Not that I have seen. I would like to find some. Trumpeter makes a 1/35th LCM crew. You get 6 to a box but they will take some work to look like a PT boat crew.

Hi,
this is my first post on this part of the site, usually on the armor side. I just bought the Italeri kit, and the Lion Roar super kit....Im just about ready to start building it. Im going to do it as 596. I was wondering if she originally had the star on top of the roof of the cabins(sorry, for lack of a better term) or was this only on earlier boats? If it is correct for the 596, where can I get one of these masks to paint it?

Thanks!
Chad

Kenny Loup (GATOR) makes them. He is one of the editors on this site. Just PM him and tell him what you need. Most of us have used his masks at one time or another and have been more than pleased with the results.

Thanks for the info!!

Hi
Yeh Gator's masks are very good , I used a set that he makes for the Zebra striped PT Boats. I did alter to fit my particular boat. PT 174 Zebra scheme.
Try them there good value.

Hi, this is my first post so I will take just a sec to introduce myself, I'm a Navy Vet circa 68-71. I was a plane captain on A6 Intruders and served on the flightdeck of USS Independance and USS Forrestal (not during the cruise with the big fire, thank god.) My Dad was a WWII Navy vet and served on PT Boats in the S Pacific during the war. PT 375, Ron 27 to be exact. I like building 1/72 WWI aircraft kits and I am building this kit as a tribute to my Dad and the other men who served on the 375 boat during the war. I have had the Italerie kit for awhile now and have been getting my ducks in a row so to speak, I have the Eduard photo etch detail kit, some of Gator's masks, which are great btw, thanx Ken, and a lot of info on Ron 27 and their actions in the Pacific, oh yeah, these guys saw some action. From Treasury Is in the Solomons, night patrols around Bougainville, Green Island, they hopped up the coast of NewGuinea in a lot of little islands there but not in New Guinea proper I don't think. The Palaus, and the Phillipines where most of the original crew was transferred back stateside on points. During that time, PT 375 never lost a man, were on over a hundred patrols, got in a scrap with a Jap PT Boat and sank it, sank a Jap suicide boat in Manila Bay, were one of two Ron 27 PT's that were the first US Navy warships back in Manila Bay since it was captured, were given a Navy Unit Commendation for clearing hulks in Manila Bay of Japanese Marines so that the hulks could be destroyed, rescued paratroopers from the water that overshot their jump zones in the recapture of Corregidor, and a bunch of little stories in between. I was lucky enough to be put in contact with a number of surviving crewmen that passed on a lot of info to me before they passed on, they were very proud of their boat and that is why I chose to model it. I saw above, in reading through the posts a lot of questions about crew figures. There is a company called Warriors, that is connected to Squadron Shop that puts out almost the entire deck crew, very nice quality resin figures in 1/35 scale. I have a two figure set called simply PT Boat crew, that is an officer and helmsman, two seperate figures for the two 50 cal. turrets, a 37mm gunner, a 20mm Oerlikon gunner, and I think they are working on a four man 40mm Bofors crew I hope. They also put out a three man landing craft crew that is basically the same uniform as the PT Boaters, all in Life jackets and helmets, a little pricey but really nice, although according to most of my Dad's pictures I never saw those guys wearing that many clothes at one time, hehe. Info, prices, etc are available on the Squadron shop website if you do a search for Warriors 1/35 figures. Also one of the real crewmembers, the cook, wrote me and said that the boats were Battleship grey when delivered to them from the factory and that they were sent back out to a company that repainted them "green and black" for the S Pacific as soon as they received them. PT 375 was part of an 11 or 12 boat build done by Elco in 43, why that batch was so small and seperate from the bigger builds before and after, I haven't figured out yet. From what I have been able to glean from pictures, line drawings, books, etc PT 375 was armed fairly close to what the model is, with these exceptions. They had a depth charge rack aft between the fore and aft torpedoes and the only 20mm I can see somewhat clearly is just forward of the pilothouse on the STARBOARD side, opposite the side that the kit has it on. In another picture I have I can see the the 20mm ready ammo locker on the PORT side, so I suspect that they had two 20mm, one on each side but can't be sure, the fore deck armament is really sketchy for me except for the 37mm and the stbd 20mm and I was hoping maybe someone here could help me out with some info. Also 375 had the older style radome and mast, not the one that comes with the kit, anybody know of an aftermarket kit for those? I see a lot of you scratchbuilt them. Also same question for the depth charge racks. 375 didn't have the rocket launchers installed at the time the original crew went home, but they were installed later on for the operations around Borneo, according to an electrician that wrote an article for the PT Boat museum. Any other armament that they had or didn't have on board when my Dad was on the boat I am not aware of and that is the only thing holding up the start of the kit, hehe. He was a MoMM 2, btw, and his battlestation was triggerman on the 40mm because as Cookie put it, "he was too damn short to be a loader!" hehe. The boat's name was Judy. Hope this might help some of you and thanx for any helpfull info you can send my way. If anybody is interested in more details about Ron 27 I would be glad to share what I have. Happy Modeling. I have some pictures I would like to add to this but don't know how, hehe.

I figured out how to put some pictures in the members gallery of PT 375 when she was in the Pacific. Only three but they are hard to come by and I picked ones that showed the most detail. Please take a look at them and see if you can see any details I might have missed. Thank you.

Glad to see you here Leonard!

Kenny

Hi Leonard,

That was a good article.

Did the 20mm on the bow have some form of gun sight like they had
on the larger ships like aircraft carriers?
Watching the doco footage of the guns in action on the side of the aircraft carriers show various gun sites being used but on the PT there is none.

Did they shoot on open sights.
tracer ?
I think Italerie has'nt release the gun with the sighting device for the 20mm oeklon .

Can you shed some light on this

thanks

Hi Mike, glad you liked the post. I am by no means any kind of an armaments expert, just a modeler like you guys and a kind of amateur military historian, unlike the 40mm mount, which did have some pretty large sights on it, I have never seen much of any kind of sights on the 20mm's in Victor Chen's book or any of the other pictures I have seen. My humble opinion is that they probably did do a lot of shooting from the hip on the PT Boats and I'm sure the gunners had their own things going on as far as aiming. I can say that from the letters I have, tracers were used by both sides and were considered somewhat of a double edged sword, by the PT crews. They helped sight the guns, but they also pointed right back to the gun that fired them, especially at night when they did most of their work. Here's a quote from a letter I received from Fred Binder dated 3/5/98. Fred was the second skipper of the 375 boat and this quote is in relation to an action they had one night with a Japanese PT Boat ; "As for the Jap PT,- 2 boats - 375 and Jerry Nolan's took fire from the Jap PT at mouth of Subic Bay where the tender and Ron were tied up. It was trying to sneak into the bay at night and if it had, it could have done a lot of damage. However, it didn't and we sunk it. Japs were lousy shots -- always shot high. Just watch the tracers. My crew were great gunners and took it out 1 - 2 - 3." My take on the sights thing is that, if you think about it, an aircraft carrier is a pretty stable mount for the guns and they usually were firing at aircraft at far greater ranges than the PT Boats, which were less than a stable gun platform at the best of times and usually fought at pretty close quarters, that may be why they didn't have as good a sighting system as the bigger ships, hehe, they might have simply been in the way a bit. Anyway, I hope that helps or at least gives you some insight into it.

Hi Leonard.

I appreciate your reply.


Thanks
Michael

The 20mm Oerlikon used on early war PT's had a ring and peep sight. This is the mount originally seen on the stern. The 20's on larger ships also used the ring and peep sight, and later on, an electric reflector sight. Like those used in fighter airplanes. The tripod mounted 20's on the bow didn't have sights. They would "walk" their fire onto a target, using tracers at night. I hope this helps. Al

Thanks Al,

It does help.

this has been a very interesting thread.
The information from Leonard and yourself is very helpful info .

I'm super keen to get me PT finished with a crew
I know warrior's have got figures out but I'm waiting to see what Italerie's crew are going to be like.
I don' understand why Warrior did not bring out the pilot and the Commander wearing life preservers for the pt?

It seems like its taking forever for Italerie to release this crew.

Cheers

YAY !!! Just checked the Squadron Shop website again. FOUND IT. Listed under New Releases for Thursday Sept 04, 2008: PT BOAT BOFORS GUN CREW #1...Item No. WA 35638 for $23.38. From the picture accompanying the release it looks like a 2 figure set featuring the "Spotter and Gunner", the two seated members of the crew. And being it is listed as crew #1, I can only assume there must be at least two more figures coming. I have been hearing rumblings of a 4 figure set for awhile now, Warriors must have decided to release them 2 at a time. This brings the total number of 1/35 PT Boat crewmen from Warriors to 8 that I know of.

8 figures now. at $13 a pop you are aready over a hundred plus the boat kit throw in some PE and a couple of other goodies, and still looking for 2 more figurs. WHEHHHHH. I'll admit, I have exceeded $200 for my Kongo with the purchase of the deluxe PE and wooden deck. But that is the only kit, and this one is already at $250 with those goodies. As much as I love PT boats, I think I'll have to be content with the 72nd scale versions.

Hi Guy's
Your right about the figure's the price soon mounts up. For my PT174 build I've only got about 6 resin figure's the rest are converted plastic figure's.
I used Verlinden 1 ADV 2 U Models 2 Warriors 1 & then the rest are a mixture of Tamiya , Airfix, Dragon. I did change most of the heads using Hornet.
So you can save money by using your imagination & not just using resin figure's.
As for the Italeri figure's they look OK I would still use them for other projects not just the PT boat there'd work for LVT's , Duck's etc.

One piece of advice I would give to anyone building the Italeri PT is to replace the prop shafts with brass rod. Having broken off each prop many,many times while handling or transporting the boat I wish I had. Al

Hi Ed

Your PT 495 is amazing ! Have you any pictures of the real "acey ducey" on PT 495 , 493 , 497 , etc ?

About the Bridge could you tell me if there are only two types of bridge disposition on the ELCO 80 : the earlier one as we can see in the PT 109 JFK picture throtle at left and switches around 6 gauges , and the later one : switches separately , 6 gauges in the midle and throtle to the right ?
Thank you vaery much !