Ideal for the small harbor or river scene, nearly 900 of these wooden subchasers served in both World Wars. Many were shipped to the USSR, Great Brotain, and other allies as Lend-Lease items. Although small, they were seaworthy, extremely agile, and capable of 21 knots. The crew was three officers and about 17 seamen. In WW II they were usually armed with either a 3/23 inch or single 40 mm boors, three 20 mm Oerkilon anti-aircraft guns, depth charge racks and Y-guns, and two six-barreled 4.7 inch "mousetraps" or contact-fused depth "bombs." Due to their shallow draft, some were converted for landing control/scout craft for seaborne invasions. They could be built at many small boat yards and yacht builders: the largest of these small companies built only 28 of the 450+ built for WW II, with many yards building only a few. Edition 1 models feature cast resin hulls and superstructures, and a variety of bought and self-made armament. They were the last pre-computer-cutting models I built with solid wood masters and hand-cut styrene. Only five remain and all are built up. Edition 2 models have built up styrene hulls and superstructures, and armament modeled in-house. All models have my custom made photo-etched railings, ladders and stairways, properly scaled 1:160 guns and other details. Because of the sturdiness of the hulls, many of these ended up in private hands as fishing vessels, daytime fishing excursion boats or just daytime cruisers. The website for these models is http://nscaleships.com/n-z-scale-ship-index/110-world-war-ii-subchaser/
During WWII my father worked at American Bridge Division of US Steel Corp. in Ambridge, PA which was a town along the Ohio River established by American Bridge on land purchased from the Harmony Society (whose vow of celibacy led to their demise). Anyway, hence the name, Ambridge. Like most factories in WWII, production was diverted from making heavy structural steel for buildings and bridges to wartime production. Both American Bridge and Dravo Corp., located a little ways up river built LST's and in the case of American Bridge, sub chasers. Most of the production though was LST's. American Bridge would only build them to the point where they could be lashed together like river barges and towed (pushed actually) downriver to another facility where more was added. This continued on down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Finally when they reached the Gulf they were ready to go. The Ohio and Mississippi Rivers was just one long assembly line. Didn't know that the sub chasers had wooden hulls. I knew mine sweepers were wooden as a precaution against magnetic mines.
The 110' subchasers were wooden; the 173' chasers were steel. We built about 450 of each. (I make the 173' also.) The bigger ones were also built along riverbanks. I've seen pictures of one being built on leveled wooden blocks with nothing but a few very tall stepladders. The 173-footer:
Correct, JW's boat was called the Wild Goose. I've been aboard in Washington State's San Juan Islands. Nice for sure. And it was a 136 feet if I remember correctly. Jim
The 136' minesweeper displaced about 3X the subchaser (270 t vs 98 t), so would be a better choice for a yacht.
