by Christian Bruer
1/700 HMCS K 357 Riviére du Loup (HP-Model)
Next to the Royal Navy the Royal Canadian Navy used a lot of Corvettes during WW II. Canadian Yards built nearly 122 of these fine escort vessels during 1940 to 1944. Most of the ships saw service on the rough north Atlantic convoy routs. Service on these 950tons vessels certainly was not everyone cup of tea, especially under bad weather conditions. Nicolas Monsarrat’s “The cruel Sea” and the movie they made of this novel in the late fifties show the hard life these Corvette-sailors lived.
I used the Atholl from HP-Models to build the Riviére du Loup. As just the Atholl the Riviére du Loup is a modiefied Flower Class with a higher 4”gun plattform and bridge. The hull and main parts for the superstructure are nicly moulded. The smaler parts lack a lot of detail and some parts are not present. To build a nearly exact model out of the kit I recommend to use the WEM PE set. This set was made for WEM’s own Corvettes but it fit well to the HP kit too. Next to the PE parts I used some plastic and brass rod for the mast and some deck supports. For painting the model I had used WEM Colorcoats RN White and B6 Blue. Weathering was made with oil and acryl colors.
I wanted to show the Riviére du Loup in the way she must have looked during her service when she hunted after a sub contact. The water was made from silicon after Frank Ilses method it. The detonation of two depth charges was also made from silicon.
