Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

This being my first post and first drawing here, I have decided to start small:

This is the Soviet 1960s river gunboat Projekt 1204 aka Shmel class.
Like the later Projekt 1208 already submitted by Darth Panda, it is built around a tank turret, in this case the PT-76 light tank.
More information here or here (in russian).

I have meant to represent the major variants in chronological order, which differ mostly by their weapons fit. As far as I know, there are no designations assigned to the different fits.
So far, the versions shown do not represent specific boats. If time and skill allow I will try to improve on that.



Any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
If this or a corrected version passes the grade, I will continue the series with several older models.

Edit: image link corrected.

Looks nice at a glance.

Thanks Eswube, appreciate the feedback!

Edit: as promised, I will start posting other drawings of the earlier Projects 1124 and 1125 in the next few days.

Here is part 2 of the series on Soviet gunboats, with the WW2-vintage Projekt 1125 BKA.

As this one is a bit more obscure that the Shmel, it deserves its own blurb:

Together with its bigger half-sister class Projekt 1124, the Pr.1125 was born in the late 30s out of a desire by the Soviet navy (then RKKF) to standardize and expend its fleet of river and coastal gunboats to police strategic waterways, deter enemy crossings, raid inland shipping and support friendly river landings. The pre-war gunboat fleet was a dispersed hodge-podge of converted ferries, yachts and trawlers with outdated armament and inadequate armor. With the twin projects 1124 and 1125, the objective was to deploy a massive fleet of agile, sturdy "river tanks" with overwhelming firepower for their size and environment.
The project was split in two from the outset, with the bigger Pr.1124 (q.v. below) complemented by the Pr.1125 that traded lighter weaponry for lower draft in order to navigate shallower waterways. This reasoning would not be borne out by actual wartime deployment where the two classes often fought side-by-side in the same units and theaters.
The initial plans called for monitor-type boats of less than 50t displacement, armed with then-current tank turrets and further turreted MGs, with the vital hull compartments (engines, fuel, magazines) clad in bulletproof armor and protected by armored bulkheads and rudimentary fire-proofing of the fuel tanks. This was topped by a near-cubic armored wheelhouse in the center of the deck, outfitted with only the most basic instruments for daylight river navigation.
After the first boats were built in 1938, a number of improvements were introduced in production and retrofitted:
- The cut-out bow that was supposed to help balance the ship and make it more maneuverable also make the deck unbearably wet and was filled up.
- Early fighting in Finland showed that the initial T-28 turrets armed with short-bore interrupted-screw-breech 76.2 mm guns were woefully inadequate in rate of turn, rate of fire and elevation against a modern opponent. A dedicated naval mount with higher elevation using the new D-5 gun from the T-34 was put to the drawing board, but went nowhere at the time.
- In replacement, it was decided to refit the boats of both projects with the complete turrets of the T-34. However, the needs of the Red Army were deemed more pressing and few T-34 turrets made their way onto the gunboats until 1942-43.
- To make up for the missing turrets, a number of boats were refitted with obsolete Lender Mod.1914/15 guns in open mounts, which granted a theoretical anti-aircraft capability.
- Other ad-hoc upgrades sought to improve the AA capability of the boats, using mostly DShK 12.7mm MGs and 70K 37mm guns in open mounts.
- In parallel, tests were made to install more powerful fire-support weapons on some boats by replacing one turret by a Katyusha rocket launcher, using either 82mm or 132mm rounds. None of these conversions outlived the war, as the MRL fit with its exposed ammunition and open, manual reloading was deemed too vulnerable under fire.
- Starting from the end of 1942, T-34 turrets were made available in sufficient amounts and became the near-universal norm on boats of both projects, at least in the western theater.
- At nearly the same time, the legacy MG armament of WW1-vintage Maxim guns in manually operated turrets, already replaced in some boats by the weaker Degtyarev DT for more commonality with the T-34 turrets, started being replaced with dedicated twin 12.7mm DShKM-2B mounts.
- In turn, from 1944 on, some of these were again replaced with open DShKM-2 mounts which offered better defense against fast-flying aircraft at the expense of armor.
A lot of the 300 boats built in both projects would soldier on through the 50s until they were replaced with much more modern designs we will discuss later on.



Notes on the drawings:
- This is a collection of typical variants without association to actual ships, meant only to showcase the different fits for evaluation. Final drawings of atypical variants will be dedicated to documented boats.
- The design is new but uses eswube's BMO series for inspiration and a few of the mounts (open DShK, 70K). Proper credit will be given in the final drawings.
- EDIT: RC1.1 with rivets removed (see further posts)

I would really appreciate some feedback on this version. In order to make the hulls more life-like, I have started playing around with things like drop shadows and rivets, and it might have gone over to the cluttered side as a result.

Enjoy!

Very nice work on both of the Pr.1204 and 1125.

As to hull details, shadowing is fine and should be done but rivets should never be shown in most cases. They are too small to be seen at this scale (remember 1 pixel = 6 inches (0.5 ft). It just creates unneeded clutter. If you were to see these ships at real life at this size you would never see such tiny details for example.

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Thanks for the feedback, Hood.

You have a point on the rivets, I have removed them but kept the joint lines between the armored plates.
See the original post for the new version.

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And here is the sister class Pr.1124.

I won't repeat the common write-up, that you can find to learn more about the class in that post.



The idea is the same as the post above with a selection of likely variants for verification.
Barring negative feedback or other major reworks, I will start posting individual versions in another thread, as well as other related projects.

Nice additions.

OK, one last draft for this thread.

The scramble to improve river gunboats during the Great Patriotic War resulted in a flurry of variants with different displacements and weapon fits, which have been partly illustrated in the Projects 1124 and 1125 evolution. Already before 1944, a project was started to replaced these pre-war designs with more modern boats, improving survivability and transportability while standardizing on a modern weapons fit.

To replace the heavy Project 1124 and lighter Project 1125, the separate Projects 190 and 191 were developed in parallel, with target displacements of 75t and 40t respectively.
This class split based mostly on pre-war habits turned out useless and the Project 190 was abandoned.
The initial Project 191 was not accepted in service either, and was improved into the Project 191M, which entered full-scale production in 1947, reaching a total of 118 boats in 1952.
In 1951, further minor improvements were explored under Project 192, which was not put to series production.



Edit: image link repaired

Good work.