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IJN PA No 1 Patrol Boat
by Thomas Drysdale
 
Japanese PA No 1 Patrol Boat.  This is an IJN Auxillary Patrol Boat that comes as an extra with a couple of the Hasegawa 1/700 destroyer kits.  They call it a No. 1 Class Auxillary Patrol Boat but the nearest that I can find in Jentschra, Jung and Mickel's book, Warships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, is called the Pa No.1  Patrol boat.

Using the description there (and some imagination), I went about detailing the ship using WEM for the guns and different GMM photoetch frets for various bits and pieces.  Quite a few parts were scratch built with photoetch sprue, bits of wire and rod and some other odd materials.  I read about the patrol boats moving very close inshore at night to avoid radar detection by submarines and planes and that was the inspiration for the base.  The shore was made from kitty litter and various spices were used to create the shore debris.  Overall the kit is only about 4 cm long and there has been about 50 extra pieces added on.

Thomas Drysdale