AHPC Crusier Trieste

 

Second last day of the challenge and second last post fro me, the Italian cruiser Trieste from GHQ in 1/2400.  I had the model primed in one of the first batches of work for this year's challenge but she's been kicking around the work table semi finished since December. 

Trieste and her sisters were armed with 8" guns but only lightly armoured.  Her sparse superstructure are typical of e 1920s era designs,  The float plane on the foc'sle seems precariously perched and required that she steam into the wind to launch it.

I've painted her in a camouflage scheme that she wore in 1942 even though it comes from a later date than the era that I'm focusing on. She had a busy war attacking and escorting convoys.  She was torpedoed and damaged by HMS/M Utmost in late 1941 and sunk by US bombers in port in 1943.

There's some interesting history in the naming of Italian 8" gunned cruisers of this era, all seven were na med for former Habsburg territories taken over by Italy after WW1.  The three name sake territories for the  Trento class (Trento, Trieste and half sister Bolzano) all remain Italian.  But three of the four Zara class (Zara, Pola and Fiume) were named for territories that are now Croatian (and renamed) with Gorizia being the sole exception.   None of the seven ships survived the war.

As Trieste sails off so do my entries in the Naval Side Duel.  That's another hull and another two points and a tip of my hat to Adam and the other participants in that challenge.