The plan was not approved -but funding for these 'light' 15in gunned cruisers was, and their building was commenced in secrecy, thereby coining the phrase of

“Fishers hush-hush cruisers”

HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious were the most extreme versions of the battlecruiser concept, upstaged only by HMS Furious, which as designed was to carry two 18-in guns in two turrets.

During trials, Courageous sustained buckled side plating in the forecastle while running full speed in a rough sea. As a result, additional stiffening was added; this stiffening was not given to Glorious until 1918.

The three sisters with their light construction, heavy guns and high speed were somewhat prone to damage and thereby dockyard visits and soon acquired nicknames such as HMS Outrageous, Uproarious, Curious and Spurious respectively

The original role for which they had been conceived never materialized and Courageous served in 1917 with the 3rd Cruiser Squadron and was part of the convoy protection system to Scandinavia.

She was converted to a minelayer, but was never used in that guise.

In November 1917 she partook in the second Battle of Heligoland Bight with HMS Renown and HMS Glorious.

After the war she was without a clearly defined role-but that long hull was not to be wasted - Courageous and hers sisters were converted to aircraft carriers.

Within three weeks of the outbreak of WW2, HMS Courageous had the misfortune to be the first British warship to be lost, torpedoed by U-29 on 17 September 1939 off the coast of Ireland with the loss of 518 of her crew.
 

Specifications
Disp		27,560 tons loaded
Loa		786.6 ft (239.8 m)
Beam		90.5 ft (27.6 m)
Draught		28.0 ft (8.5 m)
Armament		4 x 15 in guns
		16 x 4 in guns
		2 x QF 3 in
		14 x 21 in Torpedo Tubes
Performance		91,195 shp = 32 knots
Crew		829 Officers and men

The kit appears to be based on the Royal Navy 'as fitted' plans, and as such have much detail that is often not shown. The kit of HMS Courageous is depicted in her role as a minelayer; the quarterdeck being festooned with rails; however when the kit of HMS Glorious was released the temptation to have bi-planes on flying off platforms atop turrets proved too much to resist! - I became the proud owner of two kits of this class.

I must stress at the outset that the kit is of very high quality - and as the first kit to be released from a new company it deserves to be applauded both for choice of subject and execution of the kit.

After an initial examination of the parts and instructions I set to sharpening up the hull casting and deck-fittings with a keen eye and blade, squaring off any soft corners and removing anything that I felt I could improve upon.

The numerous mushroom vents had their slightly domed tops flattened off with a couple of swipes of a sanding stick; this had the secondary effect of sharpening up the transition of horizontal to vertical face of the vents.

I drilled the hawse-pipes for the anchors fwd and created the missing starboard aft anchor hawse-pipe.

I then removed some but not all the cast-on doors and replaced them with some of the PE doors supplied, alongside some WEM items where appropriate.

HMS Courageous at the time I wished to portray her had all the deck railings on the first level covered full length with canvas dodgers. These were simulated in the usual manner of painting the railings, infilling with white glue and then painting the outside of the dodgers only - thereby permitting a slight contrast in colour twixt the dodger and rail.

The railings and bulwarks on the fwd bridge faces and upper platforms were covered with splinter mattresses. These were made using the excellent PE items from WEM, however in an attempt to recreate the uneven appearance on the real ship I bent the strips in alternate direction and crinkled them before flattening again and in part separating them into individual pieces prior to gluing to the cast resin splinter shields.

The PE parts had the illusion of thickness created using white glue run along the top as individual beads.
 

The scales were drawn on my PC in Serif DrawPlus 5.0 to be made as decals; printed on my inkjet printer black onto white decal sheet. The compound shape of the turret was measured and paper patterns made to check the fit. Various sizes were printed to compensate for any minor mis-measurement.
 

The finely cast funnel had the baffle plates within scraped down and the center horizontal band was added using thin wire. Once the funnel had been affixed the steam pipes that enter at the aft lower face were added and made of solder wire.

The 'coffee-pot' searchlight towers had the wind deflectors on the upper platform edges added by wrapping thin wire around the upper perimeter, backfilling the gap with CA and then retrospectively paring away the inside face of the resin to simulate the rolled inner edge. (This was also done to the upper foremast platforms)

I however really like the idea of the 'partial-see thru' look – so I ground off the top of the casting - the size was good and gussets were well rendered- (no need to re-invent the wheel...).

New windows proved to be a trickier proposition than thought at first...

(The NO think BEFORE you cut syndrome!)

The spacing of the window bars did not equate to any PE ladder stock that had appropriate spacing...

Faced with this unexpected conundrum and a digital vernier calliper I started measuring every aspect of almost every piece of PE new or old I owned...

The solution that presented itself after some considerable time was satisfactory...

I used WEM RMS Queen Elizabeth 1/600 Stairway, with the handrails and one side member removed it scaled (almost) perfectly. With the added bonus of the removed side rail giving a suitably thin roof – made of paper - to the spotting top.

I had previously installed a brass rod extension to the spotting top and drilled an appropriate sized receiving hole in the upper range-finder platform.

The mainmast aft by 1918 had an additional searchlight platform fitted, I made the splinter shield of brass PE fret scrap strip  and  the rolled wind deflectors were created using thin wires with the supporting gussets made of paper triangles.
 

These platforms were supplied with the kit and were well rendered - however the supporting structures - though correct in outline were in my view to clunky - so I made some finer replicas of brass wire and stretched sprue.
 

I gave a tiny bit of curvature to the wings by heating the metal wings and then rolling a tube across the wing athwart - ships on a soft pad of paper - again over-scale - but removes the flatness.

The supplied PE inter-wing bracing for my liking was over-scale and I chose to make my own. I used some very fine handrail in a rectangle - this was then pulled into a trapezoid shape and the upper connecting part removed. Once affixed to lower wing the upper wing was secured with a tack of matte varnish followed up by runny CA.
 

The torpedo tubes had the doors added and the hull was fitted with bracing strips below the tube exits.
 

I again drew this in Serif 5.0 and experimented with a variety of different fonts and sizes. Having narrowed down the font to the chosen type I nevertheless printed a selection of differing sizes, the final decision being made by what looked right according to photos.
 

I solved this by affixing the model to a long thing piece of wood, screwed through the turret barbettes with spacers underneath so as to paint the waterline cleanly.

The model was often mounted in a small bench vice so as to leave both hands free to work on the model.

As these were subtle and sometimes hard to see on photos of the real ship, any idea of plating strips applied to the model were discarded. I elected to draw these in using a pencil along previously applied masking tape guidelines. Once drawn, they were lightly smudged and washed over to loose the line intensity.

I deduced from photos that the structure was added in late 1917 early 1918 - but not to HMS Glorious.

I pared the gunwale thickness and added the oar notches as well as the timber rubbing strakes, launches and gigs were furnished with rudders and tillers and rooftop handrails.

Some photos of the starboard aft area of the ship show a strange pierced gusset bracketed structure inboard of the boats - I was unable to ascertain the function of this or indeed detect any evidence on the port side or at all on images of HMS Glorious.

Corticene-covered decks were painted using WEM Colourcoats Corticene.

All of these received extensive washes in both enamel as well as watercolour.

Many minute details were added, most of which have now receded in my memory and are barely visible individually - but do add to the collective whole.

Not having a wooden deck it is a very 'grey' ship; so to detract from the overall 'dullness ' of appearance I spent a lot of time adding small details to break up the flat planes. The well depicted bracing strips on the deck for and aft benefited from washing and helped relieve the monotony of horizontal greyness!

Anchor cable check chains, hatches, cable reels with covers, additional vents, boat boom supports and operating tripods with bracing struts.

Porthole eyebrows were implied by pencil lines, pipe work was added on bridge and platforms, boat tie-downs and placement of the crew in feasible groups of activity helped bring about an air of bustle on this long thin projectile of a ship.

I made my own - in two sizes, with a disproportionate amount of effort!

In the main the model was built according to the excellent instructions using most of the kit parts. The photo-etched fret is not the thinnest; and I used perhaps only a third of the PE parts supplied. The inclusion of the PE wings was a great bonus. Railings as ever were sourced from the GMM Gold Plus Superfine.

The ship was rigged entirely in stretched sprue with a mix of black for standing rigging and light tan for running rigging as described here.
 

I am sure future releases will set ever-finer standards. I can see myself having HMS Courageous minelayer fever in the future....