Hi All,
I have been swooning over the airplane Whiffs on this site for a year and just noticed the sea portion of this. Here I do more than dream as I do a lot of What-if modeling in 1/1200 which I will eventually post here.
Recently I launched a line of 1/600 minis based upon a hypothetical WW1 where the US and Britain are on opposite sides (ala Turtledove's "Great War" series) and there is a naval campaign on the Great Lakes.
In reading the series, it became apparent that, while battleships were quickly chased off the lakes by mines and subs, small craft would take up the slack on both sides. There were a LOT of designs and prototypes of small craft in this era that never had time to be built or were passed over by conservative naval commands. The boats are mix of jazzed up real craft like the Greenport motor launches, here as MTBs/MGBs, modified British CMBs, A US version on the German LM boats with an armored cockpit and unique little US Submersible MTBs (two versions of this were actually built as prototypes in 1918).
Here are US Liberty Mk2 MTBs
Here are some of the Canadian craft with a lake freighter in dazzle camo.
More US craft including the Liberty Mk1 MTBs, Elco launches, a Greenport MTB and little 40' Scout boats
On Lake Champlain the US armed barges from the NY Barge canal and the Canadians used modified versions of the French Canal Monitors
And a small little 58' US armored gunboat ( this is the almost done master)
It has been a lot of fun and there are more in the works including a US lake monitor, minesweepers for both sides and more escort craft.
Dave G
