Spanish Armada Coastal Minesweeter M 22 "Ebro"
by Luis Crespo

1/700 Spanish Minesweeper Ebro M 22 (Pit-Road)

The real thing:

The "Ebro", named after one of the most important rivers in Spain was the sixth of the twelve coastal minesweepers transferred to Spain by the United States according to the US-Spanish agreements of 1953 that put and end to the international isolation of Spain, caused by General Franco´s friendship with Axis powers during WWII.

The Spanish Armada, at the begining of the fities, deployed only a handful of WWII vintage obsolete german designed minesweepers, and the advent of the, then, state-of-the-art american vessels was warmly welcome.

The wooden hull MSCs, called "ducklings" by their crews, served well throughout the second half of the century. M 22 Ebro was the last of the class to be decomissioned, not before february 2005, only two years before her 50th birthday.

Her statistics were:

• Displacement: 390 tons full load
• Dimensions: 44.5 x 8.5 x 3.2 meters (145 x 28 x 10.5 feet)
• Propulsion: 2 diesels, 880 bhp, 2 shafts, 14 knots
• Crew: 39
• Sonar: UQS-1
• Armament: 1 20 mm, 2 12.7 mm

The model:

To make a long story short, I wasn´t really thinking about making a model of this ship until I bought Pit-Road´s JMSDF Yugumo kit. I found out that a small kit of a Hatsushima class minesweeper was included in the box. I was not interested in making a japanese MCM vessel, but hate to leave a model unfinished, so started to think what to do with that neat little kit.

Of course I turned to Spanish Armada, and find that, while they were quite smaller, our MSCs had a similar layout compared with the japanese ships. Major surgery and patience did the rest.