Minensucher 1940 – The channel destroyer
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In 1939 the Kriegsmarine had big problems. Hitler had promised them to start no naval war in the next five years. So all fleet building plans had been for the building of high quality vessels, not cheap mass production. Building of the ordered 1935 ones would end in 1942
So the superb Minensucher 1935 was expensive and fed with oil. A cheap mass production type was now needed and so the coal burning Minensucher 1940 was designed.
It was another good design but at first lacked firepower. The original design had just one 10,5 cm gun aft without shield, a 3,7 cm before the bridge and two 2 cm. In that configuration they reached the front from 1941 on. German and Dutch makers built them in large numbers.
The shifting of most of Luftwaffe away from channel left the Kriegsmarine there without protection against planes. And the rising number of MTB made more firepower a must.
So the new boats got a second (still unshielded) 10,5 cm and some extra 2 cm.But even that was not enough for many. So the front designed the “Kampfboot”. My model shows one of these “channel destroyers”. A nickname that shows the RN respect for that type. It is difficult to say how many got built or converted like that. It is sure that there are variations.
Two shielded 10,5 cm, three- four 3,7 cm and six – eight 2 cm made the formidable escorts. The minesweeping equipment was reduced but they could still do minesweeping.
There is a post war confusion between Kampfboot and Torpedoschießboot. Some Type 1940 boats got two torpedo tubes before the bridge. So some authors thought these to be the Kampfboot. But in fact they had been training boats for U-Boot officer torpedo training. They had before the bridge a dummy U-boot tower.
Warlord did that very nice Minensuchboot 1935 and sells it as generic M type. That makes me think that they will do no other Minensucher type.
Side by side the 1935 and 1940 look similar like all German Minensucher designs of WW I and II. But not similar enough to convert the Warlord model into a 1940. Hull and superstructure was different.
The prominent difference is the single mast of the later boats. And in the Kampfboot version the heavy AA firepower.
The model is 99% scratch built. I only used a warlord 2 cm quad from my spare part box.
Hull and superstructures are balsa wood and cardboard. The mast is made mainly from brass wire.
It was a two evenings project. Hope you like it and that it makes you try some scratch building yourself.
That’s true. And I must admit, a reason for using it. It hides the xxxx at some parts.
It’s done as a wargaming mdel, not for collection. So I put a blind eye on some xxxxxxxxx. Not every corner is 90°, some 89…..I tried to do some pics of the guns. But have only a normal camera.
Here 2 cm with case catching net, 3,7 cm and 10.5 cm without shield.They are done without much detail. Just to give the Impression: Gun of x size. Wargaming style
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That’s all the guns i build so far. A twin Bofors for a Captain Class Frigate (Buckley Class conversion) and a set of 37mm twin guns for my scratch build Sperrbrecher. Of course the barrels are to thick, but at arms length you really cant tell. The rest of the dimensions are close to the respective scale.
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