Mongomery was a Town Class Destroyer. These were old USN WWI designed destroyers roughly equivalent to the Royal Navy's W/V class. Britain exchanged a number of strategic bases for a number of these in storage. It was a terrible deal as the ships weren't very good and were often in terrible condition. On the other hand the RN needed escorts.
The model shows Montgomery, aka USS Wickes, as she had been rebuilt in 1942 as an escort frigate. The ship sank an Italian submarine and survived the war.
The model is not easy to make as it has lots of little bits that are almost impossible to get off the sprue. Wargamers are best advised to leave off much of this detail. You will spend hours fitting these bits only to have them fall off anyway. You also have to cut down the hull to make it waterline.
On the other hand the kits are extremely good value and feature unusual vessels.
As usual I added Heroics & Ross artillerymen as ship's crew.
And the same for the various guns.
Montgomery, 1:400, against Warlord Games 1:300 models.
Montgomery against a Heller M35 Minesweeper, 1:400.
Mirage make a number of different variants of this kit including Campbeltown disguised as a German destroyer for the raid on St Nazaire.
One of these destroyers was captured by the Japanese and rebuilt as a patrol boat/escort. This is a very usual addition to a Cruel Seas Japanese fleet.
Dear John,
ReplyDeleteI think you could argue that giving the US access to worldwide bases was of more value to the UK at the time than the fifty coal-fired destroyers were. (Crewing them must've been a terrible job.)
All best,
Dave
The Foreign Office to the same view as you. They carted little about destroyers but this deal manoeuvred the US into the British security zones ,,eg Bermuda. Clashes between the Use and U boats were inevitable. I expect you are right about crewing. 1,000 armed trawlers were already being crewed by the RN reserves. The cupboard must have been pretty dry.
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