Scale: 1:900. Named in honour of Viscount Nelson, victor of the Battle of Trafalgar, HMS ‘Nelson’ (1925) was built by Sir W. G. Armstrong Whitworth & Co. Ltd., Newcastle-on-Tyne, under the constraints of the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922. She was laid down in December of that year, launched in 1925 and commissioned, like her sister ‘Rodney’, in 1927. Under the terms of the Treaty, her tonnage was limited to 35,000 tons, her speed reduced and her armour restricted to vital areas. Uniquely for this class of battleship all nine of her 16-inch guns were placed in three turrets mounted forward giving the class a somewhat unbalanced profile.

She was immediately made the flagship of the Home Fleet. In 1931 the crews of both ‘Nelson’ and ‘Rodney’ took part in the Invergordon Mutiny. At the start of the Second World War she was deployed in the North Sea to counteract a German formation of cruisers, all of which easily evaded her. Later she was unsuccessfully attacked by ‘U-56’ off the Orkneys but luckily none of the three torpedoes exploded. Thereafter she had an eventful wartime career in several theatres of operation, which included Operation Torch in 1942 and the invasion of Sicily a year later. She was laid up twice for repairs, firstly after striking a mine and then following extensive damage by an Italian Airforce torpedo strike. Japanese forces formally surrendered aboard her, in Malaysian waters, in 1945.

Following the end of the War ‘Nelson’ continued in her role as flagship of the Home Fleet until July 1946 when she became a training ship. Decommissioned in 1948 she was used for target practice until her scrapping a year later. The model, a miniature displayed in a tiny table-top case tells us nothing of the ‘Nelson’s’ immensity (she was over 700 feet in length and had a crew of 1361). What it does show is the distinctive layout, particularly the turrets and the class’s extremely long bow and truncated stern.