The Ship Model Forum

With their light surface armament, the RN ASW type 14 frigates have long offended the sensibilities of navy enthusiasts.
Books often list them as the Blackwood class, apparently because HMS Blackwood, which actually was among the later
units, appears first in an alphabetic sort of the ships' names.

Early ASW ships were in effect guided missiles. They homed on sonar-detected submarine targets, including on submarines
trying to evade them by steering underwater into heavy waves. Or, one ASW ship might direct a partner toward the target
so that the submarine might not know an attack was imminent.



The RN during 1945-49 considered multiple designs for a successor to the corvettes, which were too slow to defend convoys
against fast submarines such as the German type XXI. A projected huge need for 180 convoy ASW escorts in reserve by 1957
required ships that were cheap to build and simple to operate by conscripts. The short range of sonar compared to radar
required (and still requires) a denser screen of ASW ships than of AAW ships to protect a formation.

By the time the type 14s arrived in the fleet during 1955-58, the UK's strategic situation was very different than a few years
earlier. With the demise of Stalin and the advent of thermonuclear weapons, a new long war was very unlikely. Fast nuclear
submarines could evade surface escorts. Surface-launched long-range ASW homing torpedoes were technological failures.



According to published sources, of 23 type 14 frigates authorized for the RN: 12 were built as type 14s; 3 were sold to India
(of which INS Khukri became in 1971 the first operational ship to be lost to a submarine since 1945); 7 were re-programmed as the
type 81 general purpose frigates; and one was cancelled. The RN units operated mostly for fishery protection and for training.
Too small to be updated for ASW, they became the first post-WW2 new-build RN frigates to be scrapped.

This model of an early postwar ASW ship is an interesting predecessor for building a batch 1 (Ikara conversion) Leander-class frigate.
These classes shared an identical mission. The complex Ikara ships reflected the situation that submarines of 1970 were more
difficult adversaries than those of 1950.

To model a type 14 frigate, I'm following a drawing for a large floating RC-capable model that my friend Rob Kernaghan
obtained from Dean's Marine. My model is 1/600 to take advantage of RN parts in that scale from WEM and Airfix. A key part
is the bow from Airfix's kit for a Leander-class frigate. I drew other parts for fabrication in PE.

First I printed the patterns and made a mostly paper prototype. The bow came from a scrap Airfix Leander. The prototype
helps to verify patterns before making PE.



The prototype's bow section visibly stood too high. The type 14 bow and the Leander bow turn out to differ in that the deck
forward of the main deckhouse had a slope of 5 degrees in the type 14 and 12 degrees in the Leander. I cut a bow for the
type 14 from a Leander kit to the correct height above the waterline and added a shallower ramp to it.

The model is 6.2 inches long: 1/600 of actual 310 feet. The main deck and the hull sides are the largest parts I can create
in PE from my kit. Painting this thing will be a challenge.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Michael

This will be interesting to watch. You have almost built the whole thing out of photoetch which is what I call lateral thinking.

Terry

PS

As a kid also remember this class being refered to as the Captain Class. They were I believe named after famous RN Captains from the age of sail.

Terry

I very much enjoyed reading your scratchbuild of HMS Barosa here at MW first and then the condensed version in the IPMS mag....

looking forward to enjoying this also



Jim Baumann

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IPMS UK SIG (special interest group) www.finewaterline.com

Looking very interesting! I've never seen a ship built (almost) entirely from PE before. If it's half as good as your HMS Undaunted, the finished model will be very impressive.
Did you do the etching yourself, or did you send off the design to a commercial etcher? I'm interested in learning this technique, having tried simple acid-etching with resist, but have no idea what process is involved in transferring the computer image/template to the metal.

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Model Ship Kit Reviews

Looks great so far. If you sell that PE, I'll buy a set

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"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

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We called them the Emergency Class in the late 70's, by that time most were consigned to training ships, I still believe though that had war broken out they would have proved to be the second Flower Class, always assuming any war lasted long enough to build more gear!

Keep up the good work Mike.

Thank you for the nice comments and for the information about the actual class.

Yes, I design and fabricate the PE. For the PE process, see the article in this forum about HMS Barrosa.

If I can draw a part, I may as well make it in PE. Folding a large PE piece is easier than assembling smaller pieces.

This photo shows some new PE pieces, dry-fit on the model:



The funnel is temporary.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

I airbrushed the hull to detect gaps and rough patches.



Type 14 frigates had two variants of pilot house. I designed and fabricated both variants in PE brass. The model will have the variant in the bow view of an actual ship. The earlier frigates to complete had pilot houses with smaller windows.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Wow don't know how I missed this thread, she's looking excellent already Mike

Are you alright for photos?

I built the funnel and started assembly of the deckhouses. In this view the parts are dry-fit. Comparing photos of the dry-fit model to photos of actual ships helps to indicate fittings that still need fabrication.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Looking good Mike, did you say this was going to be Palliser?

Right. HMS Palliser was among the latest five of the RN's type 14s to complete. As such she mounted torpedo tubes and featured a more modern pilot house, at least in appearance.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

_________________
"It is best to remain silent and let others assume you are dumb than to speak up and remove all doubt"

http://nssavannah.wordpress.com/

I have located the following for you Mike do you have these?

1) A specific 'Type 14 Frigates' article by Dr Richard Osborne.

2)Captains, Resorts, Cats and Cathedrals - The Royal Navy's First Post-war Frigates by G.E. Watson (this gives the brief operational careers for the type 14's including Palliser)

3) As I mentioned earlier in another thread I was sure there was something in Conway's Warship. I was wrong it was not by John Lambert but another British author so the grey matter hasn't completely been wrecked!
In the annual for 1995 there is: The 1950s Coastal Frigate Designs for the Royal Navy by the late George Moore. That covers the Type 14's and has a photo of Duncan launching at Thornycroft's yard. Further, there is also one taken of Palliser F94 in September 1958 operating as a fishery protection vessel (from the stb. broadside perspective).

4) Further still, yet another article on them again by the late George Moore in the annual for 2001/2002 : The Blackwood Class, Type 14 Second Rate Frigates by George Moore. This time it includes a stb. close up photo of Palliser on 30th December 1957. A close up photo from the port bow of Russell on 15th June 1972. One of Exmouth from the stb. broadside on the 8th August 1969 and finally one of Hardy port broadside view at sea off Portland undated.

I haven't look through what photos I have yet, but I might have some more of various ships of the class.
If you would like any of that voluminous material I'll be able to sort it sometime in the next week in my spare time.
Cheers

Thanks for your research! These I haven't seen. Both sound interesting:

1. A specific 'Type 14 Frigates' article by Dr Richard Osborne.
2. Captains, Resorts, Cats and Cathedrals - The Royal Navy's First Post-war Frigates by G.E. Watson (this gives the brief operational careers for the type 14's including Palliser)

I have both of George Moore's articles from Warship. He notes in both that the still-cheaper type 17 ASW frigate would have been larger than type 14.

Maritime Books' The Cod Wars has a lot about type 14s. Palliser's CO recalled telling gunboat Thor's CO that if the latter tried to capture a British trawler (which had over-fished the waters around Britain) he would fire a salvo of 3 Mk 10 rounds to sink Thor. It has photos of Palliser at the time. One puzzled me until I realized that it's printed backwards.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Ahoy, mates:

Here is HMS Palliser (F94) re-painted and with new fittings on the forward deckhouse:



She has one set of scratch-built torpedo tubes and all three gun mounts. Weapons and and the deckhouses are dry-fit in this photo. The bulwark on the bow is correctly this length. I removed the early bulwark seen in the previous photo. The white towers amidships represent the insulated exhausts from the diesel generators.

The single Bofors 40mm guns comprise WEM PRO 7035 with WEM PE 735. They scale to 1/650. The foremast yards are from WEM PE 624. The ladders, doors, anchor cables, and some railings are from WEM PE 625. Almost all else is PE brass that I designed and etched: the deckhouses, the boat davits, the mortars, the torpedo tube fittings, both masts, the funnel, the catwalk, and the hull aft of the bow.

Andrew Welch's book The RN in the Cod War (Maritime Books, 2006) describes the operations of type 14 frigates, including Palliser, in the arctic seas around Iceland. The RN used convoy ASW tactics to guard trawlers, or poachers if one prefers. This book is more interesting than I expected.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Looking fantastic, Michael!

Particularly the joint in the hull where PE and plastic meet is very convincingly indiscernible! I must admit that I did find this a little bit daunting.

What were your experiences in using PE for hull construction? Would you use it again?

Jorit

PS: Will send you a mail later this week.

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Thank you for your comments, Jorit!


This particular class of ship lent itself to fabricating the hull sides from PE. PE gave computer precision in the full-width deckhouse forward, the bulwarks amidships and by the mortars, the etched waterline (the waterline in this and other RN frigates is not horizontal), and in portholes both in alignment and size. You are correct that the junction with the plastic bow proved difficult but it has worked well enough.

Yes, I would do this again for a model that lends itself to PE. A Canadian St. Laurent-class DDH is a possible future project. A lesson learned for future models is that I would design an internal support so that the lower edge of the PE hull would be the upper edge of the waterline. An alternative approach could be to create transverse hull sections in PE (if one has the body design with that detail) and loft PE hull sides over the framework.

The hull section for PE can bend in one dimension at most. In this particular design, a type 14 frigate, the main deck aft has a gentle curve, meaning a horizontal bend of the hull sides. This design has a slight knuckle along the deckhouse.

For armoured ships, a PE hull could have open casemates for broadside guns, an armour belt with accuracy in height and in visible thickness (it could be a separate strip of PE to laminate to the hull), portholes, hawse pipes, sheer, and anything else one can draw. The modeler might even design battle damage. The PE section of hull cannot have curved tumblehome, which would be a vertical radius.

_________________
If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.

Does anyone have any used/spare plans (outboard profile and body plan etc.) for the Type 14? I'd like to make a virtual model, but need good reference material.

Many thanks

Andy