Shipbucket

Ten SSM, one Mark 34, and the M1948 twin mount. Does anybody have the triple Gabriel launcher by any chance?

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I'd cut back on the missiles. Maintaining the 300+ missiles needed to keep all the boats fully stocked is going to be a major challenge for a navy that'll be fighting with tooth and nail to get qualified manpower. This is one of the main problems for many of the Second and Third world navies. They simple doesn't have the skilled manpower or the means to educate them to maintain complex weapons like anti ship missiles and as a result they have to rely on foreign (and expensive) contractors to do the work.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Cut down to eight missiles per ship, and probably only sixteen (maybe even just twelve) rather than twenty-eight boats in the class.

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The boat crew will thank you for the davit.

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“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Hopefully the last revision of the original boat. Added some doodads and changed from 20mm to a .50 caliber.

The First Ogaden War (1969)
The First Ogaden War was one of Africa's first postcolonial conflicts. With Siad Barre's coup in 1965, the Somali Republic's foreign policy was based on ethno-nationalism, namely that they were the sole representative for all Somali people, backed by what would be the largest army in Africa by 1980. This meant that several states were under the crosshairs of Somali irridentism. First was the Republic of Djibouti, only two years old at the time of the war (the French do not rig the vote in 1967 TTL, leading to independence), then the vast Ogaden region of Ethiopia, conquered by Menelik II during the Scramble for Africa, and an undetermined belt of land in eastern Kenya.

There had always been an insurgency in the Ogaden. For one, it was never truly Ethiopian and to this day not properly "Ethiopianized" like Eritrea. While most Somalis more or less accepted the rule of the Emperor, a substantial minority, backed by Somalia and her friends in the USSR and India, had fought on-and-off battles against Ethiopian troops. Moreover, the territory was not properly demarcated until after the Second Italo-Abyssinian War and the long, arbitrary borders across the Haud were impossible to police. Even during the days of the Italian-administered UN Mandate, Ethiopian troops would often recover Carcano, M1, and BM-59 rifles from dead insurgents, none of which belonged to any of the Imperial Armies or provincial sefari, which bought its small arms from Germany. With Somali unification in 1961, the guerilla war escalated, and Barre's coup made war with Somalia a matter of time.

Somalia attacked on the morning of Feburary 16, 1969, striking first against Djibouti. The disparity in forces made the outcome a given. The country capitulated in two days, and the government fled to Ethiopian Eritrea by plane. Somalia announced its annexation of the country the following day. On the twentieth, Somali forces invaded Ethiopia following a declaration of war in the early morning. Ethiopia had been prepared and sent its troops to bolster the Ogaden provincial sefar and defend a defensive line running from Asaylita to Jijiga to Dolo Odo. Mounted in Unimogs and Land Rovers and armed with German PzF 44s, small, highly mobile teams of Ethiopians held off larger numbers of Somalis, who were either on foot or riding tank desant.

Meanwhile, the Imperial Ethiopian Navy sallied for what would be its first combat engagement. MIM Massawa, the submarine chaser PC-501, and the four Ethiopia-class boats available at the time, P-300, 301, 302, and 303 set sail to clear the way for a blockade of Berbera by PT boats and to close the port of Mogadishu. As the fleet passed Hobyo, it encountered ten Indian-built Komar-class missile boats of the Somali Navy. The Somalis, having spotted the Ethiopian fleet beforehand, fired the first salvo of P-15 Termit missiles,with each ship firing one of her tubes. The Ethiopian missile boats launched chaff, confusing the missiles. The missile boats then accelerated to flank speed and split off from the subchasers, and launched a salvo of their own. Unable to throw the missiles off or shoot them down, four were destroyed while manuvering to hit the older WWII-vintage boats. However, the missile boats interposed themselves between these two ships, and were closing in on cannon range. The second Somali salvo then managed to hit the superstructure of the P-301, killing thirty crewmen out of forty-four, and the stern of the P-303 killing eight and forcing the boat to be scuttled after the battle. The minesweeper and the submarine chasers were now in range, and began firing their 3"/50 guns along with the missile boats, who switched to cannon fire. The rest of the Somali fleet, now out of missiles, were unable to effectively respond, and four were downed by 3" fire (two by the P-300's Mark 34, one by PC-501, one by the Massawa) while two were disposed of by P-303's 40mm guns. The Battle off Hobyo destroyed the Somali Navy, while establishing that African sea power was indeed possible.

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The Ethiopia-class after 1979 rebuild. Out of the sixteen ships of the class (P-301 and P-303 were re-ordered in 1974, bring the total number built to eighteen), only twelve underwent the refit, with P-311 through P-315 being sold to the Kenyans. The armament of the 1979 Ethiopia class is much heavier and more complex than the previous generation, but by now Ethiopia was developing the capability to maintain complex technology on its own, much like South Korea.

Ethiopia on the Eve of Haile Selassie I's Death
As early as 1965, Haile Selassie I was making plans for his successor. Already seventy-three years of age, he was getting wearier and frailer every year, a mere shadow of his days as a young and brilliant general in fighting Queen Zewditu's reactionaries in and Italian fascists. His son, who would become Amha Selassie I but now still Leul (Prince) Asfaw Wossen Taffari, was already of middle age. Asfaw was already one of the Emperor's chief diplomats, and a staunch ally of the liberals in the Dergs, and until his debilitating stroke in 1973, was assuming more and more of the administrative duties of the King of Kings. When the stroke left him quadriplegic, paralyzed on one side, and with a speech impediment, his son, the young Zera Yacob (later Emperor Zera Yacob II) began to be groomed by both father and grandfather as the de facto heir to the throne, as all reached the conclusion that any reign of Asfaw would be short-lived. The disability of the immediate heir, and the liberal tendencies of House Solomonid would radically change Ethiopian society once Halie Selassie passed in 1982 at the age of ninety and fifty-two years as the King of Kings.

Meanwhile, the Dergs began to come onto their own. Their quick action saved Wello province from a famine in 1974, and active prime ministers such as the thirteen-year term of Aklilu Habte-Wold and his alliance of commoner "technocrats," the UNCTAD veteran--and well-known socialist--Mikael Imru began a series of public works and organized the aforementioned famine relief. The opening of the lower houses of the Derg to popular sovereignty allowed the Ethiopian peoples their first experience in democracy, and managed it quite well compared to the failed and shattered "republics" lying all over Africa.

Economically, the Ethiopians were about to hit their stride. The hydroelectric projects on the Blue Nile gave rise to a small class of electrical engineers in the early fifties, who studied at American universities in what would become Silicon Valley. The second computer in Africa was at Addis Ababa in 1953, an IBM "electrical tabulator" like the one shipped to South Africa the year before. Supplied with the mineral wealth of Sub-Saharan Africa and Western expertise, the Ethiopian telecommunications industry could boom in the decade to come, along with the rest of the most modern economy in Africa.

It would be folly, however, to think that all was well within the Empire. The root of the unease could be summed up thus: Ethiopia was still an absolute monarchy (albeit an arguably benevolent and enlightened despotism), in a world where kings and empires were simply viewed as unacceptable and out of date. Many of the regional governments of the Empire were governed by the Mesafint--the old landed aristocracy, with ancient bloodlines and conservative bent, backed by many influential members of the Orthodox Church. They were opposed to the Mekwanint, the appointed nobles who held more power at the Imperial court. They did not enjoy the "invasion of Abyssinia" by the Western corporations, and their declining status in comparison to the upstarts in Addis Ababa. The growing Communist movement got ideas from the 1960 coup attempt and began agitating the nascent Ethiopian working class to seize the Western factories and topple the monarchy, and it was a fact that they had infiltrated the army, and only the pressure of other commanders kept the most powerful Communist in the army, Mengistu Haile Mariam, in line. Nationalist and patriot movements, such as the Eritreans and the Ogaden Somalis, still waged a secret war against police and army, supplied by the USSR and its allies, China, the Islamic Republics of Iran and Yemen, and Somalia and its allies in Oman. Nevermind the fact that several of these states had a score to settle with Ethiopia itself, the Empire had its hands full trying to keep the various sources of unrest within its subjects in control.

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I am not certain the aft 40mm would be available by 1979.... IIRC, that newer then 1990 at least. you might want to use the 'normal' dardo mount.

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Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

This better?

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Include the booster for the Harpoon, except that I don't find much problem with the ship.

The Sub looks a bit odd IMHO, but I think because its a post german sub, never really warmed to them personally

I like the look to the Ethiopia Class FAC which has had a few modifications, showing a nice evolution

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Miscellaneous|Victorian Colonial Navy|Murray Riverboats|Colony of Victoria AU|Project Sail-fixing SB's sail shortage
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There's no such thing as "nothing left to draw" If you can down 10 pints and draw, you're doing alright by my standards