"The Insect Gunboats" Topic

Old, but still interesting article here.

"A class of almost forgotten WW I gunboats of the Royal Navy were involved again and again in operations along the Libyan coast, starting with bombarding Sidi Barrani at the start of Operation COMPASS, O¡¯Connor¡¯s offensive in 1940. At least one of them, HMS Aphis, was involved in Operation CRUSADER over a year later, e.g. when she joined Australian destroyers in bombarding Axis positions at Sollum and Halfaya., or during bombardments of the coastal road from Derna to Tobruk. Her companion HMS Gnat had been involved in bombardment action against the Axis forces in October, but had been torpedoed by U-79 on 21 October and her bow shot away. She was never repaired. HMS Ladybird had been bombed and sunk in shallow water in Tobruk harbour on 12 May 41, and continued to serve as an AA platform, so I guess one can say she was involved as well. You can see HMS Ladybird in a very interesting movie from around 1943 at this link, together with some good shots of Italian San Giorgio.

The insects¡¯ main armament were 6¡å guns, and they had a very distinctive look with their twin funnels arranged abreast, instead of in line, a bit like Mississipi steamers, as can be seen in the picture of HMS Cockchafer below. Although it is likely that by World War 2 most of them had been rebuilt, and lost the twin funnels, as can be seen on the picture of HMS Aphis below. They were very small vessels of only 625 tons displacement, smaller than e.g. the Italian escort torpedo boats of the Spica class, or a German Type VII submarine, and they were designed to operate on what amounts to no more than a wet meadow, or a larger river such as the Danube. I like the fact that the class naming makes a lot of sense ¨C the boats were tiny, but packed a big sting (an article on modern ship naming can be found at this link ¨C it features Insect-class HMS Cockchafer, which may have been involved in CRUSADER)…"
Full article here.
link

Hope you enjoy!.

Amicalement
Armand

IIRC there was a paperback book called 'Armed with Stings' by A Cecil Hampshire, published by New English Library (NEL), giving the whole history of the class

Britannia Miniatures made ( and may still do) a nice model in 1/72 (sort of anyway)…I have it but it sits happily on a shelf and has never actually been used in a wargame…mind you neither has the aircraft carrier I scratch built in the same scale!

PT Dockyard do one in 1/600

Thanks for the info guys!

Amicalement
Armand

Thanks for the plug. I do two actually- a WW2 version and one in my Russian Civil War line.

Dave G

Hope to see them soon my friend.

Amicalement
Armand