Hi all
Finally finished
First a rather sketchy back story then the pics.....
HMS Provider – A Cigar Ship that was asked to do too muchAround 1910 Initial model testing of a cigar ship proved to be quite promising, the central Turbine fan gave it a reasonable turn of speed and with its two opposing rudders it could turn extremely tightly, however it did have a tendency to roll very badly so two streamlined outriggers were added to each side to stabilise the ship which worked quite successfully.
Eventually a contract was given to build a full size ship and work commenced for a Cigar Ship Destroyer intended to have three four inch guns, two one inch anti aircraft guns, a number of half inch machine guns and torpedo tubes
However many months down the line but fairly early in its construction the powers that be in the navy changed their minds. New edicts were issued that the navy required a high speed tender to supply current Destroyers at sea with fuel, food and ammunition in an effort to increase their range so that they could stay longer with Atlantic convoys.
As a result of this the Cigar Ship lost all its smaller armament and torpedoes. The rear hull aft of the Turbine was turned into a large hold to carry food and ammunition. The pontoons were redesigned to carry fuel oil with extra fuel carried large tanks in the hold that could be pumped into the pontoons.
Essentially it became half destroyer and half transport, a jack of all trades but master of none.
The remaining construction, adaptions and subsequent launch went without problem and HMS Provider was born.
The working up trials followed but started to show some limitations in the design.
Unladen it still had a reasonable turn of speed and manuverability. But when fully loaded the problems began.
The most serious problem was that the ship sat much lower in the water and coupled with increased rolling momentum brought on by the increased weight caused the pontoons to dig in and drag the connecting structure into the sea which in turn pulled the ship towards the pontoon.
The speed was also reduced because of the extra weight and drag so it could not keep up with a normal destroyer even if said destroyer was at an economical cruise.
They tried restricting the amount it could carry but to no avail, it just wasn’t up to the job. Plans were made to replace the booms with aircraft style floats or dispense with the pontoons altogether and give it a massive keel but good sense prevailed and the whole project was cancelled.
The ship was taken to Scapa Flow had all the armament removed and became an oiler and accommodation vessel for destroyers passing through until it was unceremoniously scrapped a few years later, another project the killed by a British disease that tries to get more bang for their bucks and ends up crippling the project.
If they had left the project as originally designed there was a strong chance it would have worked, but fiddling with the design doomed it to failure.
And now the pics....
Being as its a naval subject I've photographed it using a blue background for a change, I think it came out pretty well.
I don't have any 1/600 scale ships to do the scale shots so I've posed the last two photographs with a 1/600 scale Sea Vixen from HMS Victorious
Thanks for looking....
All comments and criticisms gratefully accepted
Mog
>^-.-^<
