Shipbucket

Hello everyone,

Today I bring you two more captured ships that went on to become part of the IJN after the surrender of the Dutch East Indies. These ships are the Hr.Ms. Valk and Banckert, an "opiumjager" and standard destroyer. The Valk was originally designed to be an anti-smuggling ship stationed in the East Indies, and was assigned there in 1930. After the war began in 1939, she was transferred from the civilian government to military command and given the designation Hr.Ms. after being converted to a seaplane tender. In 1942, she was scuttled to due damage from airstrikes and was left abandoned - similar to both USS Stewart and the Banckert. She then was refloated in 1943, and completed repairs in 1944 to become Patrol Boat No. 104 and served the rest of the war primarily as an escort for merchant ships.

Banckert was only raised in 1944, and began repairs the same year. It has been reported that the repairs were never finished, although they were written as such on paper. She was then surrendered in 1945, and eventually was sank by the Dutch as a target ship in 1949.

I have drawn Valk in her 1944 configuration, and Banckert in her 1945 configuration (as no pictures of either exist in Japanese service, I went with the best that I could find for both).

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Awesome work!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Nice, but I'd say that masts look odd - I'd keep it 1-pixel thin just in uppermost section (and are You sure that 104's aft mas had no other supports, rigging, etc? - and on 106 I'd make "left" arm of mainmast 3-pixel thick too).

I am not sure about 104's aft mast, as there are no pictures of her in her Japanese configuration that I know of. Currently I have the source which I used to draw the ship, and pre-war pictures of her. Would you recommend to go ahead and draw one of the cranes for it?





I also updated 106 to have a better foremast.

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To be honest, I'd make spars 3-px thick too.
As for the 104's aft mast - I just doubt that it would be completely unsupported single 15-meter pipe sticking upwards. Obviously, the source shows it as such, so I think, that there had to be (not included in the source material) some (a lot) of rigging around, but I have no idea how exactly it would be arranged, which is always an issue when drawing from such limited source material.

How do these look?

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Better, but in such circumstances I'd make masts 3-pixel thick all the way up - certainly wouldn't put 3-px thick spar on 1-px mast.

Hopefully this is the last one!

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Well, I guess so.
With sources like this, you're not going to achieve much more (in general, I wouldn't encourage anyone to attempt drawing anything based on so scarce materials).

The sources for Patrol Boats 103, 105, 107, and 109 are even scarcer...I've only ever seen one pic for each of them.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB