'm reconsidering the HMS York project after reading the changes to IRCWCC rudder rules since I last battled. The County Class is allowed rudders 50% larger than when we had Counties and Canarias in the NABS fleet. I think they'll turn as well as York with the larger rudders. Hood and Vanguard also get a 50% increase in rudder size but the rudders will be so large they'll either have to be much longer with pivot point and rudder arm further aft (not possible to modify in my Hood but OK with Vanguard's transom stern), or have the rudders hanging down below keel level. That did not work well in Hood when I tried a narrow aspect rudder that was deep but short in length. It caught something on the bottom and wrecked rudder and rudder shaft within minutes.
