Dazzle Disruptive Camo Elco 80ft PT Boat

[airdave]

Dazzle Disruptive Camo Elco 80ft PT Boat

This ship has sailed!
or as Chris as ecardmodels says "she has left the Dock!"

available now at ecardmodels.com




Basically the same kit as my earlier PT 103 Class:
The kit features 32 pages, including
Full colour Cover Page
Elco PT Boat Information Page
9 detailed Diagram Instruction Pages
Full colour Photo reference Page
5 Former/Structural Parts Pages
15 full colour, highly detailed Parts Pages

except this one will "dazzle" your mind!





I hear Ray (Texman) might be building a "micro" version!
Hope I haven't revealed any secrets.
But I can't wait to see that!

Dazzle Disruptive Camo Elco 80ft PT Boat
available now at ecardmodels.com

[charleswlkr54]

Sure dazzled me! Maybe they thought this "camo" scheme would blind enemy gunners! Lol!

[calinous]

I think the dazzle camouflage was used as an anti submarine measure - it would make estimating the "angle of the bow" (ship's relative direction) very difficult to estimate, and the range to target and target's speed would also be difficult to measure from a submarine. Also, while gun fire will produce splashes and the range to target will be refined based on those, and a battleship will have hundreds of rounds for each of its guns (so even 10 ranging shots are nothing), a submarine can't see where its torpedoes go unless they hit, and a submarine at that time had only 10 or so torpedoes.
Also, submarines were slower underwater than mostly any ship, and in north atlantic lower visibility was more the rule than the exception - so they had limited time to refine target speed, direction and range. This dazzle camouflage also helped in obstructing ship's feature, making ship identification harder (so the submarine might confuse a small ship for a large ship).

Surface combatants (real warships) would have a speed advantage over their targets, time to refine firing solutions and a capacity to continue fighting after many "bad shots". They will also have real optical range-finding equipment (unlike a WW1 submarine), so in the end the dazzle camouflage wouldn't help a target much (if at all).

[calinous]

The dazzle camouflage would help a small, agile ship when fired upon from distance - changes in orientation might not be accurately observed by the firing ship, and at distance the shells are fired against the target's expected position (I'm assuming a long shell flight time - a PT boat was 25m long at had a max speed close to 50 km/h or 15m/s - so it went a ship's length in less than 2 seconds).

[Wyvern]

beautiful work, Dave!

Wyvern

[Kazziga]

Excellent one! I've just downloaded it from ecardmodels.com ;-)

[airdave]

Thanks again for the kind comments.
You might not be as generous once you stare at that striping for a while!! lol

As usual if anyone has any issues with my models, my contact info is always at hand.
Through here or through my website.

I don't see any reason to build this model any differently than the other PT Boats
but I'm sure this crazy paint scheme is intimidating.

I would like to build this one myself...but no room for another PT Boat at the moment.
Any one who builds it is welcomed to post photos or even a build thread.

[F-22 nut]

Imagine staring at it for to long in the building process you will still have line while you are about to sleep just by looking at dave's pics i am already dazzed how much does it cost?..
F-22nut

[airdave]

Thanks guys for the interest in this design.

I have it from a knowledgeable source that the decks of these camouflaged boats
were painted "Deck Blue".

I questioned this early on and never got an answer.
I have one or two photos (out of a dozen)
that show some deck edges and small amounts of top surfaces,
and they appear to show striping on those surfaces.
Thats why I finally settled on the striping across the deck.
(But I still thought it would be a nightmare for the sailors)

It definitely makes more sense to paint the Deck a solid colour
but what about overhead threats?

So, I leave it up to the builder to decide
...if you want to, its a fairly simple matter to paint the deck plate parts.
colour reference here

or
build it with the crazy deck paint!

or
get the replacement kit.
Thats right...after some more research, I have decided to update the kit with the Deck Blue.

(I just came across some more reference material that clearly shows at least on of these Boats
with a Gray (Blue) deck, rather than striping everywhere. It looks like deck structures were "dazzled"
but the actual deck surface was painted Gray. )

New kit will be ready shortly and uploaded to ecardmodels.
You can contact them about replacing your kit.
Or (if I know you) get in touch with me.

[3Turner]

Originally Posted by F-22 nut

Imagine staring at it for to long in the building process you will still have line while you are about to sleep just by looking at dave's pics i am already dazzed how much does it cost?..
F-22nut

F-22, here you go: 1/48 PT Boat 103 Class Elco 80' Torpedo Boat Disruptive Paper Mo - ECardmodels.com Shop -

Originally Posted by airdave

New kit will be ready shortly and uploaded to ecardmodels.
You can contact them about replacing your kit.
Or (if I know you) get in touch with me.

And as Dave posted....the file has been updated. So if you have already purchased the kit in the past, go on in and download the updated file. If your link has already expired or gone past the 3 downloads...get in touch with Dave, Chris or any other Ecardmodels staff.