Independent Scottish Navy

[Tomintoul Wildcat]

Although primarily an aircraft modeller, I have been known to build the odd floaty thing from time to time. I have an idea for a Scottish Navy which will be formed following Independence. Clearly, this will need to be of realistic proportions, even for WHIF world.
Not that I will actually be BUILDING as many, I envisage ;
4 - 6 Destroyer /Frigate types
4 - 6 fast patrol craft
4 - 6 minelayer/minesweeper
Fleet replenishment types
Possibly at least 2 amphibious warfare ships
3 -4 conventional submarines.

Now, I'm working on the premise  that the Tory-Tory coalition will go into a major huff following a "yes" vote in the 2014 referendum and maintaining this bad attitude the next Westmonster government will, out of spite, refuse to sell "British" equipment.

I am of course constrained by the availabilty of kits!!
Subject to this, I have decided to fill the first two roles with the Arleigh Burke class destroyer and, Tarantul class missile corvette ( yes, I KNOW it's a Russian design!!) For submarines, I propose the German type 212.
I am however open to suggestions as to suitable types to fill the other roles. Can any of you warship types suggest suitable kits for the remaining roles?

Allan

[Pellson]

Maybe you should start in the other end, namely by defining the roles you need fulfilled by both the RScotAF and RScotN. I seriously doubt that such an exercise will result in choosing Burkes at all, if at all that number of larger combatants.

Regarding the naval issue and trying to keep some relative realism - these are the more martian needs I see:
- Protection of oil fields
- SLOC protection
- Fishery protection
- Straightforward anti invasion defence
- Forward recon (ideally submarine work)

All these are fairly local missions negating need for excessive endurance and/or power projection capabilities. By and large, I would say that a substantially smaller and simpler ship than the Burke (or by all means T45) would do fine. The German Sachsens, the Spanish Bazan or the Norwegian Nansens might be more matching, perhaps? At least the Sachsen is available in resin, scale 1/700. I also believe that the Franco-Italian Horizon FFG cpould be an alternative, also available in resin.
For injection, I'd perhaps stick with the small but nice French Lafayette frigate. Bronco models has a Taiwanese version available rather cheap Scratch a more modern AAW-system into the forecastle (there is ample space available), add a more competent missile control system on top and you are go.
If you definitely anyway want to go American, have a glance at the two LCS options, the USS Freedom and USS Independence. Both available from Dragon in injected plastic.
Also, taking the relatively smallish patrol area we are talking about, 6 ships seem to be an absolute max number. Compare the RNoN:s Nansen-class. Five ships, and three to four times the patrol area.

For OPV:s - The Tarantul is 1960:s and more a missile FAC than patroller, not really what I presume you'd need. The Germans have nice MEKO corvettes like those the South Africans bought. These have been scratchbuilt before. Another option, however perhaps not entirely in the same league when it comes to seakeeping is the Swedish Visby Corvette. It's available in Resin from L'Arsenal. Injection kits might be more difficult, but perhaps you could kitbash something interesting out of the Japanese coast guard vessels available from Pit-Road?

Submarines - yes, you'd need at least four. Quite a selection of modern dieselelectrics is available from OKB Grigoriev. Type 212 is nice, but so is the Swedish Gotland-class.

Mine warfare - I believe that bothe the BeNeFrance Tripartite MHC and the Italoamerican Lerici/Osprey are available in resin. Both are good alternatives provided that you install state of the art electronics.


Keep the good work up, and I really can't wait to see results in plastic!

[Pellson]

...an independent Scotland would be a part of NATO and, would play an active role in NATO/UN operations..

Generally, I'd say that those days are all but over. The americans are feverishly trying to close down the Afghan adventure as rapidly as ever possible while actively trying to put as much UN obligation to other parties as possible. See f.i. the recent libyan operation and Op. Atalanta off Somalia. Both drew heavily on other parties involvement, predominantly the EU but also in the latter case the russians and the japanese. Since this is Whif anyway, I'd consider fast-tracking history a bit and leaving the yanks on their side of the puddle. If nothing else, by doing so you open up for more interesting equipment mixes since the americans tend to deliver all or nothing.

Originally, you hinted that the UK would stay somewhat cold to proposals of equipment supply to Scotland. Staying with that thought, going for mainly french materiel both for ships and aircraft definitely would be seen as prominently annoying by the sassenachs, don't you think? I'd even guess that you could have some discount on the price from the frog-eaters just to further annoy Whitehall.. 
Accordingly, imagine a sqn or two of Dassault Rafales flying out of Lossiemouth, patrolling the Borders at the same time as a Lafayette FFG out of Faslane harasses the Devonport bound Vanguard SSBN all the way from Belfast to Bristol accompanied by shifts of Breguet Atlantic MPA flying out of Prestwick.. 


I've included a pic of a very nicely built Bronco "Lafayette" (not by me, found on ModelWarship.com) and as you can see there is a bay in the forecastle behind the main gun where there is a SAM system installed. However, the Taiwanese put something like Sea Chaparral there which obviously is entirely unsuitable but as the bay actually originally was designed to accommodate the shorter Aster system (Aster 15?) a set of VLS hatches scratched in there would have you covered.
Note that this ship kit is not sold as "Lafayette" but raher as "Kang Ding" which is the taiwanese name of the class.

[TsrJoe]

in reality the most we could probably afford would be a minimal fishery protection/border patrol fleet of around three vessels 

actually thats probably all we would need unless there was a requirement to cover our end of the GIUK gap, in which case any vessels would probably be leased from or NATO. funded 

[Pellson]

in reality the most we could probably afford would be a minimal fishery protection/border patrol fleet of around three vessels 

actually thats probably all we would need unless there was a requirement to cover our end of the GIUK gap, in which case any vessels would probably be leased from or NATO. funded 

You partycrasher.. 

[scooter]

in reality the most we could probably afford would be a minimal fishery protection/border patrol fleet of around three vessels 

This is whiff-world...the easiest explanation is a find of that super rare, ultra strong but very light mineral known as Unobtanium in Hebrides.

[Joe C-P]

Or haggis is found to have life-extending or disease-curing properties.

Coastal patrol, North Sea patrol, fisheries patrol, search and rescue, and the battleship "Willie" and SSBN "Nessie", just because.

[PR19_Kit]

Or haggis is found to have life-extending or disease-curing properties.

I'm pretty sure JayBee told me that was true at the last Cosford Show. We were discussing the merits of various 'national' foodstuffs, like Twiglets, Marmite, leeks, fish and chips etc. as you do, and he came up with 'Scotland's Secret Medicine', the Haggis.

Of course an Independant Scotland would need a strong Navy to defend the haggis breeding grounds from Euro-pirates...........

[Rheged]

Living ,as I do, 10 miles from the border  in Carlisle,  may I assume that there will be fishery wars in the Solway Firth?  In that case, given the nature of the Firth,  you will need hovercraft with possibly tartan skirts (kilts) to enforce the limits

[The Wooksta!]

Of course an Independant Scotland would need a strong Navy to defend the haggis breeding grounds from Euro-pirates...........

Bearing in mind that Salmond would submerge an "independent" Scotland in the EU (so bang goes his precious independence), one of the conditions to join would be handing over said breeding grounds as a "community resource". 

Ted the Traitor did precisely that with our fishing grounds when he signed us up to the EEC.  And look what's left of the UK fishing fleet...

[Weaver]

What about something like a Danish Thetis class (Stanflex 3000)? Frigate-sized OPV with great sea-keeping and ice-capability for northern waters, a helo and a cheap basic weapons fit, but able to up-arm with STANFLEX modules if more firepower is needed. No idea how you'd go on for models, but then again, you don't have to copy the design slavishly, just the ideas.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thetis_class_ocean_patrol_vessels