A Mixed Grab Bag of Ships

At our last game (WW2 micro-armour), Sylvain kindly handed over a mixed grab bag of 1:2400 WW2 ships (sic as we'll see).  He had purchased (off Kijiji) a box of many, many model ships in various scales, periods and stages of completion.  When all the dust had settled, he had multiple models and so offered me the "doubles".   This morning I cleaned up and assembled the lot (photos will appear when painted - as part of the Painting Challenge).

From best to worst, here's what I got.

1. A GHQ Rodney class battleship - beautiful model, correct in detail and cleanly cast.
2. A CinC Graf Spee class Panzerschiffe - a very good model but lacking a few small details.  There is a catapult but no seaplane, and the pole masts are missing (but correct scale pole masts are tough in soft metal).
3. A CinC Renown class battlecruiser - a gorgeous model, and probably the best CinC model in the bag.  But, while the detail is correct it is correct for 1917 and not 1940!  These ships were extensively reconstructed (more than once) between the wars and looked very different by 1939. I had to google the catalogue model to make sure of the provenance - but it is clearly a CinC model and clearly based on a WW1 plan although listed as a WW2 model.  CinC doesn't officially make WW1 models (but see below).  While GHQ does do WW1 they don't make a Renown class BC for that era, and their WW2 models are correct for both ships in their reconstructed forms.  I don't want to game WW1 in 1:2400 - since I have a ton of ships in 1:3000, but I'll paint it up anyway since it is such a fine model.
4. A CinC  Rodney class battleship - a workmanlike model, easlity identifiable but lacking the detail found on the GHQ version.   Th most noticeable absence is the aft tripod mast.  I could try and add the mast but will likely paint it as is.
5. Two CinC Royal Sovereign class battleships.  The worst of the bunch by a long shot, and predictably the one model I got more than one of!  The first obvious fault - no tripod masts, perhaps the single biggest identifying feature on a 1916 vintage battleship.  I could scratch build these, but it looks like a lot of fiddly work and I suspect the result wouldn't really be an improvement given my fine scale building skills.  The second flaw, is once again the model seems to be based on builder's plans and doesn't look right for WW2.  There are clean decks that should hold a number of AA mountings - really that look is so last war....I think I'll paint them up but look to upgrade to GHQ down the road.

So all in all, two fine hits (Rodney and Graf Spee), two near misses (Rodney and Renown) and two misfires (the two R class BBs).  But I am not going to turn down a free gift....now if I can only figure out how to get that gigantic wooden horse in the house....