Kriegsmarine Korvette PA-1 (German Flower Class)

[nönöbär]

Korvette PA-1 - PA-4

In the late 1930s, France ordered 18 ships of the British Flower class type, 6 of those to be build in French shipyards. After the Invasion of France, those incomplete ships were captured by the Germans and four of them were continued  under German control.

Those were:

PA-1 , the former Arquebuse , was commissioned on 15.04.1944 and served in the 15th VP-Flotilla until it was sunk on 15.06.1944 by RAF bombers in Le Havre.
PA-2 , the former Hallebarde , was commissioned on 10.11.1943 also served in the 15th VP-Flotilla until it was sunk on 15.06.1944 by RAF bombers in Le Havre.
PA-3 (ex Sabre ) was also commissioned 10.11.1943 and served in the 15th VP-Flotilla until it was sunk on 15.06.1944 by RAF
bombers in Le Havre.
PA-4 (ex Poignard ) was never commissioned in Kriegsmarine services. It was sunk as a block ship at Nants in august 1944, raised and scrapped in 1946.

As the ships were not planned to be used as anti-submarine vessels but as patrol boats, their anti-aircraft armament was improved. However, all of the ships in service were sunk by RAF planes.

More about those boats can be found at http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/captured/gunboats/index.html









The model:

The models is a 1/350 scale Mirage Flower class kit. While detail levesl is quite good (better than the old 1/400 Heller kits, no surprise), the plastic used on the model is quite soft, softer than on other models I mase so far.
The model is equipped with additional AA guns, those were taken vom the spare part box (I guess they will be 1/400 scale Heller ones), the addtional AA mounts were made from paper and plastic sheets.

Everything is airbrushed and painted with Revell Aqua color, and some Eduard railing and crew personal were added.

[tigercat]

Very nice.

[Captain Canada]

Oh yeah, great job on that one ! Love the details and how clean everything is....looks like a museum piece ! Nice work as always and thanks for the inspiration.

[NARSES2]

Not only a nice model but I also learned something, so a double