Hookpilot

Thanks Stiletto for pointing out John's correct web site address.

Martno1fan: There are plans floating around for the Vospers. They weren't available when I originally built the boat in 1969. With the coming of the Internet, I was able to do quite a bit of research on Vosper-Thorncroft and the boats they built during WWII. I found out that Revell went to Herreschoff boatyard on the US east coast to get plans for their plastic kit in 1/72 scale of the Vosper Motor Torpedo Boat. The plans they got were not for a British or American boat, but for an export design built for the Russian Navy under Lend/Lease. The differences are not subtle. the machine guns used were American Browning M-2s instead of Vickers 12.5mm guns, or the .303 caliber Lewis Mark I machine guns. Only the British Type 1 boats were armed with the Oerlikon 20mm gun. the export boat had the same gun. All other Vospers had heavy machine guns. Later on in the war, British boats also were fitted with 40mm Bofors guns, or the 2-Pounder Vickers QF Mark VIII gun. A bigger 6-pounder was planned but the war ended before it was made operational The torpedoes used were also different and the lauch mechanism was a pneumatic air system as opposed to the pyrotechnic cordite impulse charge canister system found on Elco, Higgins and British Vospers. Early Higgins boats also had the compressed air system, but that was also changed over to the cordite canister system too. Engines were the same.

So the boat I built, and the 1/72 kit still sold by Revell is not a British MTB as their kit box cover says. It is a Soviet export version of the Vosper Type 1 built in Herreshoff's Rhode Island yard. Under Lend/Lease agreements, all these boats had to be destroyed at war's end. None remain. Too bad.

Now if you want to really build a boat that you'll probably never see modeled, pick up Squadron/Signal Publications Warships Number 13, Vosper MTBs in action. Larger hobby shops carry their booklets. In there you'll find info on a Vosper test boat called the MTB 510. It was a four-engined monster 100.5 feet long. Vosper Thorncroft built it to test experimental SSS gearboxes. It would make a great model at 1/20th scale and a spectacular one at 1/16th scale- lots of deck detailing, torpedoes, 40mm Vickers gun, 57mm gun, twin 12.5mm Vickers machine guns and a twin Oerlikon 20mm AA gun. I don't know of anyone selling plans for this boat. The Vosper folks are still in business in the UK and they might be willing to let you photocopy some drawings from their war archives. This might be my next project. If plans can be obtained, I'd send them to John Drain and have him laser cut a hull, deck and superstructure frameset. At that size, I'd consider using weed wacker motors with electric starters. At 1/16 scale it would be over 6 feet long!

I have lots of pictures of the rebuild done in 2005/2006, but none from 1969, just one B/W photo taken after it was initially completed in Germany before I shipped it home.

Good luck, Mike in Honolulu