COBI
COBI HMS Belfast Set 4844
COBI's HMS Belfast is a 1:300 model built from 1,517 blocks, 64 cm long and 19.5 cm high, developed with the Imperial War Museums. The deck guns move, the main turrets rotate, the rudders and propellers turn, and the camouflage and fittings are printed. A black display stand and a plate carrying the ship's name, the scale and the IWM logo are included.
The public saved her
Belfast was due to be scrapped in 1971. The government had decided against preserving her, and a cruiser of her size is expensive to keep afloat.
A private trust and a public campaign got her instead. She was towed to a mooring in the Pool of London beside Tower Bridge, opened to visitors, and taken over by the Imperial War Museum in 1978. She has been there ever since, and she is the only surviving Royal Navy vessel of her kind from the Second World War.
North Cape
Her best-known action was on 26 December 1943. Belfast was covering an Arctic convoy when the German battleship Scharnhorst attempted to intercept it. Belfast's radar found her, and Belfast, Norfolk and Sheffield turned her away twice β then shadowed her by radar through the polar darkness while the battleship Duke of York closed from the south.
Scharnhorst never saw what was coming. She was sunk that evening with the loss of almost her entire crew. The cruisers had not needed to defeat her; they had needed to keep her in sight.
Belfast also fired on the Normandy beaches, served in Korea, and was in commission for over twenty years.
Specifications
Pieces: 1,517 Β· Scale: 1:300 Β· Developed with the Imperial War Museums
Model dimensions: 64 Γ 9 Γ 20 cm with stand (25.2 Γ 3.5 Γ 7.8 in)
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