In 1966, the Portsmouth ship-builders, Vosper Ltd., merged with
the Southampton-based John I. Thornycroft to form Vosper Thornycroft,
a publicly quoted engineering group, with an annual turnover of
£250 million and currently employing 4000 staff. The company
has a reputation for designing and building fast, innovative naval
vessels and has one of the most advanced naval shipbuilding yards
in Europe, with the capability of building in steel, aluminium
or fibre-reinforced plastic. VT's reputation for ground-breaking
technology has most recently seen the company develop the Sea
Wraith stealth warship concept. Sea Wraith incorporates several
advanced features which are set to become essential elements in
the warships of the future where the major emphasis will be on
stealth. A low profile and uncluttered exterior are designed to
give a much reduced radar cross section, thus impeding radar detection
and confusing an attacking missile control system. The ship can
also produce a cloud of water fog to provide cover for infra-red
hotspots. With a length of 138 metres, Sea Wraith's gas turbine
and electric engines give her a top speed in excess of 28 knots.
Armed with 1 x 127mm and 2 x 35mm gun mountings, surface-to-surface
and surface-to-air missile systems, an artillery rocket weapon
system and helicopter-launched torpedoes and depth charges, Sea
Wraith has a variety of sensors including an unmanned aerial vehicle
(UAV) system with 4 aircraft.
Vosper Thornycroft approached Marcle Models in autumn 1997 to
commission a card model kit of the Sea Wraith to be used by the
company to publicise and promote their product. In turn, we contacted
the Polish firm, JSC Models, whose 1:400 and 1:250 model ship
kits have proved so popular over the years. After discussions
with VT, it was agreed that the waterline model would be to a
scale of 1:400 and would be provided with a sea-base. Design commenced
in mid-1998 by JSC with the active participation of the Design
team at VT. The prototype models were available when I visited
Poland in July and further refinements were made over the summer,
resulting in the delivery of the finished kits to VT in time for
the international naval exhibition "Euronaval" in Paris
in October.
Part of the agreement between VT and JSC was that, after the delivery
of the promotional kit to VT, JSC would be free to add the model
to their range and make the Sea Wraith kit available to the general
modelling public. As far as I am aware, the JSC kit is so far
the only commercially available model kit of the Sea Wraith.
Construction begins with the hull, most of which is in one piece
and includes both hull sides and deck. After bending the hull
sides to shape, the two main frames are inserted and the afterdeck,
which incorporates the stern, is located inside the hull. The
basic shape of the hull has now been constructed and work now
proceeds on the ram-shaped bow which must be placed in the forward
part of the hull structure. This is built with its own frame and
base; a special card part is also provided as a tool to ease one
of the bow frames into position where fingers won't reach. Attention
is now turned to the superstructure. The main superstructure sides,
including part of the after tower, are glued onto the deck and
the superstructure deck is added. The bridge, tower structures
and funnels are added. A nice touch here is the after mast with
navigation lights which is built so that it can be moved out of
the tower for use and retracted for stealth mode. Construction
then continues with the armaments. The gun turrets are each constructed
from a single piece of card and the barrels cut according to supplied
templates from styrene rod or similar. The turrets can be made
to rotate. Due to the revolutionary design of the Sea Wraith,
the ship's railings, such as they are, can accurately be built
from card and located around the helicopter pad. They can also
be made to fold down, as during a landing. The missile launchers
and UAV launch rail complete the ship. A Lynx helicopter is also
provided, as well as a UAV. Finally, the kit is supplied with
a sea base to be cut out and mounted on a suitable piece of board
on which the finished Sea Wraith may now be displayed. Unlike
conventional ships, the Sea Wraith is noticeably angular, the
result of her stealth capability. Indeed, the design of the ship
lends itself ideally to modelling in card. The complete model
takes about 25 hours to build and the original Vosper Thornycroft
designs together with JSC's expertise in card modelling have produced
an unusual and fascinating kit which gives an intriguing view
of naval warfare in the future.
Christopher Cooke