Does anyone know if there is a company that produces 1/48 scale British Aircraft carrier decking? I know about the Eduard decks for American and Japanese carriers but I can't seem to find any British ones out there.

Thanks,

Cam

Royal Navy carrier decks were made from armour plate. Could probably be easy to make up from a piece of plastic card.

I tried to google for some printable decks but it seems as if the WWII RN variant hasn't been too popular with the graphical artists: I found none .



Magnus

A quick google search has turned up some photo's you might find helpful.
Seafire's aboard an Illustrious-class carrier.



Skua's on the Ark Royal.



And lastly and most interestingly of all, a Seafire on the escort carrier HMS Smiter. Note the wooden deck planking. Escort carriers were US built and supplied to the RN under lend lease and were the only carriers in British service with wood decks.



So check references as to which carrier your aircraft are from. If it's one of the British built carriers it's armoured, US built escort they're wood. In that case one of the Eduard decks would work fine.

If you look carefully on the first 2 pics, you'll notice that the decks are seamless. The deck plates were welded together over the superstructure, coated with a non skid surface and then painted. Dark grey was standard, although camouflage was sometimes painted on (again check references). Deck markings were minimal, usually just a centre line to help aircraft land. You won't find white stripes painted around aircraft lifts on RN carriers. The idea was to make it hard for enemy dive bombers to find the only weak spot to aim at.



This picture of HMS Victorious on operations with the US Navy in mid 43, shows the whole deck camouflaged with a false lift painted the centre. At this time the carrier was sometimes renamed the USS Robin and carried a force of US manned Avengers and Wildcats. Part of a deception plan to trick the Japanese into believing that the US had quickly built and commissioned a new carrier.

Hope this helps

Stephen

Might be some useful references on this site:

http://www.armouredcarriers.com/

Thanks Guys.

This has been a lot of help. So I'm planning on doing a Martlet on the HMS Formidable in 1943 for operations during the Salerno Campaign. If I were to use sheet styrene and paint it dark grey with a white line down the middle that would work?

Thanks,

Cam

Yeah you can give it a go and see how it looks. All it will cost you is a section of sheet plastic if it doesn't work out.
I'd check references for the Formidable at that place and time to be sure of deck markings and if a camouflage scheme was applied.
I was looking again at the photo's I posted and there is some subtle paneling visible which could be achieved with weathering with pigments. I'd use a line of masking tape, shade in a dark brown, remove the tape and then feather out the straight edge. If you wanted to show the corner or edge of a lift it could be engraved into the plastic without any trouble. What I'm not sure about are the presence of tie downs as I can't see anything prominent in any pics I've seen. There are some diamond shaped loops on the deck in the picture with the Seafire's, but I believe they are something to do with the arrestor wires.
Give it a go and see how it looks and remember to post some pics.