by Jorit Wintjes
1/700 HMS Petard (Tamiya Kitbash)
The Type 16 ASW frigates were a stop gap measure in the first half of the 1950s for getting low-cost ASW ships by converting existing fleet destroyers to fast ASW escorts. In all 10 ships were converted, 7 of the T-class and 3 of the O/P-class (HMS Orwell, HMS Paladin and HMS Petard). The conversion included replacing most of the existing armament (one quad torpedo tube was left in place) with a 4in twin in position B, two Squid anti-submarine mortars in position X, a 40mm twin Bofors replacing the 2pdr pom pom and 40mm single Bofors guns, the number varying from ship to ship.
The model was based on the venerable O-class kit by SkyWave/Tamyia, which is unfortunately infamous for the low number of useable parts it contains. In this case I only used the hull, the funnel parts and the quad torpedo tube. Everything else was either provided by WEM or scratchbuilt.
The final photo shows clearly the changes to the original destroyer configuration: 40mm single in position Y (1), two Squid in position X (2). 40mm twin Bofors replacing the 2pdr quad pom pom (3) with the remaining quad torpedo tube immediately abaft. The STD director for the 4in twin should normally be atop the bridge, but apparently Petard had a slightly different arrangement which I wasn't able to make out clearly from the pictures I had, so I simply added another deck house (4). 4in twin in position B (5) sits on a circular platform extending over the side of the forecastle deck house (6).
The main problem with the model is that - although there were only three O/P class destroyers converted - I managed to meddle up the various ship-specific details (a tip: changing the plan in the middle of a project is a suboptimal idea...). In the end the model is really a mixture of features unique to Petard, Orwell and Paladin, which is also the reason why I decided to leave off the pennant number.
I can't say I'm really happy with the result - I have to do it again one day and actually stick to one specific ship....
