Ahoy Shipmates,
I have been enjoying reading through many of the threads on this site, posted a few replies, even started a question thread which was answered quite quickly with a very helpful response. While the reading requires the use of Yahoos' babelfish translation service in my case as I only speak American English and that with a Southern accent, it has been very informative for me and I am interested in starting a second card model even before I have finished my first, the IJN Akizuki, also an answer Models kit in 1/200 scale. It has shown me a number of things as well as taught me a few things about how these go together. Reading these threads as well as ones on other sites has only fueled my desires to try my hand at another, after all, one must have something to do while glue and paint dries.
[Blocked Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v349/treadhead1952/img013.jpg]
The subject of my interest is answer Models PC-553, although why they didn't just call it the USS Malone is beyond me. Perhaps somewhere in the instructions and such they have that information, but Polish is definitely not in my vernacular. The ship was a Subchaser built by Sullivan Drydock and Repair Company in Brooklyn New York laid down on 20 December 1941, commissioned on 12 October, 1942 with Ensign Benjamen T. Fairchild, USNR in command. As was the convention of the time, she had no name, just PC 553. After shakedown out of Boston she returned to New York and began duty with the Eastern Sea Frontier out of Staten Island providing patrol and escort duties into late December 1943.
On 23 December, 1943 she arrived at Norfolk, Virginia for assignment with an East bound convoy as escort and to be transferred to the 12th Fleet upon arrival. She arrived at her new duty station on 17 January, 1944 and spent the next year performing escort, patrol and supply operations from the ports of Dartmouth, Plymouth and Devon. At war's end she left Europe from Le Havre, France with a convoy arriving in Key West, Florida in late June.
She performed patrol duties with Service Force 2, Atlantic Fleet until 10 May, 1946 when she was transferred to Atlantic Fleet Reserve, 16th Fleet. She was decommissioned on 9 May, 1947 and spent the next 10 years at Green Cove Springs, Florida in the reserve fleet anchorage awaiting disposition. She finally recieved her official name of USS Malone on 1 February, 1956 while in reserve. On 5 Seotember, 1957 she was stricken from the Navy List and sold to Boston Metals Company for scrapping on 1 July, 1958.
The ship was part of the second group of the 173 foot, 461 Subchaser Class produced with an all steel hull with 85 sister ships. She was powered by 2 General Electric 2880 Horsepower Diesel Engines into a single Farrel-Birmingham reduction gear housing feeding two propellers for a maximum speed of 20.2 knots. Armed with a single 3 inch/50 caliber deck gun forward, a 40 MM Bofors mount aft with 3 20 MM Oerlikons one atop the bridge and two just aft of them as wing mounts. She carried two roll off depth charge racks on her fantail and 2 Hedgehog Rocket Projectors fore and aft with four K Gun Depth Charge units aft of her 40 MM mount, a rather well armed little ship to say the least. She carried a crew compliment of 65.
Now with that all out of the way, on to answer Models kit of this dandy little ship. The kit consists of 4 pages with covers, two carrying the major parts in color, two tone gray camouflage pattern to the hull sides with a dark gray deck and red lead bottom. The other two pages carry the pictograph directions, a section with the hull inner forms and bulkheads and another with the 1:1 part layout. It is listed as a Level 2 in construction difficulty and ship Kit Number 2 in their catalog with a production date of 2007. All of the parts are in perfect register and evenly colored.
After removing the single staple, I separated the pages and set to work copying them onto Wausau Bright White 65 pound cardstock, I like to save the originals to be able to produce more than one model from a kit. It also gives me ample copies should I have a problem or want to puzzle out how things should go together as a trial. I copied and clipped out the inner hull forms and bulkheads then laminated them onto two sheets of poster board to arrive at a cumulative thickness of .053 inches or 1.35 MM roughly. I like a heavy duty core and cutting to the outside edges of the cutout lines on the patterns allows for the extra .35mm so nothing gets out of shape on the exterior.