Shipbucket

I am planning on writing a series of historical posts on Statesmanship about the exploits of a mercenary group (similar to 5 Commando in the Congo during the 1960s) in SMS' version of the Belgian Congo.

As befits low-level warfare, the group will have some obsolete aircraft from the 1940s, one or two helicopters, and a river gunboat of some origin with a few automatic cannons. For the life of me, though, I can't decide what sort of ship to use as the gunboat. The idea behind this would be that it was a coastal minelayer (or sub chaser, or whatever) in a European country which was then seconded to the colonial forces in Motappaland (SMS Congo) and upgraded over the years. By the 1970s or so, it has received a 40mm Bofors cannon and whatnot.

I'm looking for a suitable candidate for NPS Terrible, the valiant river gunboat which of course fights the communist-backed rebel savages in the story RP. Any ideas?

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

dokkum class, ton class and van straelen class are the first ones to pop up in my mind. the last one might not be able to take the weight of an 40 mm on the bow though, but an stern position (replacing the winches) would certainly fit.

it really depends on what you want to do with them, so which size, for the weapons, max draft and speed.

also, note that minesweepers are often wooden ships, maybe not that suitable to be shot at xD

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Doesn't have to be a minelayer/sweeper. Just some sort of small, sturdy coastal combatant.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

What about an MTB type boat, something along the lines of the Vospers or Fairmiles? They were designed for coastal warfare and their relatively shallow draft would allow riverine warfare quite easily.

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"Anybody remotely interesting is mad in some way." - The Seventh Doctor

Maybe something similar to the Yhang-Ze River gunboats?

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Worklist

"If people never did silly things nothing intelligent would ever get done." ~Ludwig Wittgenstein

I have the perfect boats for you Colosseum:

Norway have had and are still having the Naval politic where they sell old equipment for a cheap money to a another country.

This first three boats have Norway had down in Africa at one time on a exercise one those rivers. specially the Hauk class.

Hauk class, Storm class and Snogg class have all the same hull.

Storm class Missile cannon boat.
http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... 0Storm.png

Snogg class
http://www.shipbucket.com/Real%20Design ... 0Snogg.png

Hauk class (Old drawing, couldend find my redo!)
http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... 20Hauk.gif

Then you have the old Sleipner class (a bit to big for you, but it you remove it's AWS capacity, it would be a sheep patrol draft.)
http://www.shipbucket.com/images.php?di ... eipner.png

Norway had a lot of WW2 PT boats and destroyers after WW2 and some of them was in service to the 60's (Destroyers was replaced by Oslo class)

other PT boats:

Tjeld class
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tjeld_class_patrol_boat

Rapp class
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapp_class_patrol_boat
http://www.agderkultur.no/Per-Kjell-Kri ... app-kl.JPG


Elco class from WW2

German D class from WW2

Not looking for a high speed patrol boat, rather some sort of slow, lumbering craft belching black smoke from a barely-running engine.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Please keep in mind that this craft will probably not be "optimized" for combat. I'm not looking for the ideal, billion-dollar-budget solution here. On second thought, a wooden minelayer/sweeper would probably work fairly well.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Ooooooo... damn. I was thinking about old German S-boat: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... neboat.jpg

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

we have had many wooden mine-layer here in Norway, they are similar to those Netherlands had. from the era after WW2 and around!