I’m looking to build a mide sweeper for an uncle of mine who serverd time on one somewhere around the Nam or Korea conflicts. I think he graduated HS in '69. I know it was the USS Fidelity “Fido” out of Panama City, Fl. That’s about all I know.
I was wondering if there were any mine sweepers ever produced in scale or any ships that would be a good starting point for this particular ship. Also looking for information on the ship, or atleast pointed in the right direction as I know nothing about mine sweepers in general.
I’ve seen at least one small wooden hulled minesweeper model in plastic on Ebay. Very sleek looking small ship a little bigger than a PT boat if I remember. Almost bid on it but it went for over 50 bucks with shipping. Good luck, Paul
To my knowledge the only plastic American (or other) minesweeper that’s ever been released is the old one from Lindberg. The new ownership of the company has recently re-released it: http://lindberg-models.com/water_model70830.html . It dates from the late fifties, I believe, and features most of the characteristics of kits from that era. But the basic shapes seem to be right; I haven’t seen it “in the flesh” for many years, but it looks to me like it’s capable of being turned into a nice model.
I wonder if the kit Publius is thinking of may be the WWI subchaser, originally issued back in the fifties by ITC and more recently reissued by Glencoe Models: http://www.squadron.com/NoStock.asp?item=GM09305 .
We must not, however, rule out the possibility that there is indeed another minesweeper kit out there, and that my senile brain has either never heard of it or forgotten about it.
The old Revell Calypso kit (Jacques Cousteau ship) was made from a converted minesweeper IIRC. Long out of production, but a nice starting point of a kit if you can find one.
Hey, thanks for the timely replies. I did find some pre built types (not the way I wanna’ go) on the www in the price range of, let’s say “over 2 grand” (really not the way I wanna go). They look like nice models, but I’m a DIY kinda guy, which brings me to the first reply, I did try the search feature and it returned 4 results here and 2 in the dio section, nothing even came close to answering my question, so then and only then I created my post.
The Lindberg kit looks very close, but the roof of the cabbin is different. I think it would be an easy fix, but I’ll have to compare with the few pics of the vessel I’m after, to see if the rest of the ship is close, or if scratch building would be the better way to go.
I did learn it’s MSO 443. Part of the agressive class (AM 432 - AM 449) originally commished AM 443 on 19 Jan. 1955, reclassed to MSO 443 on 7 Feb. 1955, decommished 19 May 1989, Call sign was NLZL (Geezer Echo), and sold for scrap around 1990 for about $13,000.
Just wondering, if MSO stands for Mine Sweeper Ocean, what does AM stand for?
Cousteau’s Calypso is indeed a converted USN minesweeper - with a wood hull. The idea of converting the Revell kit “back” to a minesweeper is an interesting one. I suspect it would be quite a project; the Calypso was quite extensively modified.
Well… that might be stretching it a bit…[:)] FIDELITY (MS0 443) was 172’ x 35’ and wooden-hulled, while the Lindberg kit represents the ADMIRABLE class 184’ 6" x 33’ and steel-hulled.
The Lindberg minesweeper kit is an ADMIRABLE Class minesweepr from WWII. The CALYPSO was converted from a YMS (Yard Minesweeper), also a WWII ship.
The USS FIDELITY was indeed an AGGRESIVE Class MSO. Floating Drydock has plans for USS EXPLOIT (MSO 440) which was also an AGGRESIVE Class Minesweeper.
The Dumas USS WHITEHALL PCE can be converted into an ADMIRABLE class mine sweeper without a lot of effort. The kit is 1:96 scale, and is 23" loa. I did a review of the kit a few years ago in Ships in Scale magazine.
Well, thank you fellas. By answering this young man you answered my questions too.That,s like asking me about Gearing class D.D. s that have been F.R.A.M.med. I was on the U.S.S. OZBOURN D.D.846 when she went through the program.I was in the engineering dept. So when, I wonder are we going to see pictures from this builder on his MSO. tankerbuilder