Q Ships, Commerce Raiders, and Armed Merchant Cruisers

[tigercat]

If you were in a situation where you had to kit out an auxillary warship either with concealed or visible weaponry what would you choose weaponwise and wehat kind of ship would you use?


Inspiration- the Oregon from Clive Cusslers Oregon files

The Oregon is a high tech ship owned by a private secret service organization called 'the Corporation'. It is disguised as a rusty old tramp steamer, to add to its appearance of authenticity this disguise is highly detailed; including a fake mess hall, a captain's cabin with smoke infused substances, a dis-functional toilet, and a painting of a depressing velvet clown. In reality it is a hive of activity with luxury facilities and top of the range technical machines. It includes Cruise missiles, torpedoes, 30mm Gatling guns, a 120mm cannon and .30-caliber machine guns all remotely operated. The ship is powered by magnetohydrodynamic drives. Its control centre is said to have the feel of the starship Enterprise

[proditor]

I remember thinking that a Q ship or two would go a long way off the coast of Somalia.    Keep it simple, say 2 Phalanx in fake shipping containers with a local control booth, and some hidden Ma Deuce that could quickly be swung over the rails.  That would up the ante pretty darn quickly for some guys in a motor boat with AKs and some RPGs.

[Jschmus]

Those are good ideas.  I wouldn't want to go too overboard, as some of the Q-ships of old had cruiser-weight guns.  There isn't much afloat these days that calls for that kind of conventional firepower.  If you wanted to add a little more firepower with a touch more range, you could fit one or two OTO-Melara 76mm Super Rapids or one of the newer Bofors 57mm guns.  There was a mount proposed for the Cyclone-class patrol craft that was composed of a 25mm Bushmaster cannon and a rack which would accept either 2.75mm FFAR pods or Hellfire missiles.  Those wouldn't be out of place either.

[Joe C-P]

Given the likely forces such a vessel would face, 25mm Bushmasters, .50 Brownings, some TOWs and Hellfires, and hand weapons, especially shotguns, would be fully sufficient to stop an assault. All of these have the benefit of being small and concealable, easy to use, and not requiring external, obvious, and hard to hide electronics. Shotguns are best on board because they're point-and-click, as it were, and are less likely than rifles or pistols to penetrate the bulkhead behind your target(s) and hit something vital like piping or a shipmate.

[proditor]

Given the likely forces such a vessel would face, 25mm Bushmasters, .50 Brownings, some TOWs and Hellfires, and hand weapons, especially shotguns, would be fully sufficient to stop an assault. All of these have the benefit of being small and concealable, easy to use, and not requiring external, obvious, and hard to hide electronics. Shotguns are best on board because they're point-and-click, as it were, and are less likely than rifles or pistols to penetrate the bulkhead behind your target(s) and hit something vital like piping or a shipmate.

Maybe something like the pedestal mounts that Cobb put on his armed Hovercraft in Sea Fighter?  They were 30mm chain guns, with associated side mounts for either a rack of 4 hellfires, or a pod of 2.75" FF rockets.  They elevated out of the deck, and were controlled from inside the ship. 

Actually, I made some of them for my little PiGGs.  Lemme find a link...

They're here on my fleet page: http://www.whatifmodelers.com/index.php/topic,25902.msg377216.html#msg377216

A couple of those on a modified liberty ship would look pretty sweet!

Damn it.  Now I need to buy a liberty ship.

[tigercat]

Not quite a Liberty Ship but Modelzone currently have Hawaiin Pilot a C3 cargo ship at 4.99 

[proditor]

Not quite a Liberty Ship but Modelzone currently have Hawaiin Pilot a C3 cargo ship at 4.99 

Actually, it was a liberty ship in it's original guise.  Shame about the scale, I don't fancy trying to find 1/380 bits for it. 

I think I'm putting a Jeremiah O'Brien on my wishlist for the short term.  Of course, that assumes I finish any of builds first...

[tigercat]

Would 1/400 be close enough ?

HNOMS St Albans is currently 4.99 at Hobbycraft

[jcf]

Actually, it was a liberty ship in it's original guise. 

Nope, the Revell kit was also released as the attack transport Burleigh, which was a modified C3 design.

C-1, -2, -3 and Liberties etc.:
http://iancoombe.tripod.com/id50.html

http://drawings.usmaritimecommission.de/drawingmain.htm (good info, but a fairly slow and clumsy site)

[proditor]

My bad, Mondelzone had it as originally one of the Liberty or Victory ships in their description.