Well, I have taken the plunge and started my scratch build of the St. Laurent class destroyer escort HMCS Assiniboine (DDE 234). For those not familiar with the class, the St. Laurent was the first indigenous designed warship built in Canada. As can be seen in the pictures of the St. Laurent, the ships were very novel for the time. Rounded deck edges, pre-wetting for NBC defence, enclosed foc’sle with all anchor gear 1 deck down to keep a clear deck etc. You could pass from bow to stern in the ship without ever having to go on deck.
The particulars of the class are:
Length: 366’
Beam: 42’
Draft: 13’2”
Displacement: 2,800 tons full load
Speed: 28 knots
Crew: 12 officers, 237 men
Armament: 2 twin 3”/50 Mk.33 guns
2 Mk.10 Limbo Mortars
2 Mk.32 ASW Torpedo throwers
2 40mm Boffin guns (only 4 ships fitted)
There were 7 ships built to this class and the design was extended to cover the follow on Restigouche, Mackenzie and Annapolis classes. Overall, 20 ships where built to the basic design between 1952 and 1963. The last of the class was paid off in 1998. In the early 1960’s, the first 7 ships were converted to carry helicopters. The Sea King was the best ASW helicopter available at the time and the RCN put one on the deck of the destroyer escorts. The last two ships of the class were built to carry the helicopter from the start (and were 6 feet longer).
More information may be found at Haze Gray and Underway and the excellent book “Cadillac of Destoryers, HMCS St. Laurent and her successors” from Vanwell Publishing.
The model will be 1/72 scale for R/C. I plan to make a plug so that I can build a two part fibreglass mould so I can have more than 1 ship as I do want to build the DDH version too. As the ship’s bridge and after deck house have rounded faces, I am going to vacuform the structures so again, I can make multiple copies for future projects. As I am new to most of this technology (building the plug, fibreglass moulds, vacuforming etc) the build will take a while but the goal is to have the ship done before the end of Sept 08.
Below are two pictures to the HMCS St. Laurent. This is how the Assiniboine will look except that the 3” guns will be in the fibreglass mounts and not open as in these photos.
I welcome any advice, constructive criticism etc. There surely must be better ways of building than what I will be doing so I am interested in learning. I will do my best to put into practice what I have seen and read on this forum for the last 1.5 yrs.
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