by Dave Becker
1/350 USS Barry DD-933 (Iron Shipwrights)
Model kit is the Iron Shipwright 1/350 USS Forrest Sherman. I rebuilt the kit as the DD-933 USS Barry in December 1965 when she and a few other Tin Cans were the first Atlantic Fleet destroyers to join action in Viet Nam. During December and January she earned the nickname "Gray Ghost of the Mekong Coast" in support of US Army and US Marines.
The Barry was the first and only Forrest Sherman class destroyer with a Bow Mounted SQS-23 Sonar system. The other ships in her class had hull mounted SQS-23's the ISW kit comes with the hull mounted Sonar. Had to modify the kits forward deck to give the model a bow mounted Anchor set. Almost the whole bow is scratch built. To compare differences see the models of the Forrest Sherman on the ISW site. Other than the bow, about the only other thing I did different from the kit was substitute the kits rather small SPS-40 radar for a SPS-12 radar from GMM's New Jersey PE set.
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