The Ship Model Forum

Hello gents, thought exercise time!

If you had the chance how would you whiff a USN Perry Class FFG and/or a USN Knox Class FF in the early 1980s time frame? I want to build a few but I'm coming up really short on ideas. Think of it like the ships went into the yard for an experimental conversion to improve their abilities and go from there.

So far, I've come up with:

Twin guns over singles
Addition of Mk. 141 Harpoon canisters on both (to free up ASROC and Mk-13), locations though?

I'm at a loss on anything else. Remember stick to early '80s tech.

Thoughts?

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Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984

Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984

Knox Mod:
Baleares style side-mounting for two Phalanx mounts, just slightly aft of the MACK, which would allow retention of the Mk29. Alternately, build up a deckhouse and put a Mk22 on the aft mount? Not sure of the weight there. As to Harpoons, one could set them amidships, forward of the hangar? Wouldn't fit many I think, but you could put them there.

Perry Mod:
Could remove the Mk13 and replace with a small short-cell VLS to support SM-2 and such but not TLAM. Remove the gun from the top deck, put it down on the weather deck, allowing Harpoons in place of the 3" gun. There's been a few cells placed ahead of the Mk13 in other nations' uses, so there might be enough margin space to mount the 3" on a better positioning.


Guns - twin mounts would be negligible benefit on the Knox especially, as the gun has two loading systems for that single barrel, retaining a good rate of fire - simialrly, the 76mm gun has a rather fast rate when it's running good.

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Die Panzerschiffe - Putting the Heavy in Heavy Cruiser since 1940.

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I've been bouncing a few ideas around as I read this topic. I have several of the 1/700 Knox's and a couple of the DML Perry's in the stash.

One idea I had centered around a smaller VLS and 5"/54 Mk 45 mount being added to each. I was going to see how the Mk 45's looked forward of the bridge superstructure. Not sure if it would be feasible or realistic. On the Knox, I wonder if a aft mounted VLS would work. I haven't had a lot of thoughts on the sensor outfit yet.

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"There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today"

On the Knox FFs, a couple of obvious things first:

Replace the 5 inch gun and the ASROC box with a VLS with both Standard and Vertical Launch ASROC. You'd need a Mk92 FCS like in the FFGs to go with this suite.

Then put a modern Mk 45 5 inch gun on the fantail in place of the Mk 25 Sea Sparrow box launcher, which was notoriously unreliable anyway.