Mysterious Ship

Well, I'm not multilingual, but if you can post a picture or two of the boxtop art I'm sure we can get you an answer.

Thanks for the reminder. I though about it after i made my first post.

Check out my wife's blog. It's the only way i could upload pictures.

http://amandasexplosion.blogspot.com

Look for the post "Mysterious Ship"

Thanks so much!

Type 520T Houjian-class large missile boat

See the FAS Foreign Ships/China site

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/row/plan/houjian.htm

 

I've never understood the Chinese fascination with missile boats, but then, I guess it only has to live long enough to sink the other ship and it will have done it's duty.

It's cheap, fast and deadly. What's not to like? :)

Grahor wrote:

It's cheap, fast and deadly. What's not to like? :)

 

Bring a crewman on a ship that's gonna sink as soon as it gives its position away, I would say.

Thank you for your help, I just couldn't find a pic of that boat looking on my own.

I work with a guy from China and I'm trying to find him to translate it to English.  I'm just posting now so I can find this later!

rubaru wrote:

I work with a guy from China and I'm trying to find him to translate it to English.  I'm just posting now so I can find this later!

Okay here is the translation:

Model of missile defense ship serving the Chinese Navy stationed at Hong Kong.

PGMs are good for coastal defence against surface combatants, for maritime patrol, are cheaper than frigates, and have sufficient range to escort an invasion force to Taiwan, should the need arise. They don't need to have area air defence capability, 'cos they're never going to operate outside the range of land-based air cover. The PRC has a long coastline and some - potentially at least - unfriendly neighbours. I'd have thought that the 50 or so such vessels - of which only about 30 would be avaiable for use at any one time - that they have were only barely sufficient for the task.

Cheers,

Chris. 

 

mfsob wrote:

I've never understood the Chinese fascination with missile boats, but then, I guess it only has to live long enough to sink the other ship and it will have done it's duty.

 Hmmm, Not like the Russians didn't have a few missle ships.

I am pretty sure the Iowa class had missles, or at least cruise missles on board. The Perry class had a missle launcher. The Ticonderoga had a whole bank of missiles just a head of the bridge. And the Arleigh Burke-class has two banks of missles fore and aft. I think US ships were just a bit more subtle about how they were placed and launched.

The Iowas were modified to carry 32 Tomahawks in armored launchers if I remember correctly.

True, Umi_Ryuzuki, but all of those examples you cite are just a tad larger than that Chinese gunboat. I just think if you're going to build something like that, build it big enough so it is likely to survive longer than 5 minutes into the engagement. But that's just me. 

Yup, in many ways, the PGM's fill the same tactical role as the old PT boats...'Eggshells armed with hammers!'  Very few modern warships have much in the way of armor, and instead rely on fancy shipboard firecontrol systems anti-anti-missile systems and compartmentation to attempt to survive.  Personally, I think this is pretty shortsighted, especially when there are examples around to show what awful damage can result from a strike from a modern missile ('Sheffield' vs Exocet).  Seems to me that a bomb is a bomb, however it is delivered, whether by missile, or from a plane, or from a heavy shell.  The battle records of the old battleships and cruisers demonstrated time and again just how much punishment those ships could absorb and still carry on fighting.  Compare that to a modern warship, and you are just looking at a deathtrap, no matter how big it may be!   The only possible excuses for this are price (of course!), the threat of nuclear warheads (in which case, it really wouldn't matter what sort of ship you were in), and finally the low probability of a major naval conflict between significant navies (not much point in having a lot of armor if you are mostly shooting at things that can't shoot back!).....

I built the Trumpeter kit of this ship last year (with a lot of scratchbuilt additions):

 

 

 

What's the hull length of the kit you have? The Trumpeter kit is 1/150 scale according to the box, not 1/200, so the kits are probably not the same, although one of them is most probably a scaled up/down copy of the other.

Sorry for not getting back sooner :(

To answer your question the hull length is 316mm.  I would say that neither ship is a copy of the other as the one i'm building doesnt even come close to the detail that yours has.  I reliase that yours has a lot of cratch building on it but mine is just basic shapes for almost everything and thats all; although given the price I paid and the approximate age of the kit I cant complain about anything.  I am curious though about what colours you used to paint yours cause i would like to get that al least right.

Just FYI, at least some Perrys no longer have missiles IIRC.