Calling all Knox-class and Spanish Baleares-class FF fans

[Willie]

Hi all,

A new thread on a very interesting ship class , Knox Class frigates, and the further Spanish development, the Baleares Class.
The Spanish Navy had three of these, F71 Baleares, F72 Andalucia, F73 Catalu�a, F74 Asturias, and F75 Extremadura, all named after Spanish regions. They were built in the early 70�s and have been recently decommisioned.
They made the 31 Escort Squadron, based in Ferrol. This was my unit, as I was serving onboard F73 Catalu�a for almost two years.
They were improved models, with no chopper, but with a Standard A/A missile launcher instead, what gave them an excellent A/A capacity, which the American units lacked. They also had a AN/SPS 52, which was the most distinctive element of their appearance as well.
Here you are a couple of pics of them, that I made some years ago, when they paid a visit to Vigo, my town.





I hope you like them.
Best regards,

Willie.

[Willie]

And now my question.
Does anybody know if there is a model kit of a Knox Class frigate, in scale ranging, say, 1/200 to 1/400 ? I mean PLASTIC, not resin.
I have the vague idea that Monogram was producing one back in the mid 70�s, but I have never been able to trace one, if they ever existed.
Not only I am longing for one, but actually I would kill for a kit or semi kit of this class in a good scale...
Thanks in advance, and best regards,

Willie.

[Rick_H]

Yes - AFV Club makes a nice Knox class kit in 1/700. It has been out about 10-15 years, so it's not up to the latest standards, but I like it.

I served on USS Stein FF-1065 and have big plans of doing a wonderful build of the ship as she looked in 1978.

Even within the US Navy, there were variations on the mast, the radars, the weapon on the fantail and the bulwark at the bow. Then when they were sold to other nations they took on still different appearances. The Spanish ships looked great too.

You should be able to find the kit without too much trouble. WEM had some, and Trident lists them now.

Good luck,
Rick Heinbaugh

[Francisco P. de Nanclares]

Anything in 1/350?.

Pachi.

[Rick_H]

Yup - White Ensign makes a USS Knox in 1/350 in resin, if 1/350 is your taste.
Rick

[Willie]

Yup - White Ensign makes a USS Knox in 1/350 in resin, if 1/350 is your taste.
Rick

1/350 would do, if there is nothing bigger, but I was actually asking for plastic, not resin. I don�t know why, but I am somehow relunctant to use resin -- I have known that it is a quite unstable stuff.
Thanks anyway and best regards,

Willie.

[Willie]

Hi all,

A new question, that is very important to me : Does anybody know if the Knox-class frigates shared hull with the Brooke-class escort destroyers ???
I have thought that if I can use the hull of a Brooke, I would somehow manage to scratchbuild a Knox out of it, and build my own ( and dear !!!!! ) F73 Catalu�a. Hulls should be roughly the same thing, though, if the project is to be sound and consistent -- hence my question.
Any help will be much ( but much ) more than appreciated.
Best regards,

Willie.

[Rick_H]

Sorry, Willie.

Different sizes by a few feet, but more importantly - different shapes.

Garcia class = long knfe-shape; the taper goes much straighter at the bow.

Knox class = fuller bow; more like a larger warship

I don't believe they are mutually exchangable, especially at your level of accuracy and workmanship.

Rick

[Willie]

Sorry, Willie.
Different sizes by a few feet, but more importantly - different shapes.
Garcia class = long knfe-shape; the taper goes much straighter at the bow.
Knox class = fuller bow; more like a larger warship
I don't believe they are mutually exchangable, especially at your level of accuracy and workmanship.
Rick

Rick,

Thanks a lot for your answer.
If it is only the bows, I think that I can "fill" it with two or three horizontal wedges/bars, as I am going to do it a waterline model, and adding width to the waterline would be no major problem with such long hull halves.
As for the 20 ft. the hull can be cut and lenghtened somehow. The most important feature for me is the height of the freeboard, a problem that could be a bit more difficult to solve.
I have studied a lot of pics of both classes in different positions, and the freeboard seems to be roughly the same. Do you have any additional info on this ?
Thanks in advance for your interest and disturbances, and very best regards from Spain,

Willie.

[Rick_H]

Willie,
That additional "fullness" I speak of is at the area from the gun to the bridge. And I don't have good drawings to show the difference. Sorry.

I agree with you that the freeboard seems different; that is an area that is never specified in drawings. (When I was First LT on a ship preparing to do an astern refueling, as an exercise to show that we had the capability, we couldn't find any drawing that showed our freeboard at the fwd refueling station, and we had to go out and measure by hand to find out for sure.)

I wish you best of luck - if AFV Club hadn't made the Knox kit in my favorite scale, then I, too, would be trying to figure out how to convert the old Monogram kit to the ship I served on.

Rick

[Willie]

That additional "fullness" I speak of is at the area from the gun to the bridge. And I don't have good drawings to show the difference. Sorry.
Rick

Rick,

Thanks a lot for the info anyhow.
All things considered, I think that a Brooke Class hull can admit all the necessary modifications, and I am going to take it as one of my dearest future projects. F73 Catalu�a was my home for 16 months, it was one of the best periods in my life, and she well deserves an aditional effort.
Very best regards from Spain,

Willie.

[Willie]

Hi all,

I received last week my USS Brooke, Monogram 1/300(roughly), and I have already seen that with some changes, the hull is valid for a conversion into a Knox-class frigate.
This fact has been confirmed by an excellent friend modeller, John Sikes -- thanks again John --, who has sent to me some pics of his own conversion, using the same hull of a Monogram USS Brooke, showing that not only it can be done, but that it can be done with extremely fine accuracy
As I have stated earlier in the thread, I am actually going to convert it into my Spanish Navy Baleares-class F73 Catalu�a, a very modified Knox design.
As for the details I have already got some excellent pics, and many more will come soon, but I will need some plans to build the structures and the mack.
Has anybody got reasonably good plans or schematics of the American Knox�s, or does anybody know of any good site in the Internet where I can find them ?
Any help will be highly appreciated.
TIA and best regards from Spain,

Willie.

[Kazec]

Dear Sirs,

I am planning to convert a AFV 1/700 Knox class into Baleares class. I saw some excellent convertions in the gallery and it should not be extremely difficult if sufficient info could be obtained. I have collected a number of photos, but where can I find a plan (not side views) for the class? (schematic one is enough, mainly for scratchbuilding the aft superstructres)

p.s. so far are there only the F-74 and F-75 remain in service?

[Francisco P. de Nanclares]

Only F74 Asturias at this time, and is in a kind of "reserve" situation.

Cheers.
Pachi.

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
I am going to be starting the WEM 1/350 Knox Class Frigate soon.
I will be building the USS Brewton FF1086 as she appeared from 1976-77. This is a commission build and will be straight forward. I do know I'll already be removing the forecastle bulwarks and the molded in strakes to be the Brewton from the mid 1970's. I have the WestPac 76-77 book from the ship. Nice, but not as useful as I'd hoped..regarding "E's", and bridgewing special markings etc. On another matter, after looking through each and every picture, I am still not able to determine whether or not the ships fantail sported the BPDMS. I thought the ships of this class were all commissioned with BPDMS.
There were also given to me, a handful of photo-copies of Brewton, but all of these pics were dated from 04-07..1975. From the 1975 midships photo nearest I can tell, there was no BPDMS present. Was there a BPDMS on the Brewton in 1976-77???????????
Can anyone tell me for sure....pertaining to FF1086 only?
Brewton was commissioned in 1972...and ended up in the Taiwanese Navy after 1993.
If anyone is interested, I will be posting progress pics of this build.....sometime soon.
Thanks for any info.......in advance.
Tony Bunch

[Willie]

I thought the ships of this class were all commissioned with BPDMS.
There were also given to me, a handful of photo-copies of Brewton, but all of these pics were dated from 04-07..1975. From the 1975 midships photo nearest I can tell, there was no BPDMS present. Was there a BPDMS on the Brewton in 1976-77???????????
Tony Bunch

Tony,
Please excuse my ignorance, but -- what is a BPDMS ?
And secondly, have you checked the following link ?

http://www.navsource.org/archives/06/06021086.htm

If you could make a step by step of your construction, we would be more than thankful.
Very best regards,

Willie.

[Devin]

BPDMS- Basic Point Defense Missile System. It was phonetically pronounced Beep-Uh-Dee-Mis. I believe there were several systems that qualified for that designation, but the one I'm familiar with was a missile system from the 70's and 80's. Technically, though, the new Sea Sparrow, RAM, and CIWS systems qualify as BPDMS.

It was a two part system, one part a launcher that looked in most cases like an older version of the Sea Sparrow box. The other component was a "director" which was a pair of glorified binoculars on a swivel mount with handles for the operator and a firing switch. I never saw one of the old ones in person, when I was going through Fire Control A school in 1988 they were already obsolete and the source of a lot of jokes. For example: "Work on AEGIS? With your grades they wouldn't let you work on BPDMS!"

-Devin

[Tony Bunch]

Hi Guys,
Looks like FF1086 went from nothing to CIWS whenever that was done.
If I come up with any new info, I'll share it here.
...and the build...now I'm looking forward to it.

At this point, I'll be leaving off the BPDMS.
Tony

[Michael Potter]

the new Sea Sparrow, RAM, and CIWS systems qualify as BPDMS

Close. BPDMS, NATO Sea Sparrow, RAM, and CIWS are point-defense weapons. BPDMS meant the original Sea Sparrow system, only.

[Rick_H]

Tony,
For what it's worth, I agree that she probably went from nothing to CIWS. We see photos on her home page of the 73-74 cruise with nothing on the fantail, and we see CIWS when the bulwark has been added to the bow. I believe they would have been added at the same overhaul.

As a sidenote, I was on FF-1065 in 88-89 and she STILL had BPDMS. All the other 1052s on the waterfront seemed to have either CIWS or NATO Sea Sparrow. (Our AAW doctrine included 'fire the 5" at an incoming target, but then check fire when the target reaches BPDMS range, then shoot the BPDMS, so you don't shoot down your missile with outbound 5" rounds.' As the chief engineer, I had to memorize those rules to stand watch as Tactical Action Officer, but there was no requirement that I had to keep a straight face when I quoted the rule...)

I wonder if the Mexican Navy was given the same rulebook with ex-FF-1065.

Rick