Thie is going to be my next Build. Should be fun…Cheers Mark
Wow! Looks like a great kit. I’ll be watching.
Stay Safe.
Jim [cptn]
No rest for the wicked aye?
This looks like a fun build and it will give you a break from all the photo etch work.
Thanks for posting all these close up sprue shots, you basically just created an in box review. [:)]
Thanks Jim. Should be fun…Cheers Mark
Thanks Mate. A Build without P/E will be something different for me…Cheers Mark
Cool. I like watching these smaller boat builds. They are interesting craft compared to the monster battleships and carriers.
I didn’t relize that this was a new mold kit. Thought it was the poor , tired old blob from the 60s.Those sprues look sweet and I will have to grab one.
Looking forward to the progress.
Thanks Mate. Should be a fun Build…Cheers mark
Thanks TC. The Kit was moulded in 2018…Cheers Mark
Have started work on the Hull. I was surprised to see the Fit was not the best with their Parts Breakdown. Had to do a lot of Filling and sanding to get to this stage. More to come soon…Cheers Mark
That is some very odd engineering in that parts breakdown. Wonder if there are other versions that require a different bow or drive plate.
Shouldn’t be. Bet it’s related to the “how” the hull is moulded, that there was no way to not have some “traps” in the shape, so they needed a separate piece.
And, since it’s Revell and not Tamiya . . .
Not sure but it means extra work…Cheers mark
Possibly but not sure why…Cheers Mark
Have started with some of the Sub-Assemblies. Me thinks me need some more Filler…Cheers mark
[dto:]
I also like small working craft that fall below the radar for most folks. I have a set of pics I took of a boat owned by a construction company for general waterfront construction Not a large craft, but has a big crane on the aft deck.
For some time I gave up on PT Boats because it seems the only one they ever put out is the 109. Didn’t they put a 20mm up front on their last trip?
Any way I started thinking, why not make it the 73 boat from the TV series? Or I could make one into Lou Costello’s private cruiser. He disarmed it and did a few modifications to his PT Boat.
Hi!
Surprisingly Crockett Marine Service had one that had the Rescue Boat Cabin on it! Now as far as models, Surprisingly the old tired model of the 109 that best exemplified the Hull shape except the very stem profile was the good old Lindberg kit.
Yup, the old Lindberg kit was a pretty darn close rep for an Elco boat. Their A.F. rescue boat, Except for the Dropgate in the transome was correct on the stem profile, but was a wee bit narrow in the stern anyway. I liked the Lindberg boat for what I wanted it for, but never could come up with a better Higgins boat that Revell’s offering from the fifties. With Deck Plank molding that looked like an old wooden RailRoad crossing! Now a Higgins in 1/72 from that era would be nice. Enough with the Elcos already, the 109 Notwithstanding!
The early Airfix offering was the boat type that starred in Mchales Navy. Personally I know of no American boat with that profile except one that Chris-cCaft put forward, but never built for the armed services. Vosper in England did have a boat like that when the Navy here built our Elco style!
Here’s a few pics of the Vosper kit I built quite a few years back.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UE8Aofiud8tpZiv89
Stay Safe.
Jim [cptn]
There have been short-run “cottage industry” kits out there. And the “running” boat companies like Dumas have issued kits of different boats.
There’s a bit of a complication, too, in that there are three different vessels in the “PT Boat” genere, and two major builders. So, there’s Elco, and there’s Higgins as builders. Then, you (very, very broadly) 770, 77, and 80 foot long boats. Pretty much all of those used a trio of V-12 engines each driving its own prop, and either dual or triple rudders.
The deckhouses and gun tubs all varied at least some between them all.
In theater, some of the “Peter Tare” crews would “acquire” weapons that better reflected their need to engage barge and coaster traffic–targets not appropriate for expensive torpedoes (recall, too, the torpedoes wer still hand made, one at a time at the Torpedo Factory, and were not a “sure thing.”) So, a number of Army/War Department field guns would be “unofficially” added to the boats.
The current wisdom, taken from contemporary written accounts, is that 109 had an M-3 37mm anti tank gun, wheels removed, and strapped to large lumber planks (circa 2x8 or 2x10). This is what the RoG kit depicts, including the sheet metal gunshield (which was not very common in the various boat Squadrons, per photos and written accounts). This was a 57 caliber barre using the 37x223 Rimmed AT round.
There is some speculation that 109 might have had the M-1 37mm anti-aircraft gun–a 54 caliber barrel firing the 37x223SR round (these were not interchangable).
The 37mm AA gun was not very effective in the AA role, so they would be more “surplus” to needs than the AT gun, which was very effective aginst Japanese armor, trucks, bunkers and the like.
Later PTs would get a mount using the M-4 Autocannon an aircraft mounting (famously in the P-39) using the 37x145R round and a “horseshoe” magazine.
To further complicate things, most of the PTs did not much outlast the war. So, for the TV shows, 60 & 70 foot “Crash Rescue Boats” (all built to AAF cointracts rather than Navy Department ones) were used as “stand ins” often with extensive remodeling.
The AAF boats were retained past 1948 and the creation of the USAF, so were available to use in movies and tv. The hul forms wer simpler, but they were typically twin V-12 powered.
There’s far more historical detail than that, too.