by Nye Nava
1/700 HTMS Kraburi (Kobou Hiryu)
Royal Thai Navy had ordered their first four frigates from Chinese shipbuilder. This was Chao Phraya class, a modified Chinese’s Jienghu-III. HTMS Kraburi was the third ship of class which was the first frigate of the Royal Thai Navy that had capable for helicopter carrying. She was commissioned on 16.01.1992. A ship name was a river in southern of Thailand.
HTMS Kraburi is 1,924 tones full load and dimension are 103.00 x 11.33 x 3.38 m. She carries 8 x single C-801 (Eagle Strike)launcher, 1 x twin 100/56 mm. DP gun, 4 x twin 37/76 mm. AA guns, 2 x 0.50” machine guns, 2 x five barrels RBU-1200 anti submarine rocket launcher and 26 barrels Chinese made decoy launcher.
In the morning of December 27, 2004. Tsunami swept her aground while she was berthing at Pang-Nga Naval Base, near Kao Lak, one of the most destroyed places in Thailand by huge waves. She was refloat three months later with a minor damage of screw and propeller shafts and came back to join the fleet again within end of April 2005
I built this ship from a kit of Chinese Jienghu-III class frigate by remove a stern turret and added helicopter platform made from styrene sheet. I had to build a new main mast and FCR tower amid ship from brass wire and sprue to replace solid white metal ones. I used GMM and Lion Roar PE sets for railing and other details as well. Crew comes from Eduard pre-painted naval figures.
