foxbat's stuff. last update 07/29/2025 French WW2 cruisers

[redleg]

Beautiful work Foxbat! How long did it take you to paint all these ships?

[foxbat]

Thanks, Redleg. It took me about 4-5 weeks to paint the 4 BBs and 12 DDs, the WW2 Warspite was already done.

[foxbat]

Big guns again, those of BB-61 USS Iowa. IIRC, they were fired in anger at Truk, and disposed of the light cruiser Katori.

[chrisswim]

SooWeet!!

[redleg]

That's a beautiful ship, Foxbat!

[pmskaar]

Excellent work on the Iowa, Foxbat! I love the camo scheme you have chosen for her.

[foxbat]

Thanks gentlemen. Iowa is depicted in her 1944 pattern, when she was Admiral Spruance's flagship. Sounded right after having done uSS Missouri as Halsey's...

A few more ships. Starting with the Kitakami, the last of the models i got inn last year's bargain. It lacked the foremast part, so I had to kitbash something. I'm not great with Green Stuff, but from a distance, it will be passable, hopefully (and what's not to like with firing 20 Long lances in a single salvo? Might be fun including her in a Solomons game... )

[foxbat]

A few torpedo boats of the Kriegsmarine, some useful little ships that did a lot of work from the Bay of Biscay to the Sea of Norway & beyond.

[redleg]

Beautiful ships, Foxbat!

[chrisswim]

Wonderful looking ships.
They should win in any naval engagement that they become engaged with.

[ww2navyguy]

Awesome painting work on these ship models. Really like the bases, too! Thanks for sharing.

[pmskaar]

That is more excellent work on the Kitakami and the Torpedo Boats, Foxbat! They are a treat for the eyes.

[foxbat]

Thanks gentlemen.
Going now with 2 French cruisers, whose fates were different, but illustrate well the vagaries of fortune of the Marine Nationale in WW2

Let's start with Suffren. It was a heavy cruiser, the namesake of its class, and typical of French naval constructions in the late 20s - early 30s. Armament was what you'd expect in a CA, speed too... but armour was quite light. It was however an improvement over earlier classes. During the war, she was part of Force X, under Admiral Godfroy, and like the rest of that force spent the early years of the war docked in Alexandria after Godfroy found an agreement with the British during operation Catapult. She joined the Allies, and spen,t the remainder of the war doing sea control, plodding South Atlantic sea lanes. Broken up in 1974.

[foxbat]

Another ship now, the Lamotte-Piquet. It belonged to the Dugay-Trouin Class and was launched in 1923. Like the Suffren, it had decent armament and speed, but it was hardly armoured : the thickest armour was 20mm, about what you'd find on an early war Panzer II... Nonetheless, after the Armistice, it remained the flagship of the French Far east squadron : on January 17th 1941, under captain Bérenger, the squadron sailed for action, finding and crippling the much superior Siamese Navy at Koh Chang, but a pointless victory as Japan dictated the terms of peace. Lamotte-Piquet was eventually sunk in 1945 by a US carrier raid. I left the model without a float plane as she never received the Loire 130 provided by GHQ.

[Paul B]

Beautiful work as always!!!