Andy. Google "q ships" and pick a suitable vessel type and obtain plans for something similar..the guns were hidden of course behing fake cargo and behind hatches….it would be fun to have a button and reveal them all at once when in the water,  even better with a water squirty arrangement !!!  I believe one of the ships morred in London used to be a Q ship at one time. chrisanthimum, or the other one ???

(my spelings terible)   Ashley

I’m sure the kids would love it at an exhibition …. remember at one of ours the operator of the tug with fire pumps sprayed an Oriental Genttleman and he didn’t quite know how to react … not very good public relations I thought.on our part.

The pumps are quite strong .. fine nozzle …. 6<8ft reach …. and the pond is a tarpaulin filled with water at a bi-annual boating and outdoors exhibition and the public are inches from the models … we have to be careful we don’t sail too close to young children with touchy fingers or others a bit older with thoughts of causing mayhem

I don’t think you will find much of use in those links, I couldn’t anyway, sorry FC.

I have a book about Cruiser HK33 which was a German commerce raider which operated in a similar manner to the British Q-Ships. Written by HJ Brennecke “Ghost Cruiser HK 33” published by William Kimber 1954. The ship was also know as ‘The Pinquin’.

Sadly there is just one rather distant shot of her and a stern quarter view as frontis piece. I know from the book that she changed her profile from time to time to avoid alarming her victims and she looks somewhat different in the two shots ….

I’m pretty sure from reading way back that one or more of the Q-Ships was a wooden sailing vessel who when the sub surfaced to sink her by gubfire .. torpedos were expensive and limited supply aboard …a ‘panic crew’ would abandon ship hoping that the U-Boat would close for a closer look and be sunk by the gun crew left aboard. The Q_Boats gun was disguised as deck cargo, timber, which folded down for action.So I guess you could use any small ship of the period and midify it as did the crews .

As with everything else in life what you get out of an archive is proportionate to the effort that you put in, I usually find that if a source of information is apparently lacking in specific details that it can usually point you in the right direction and in that way assist with your search. I suppose it all depends upon how experienced you are in doing archive searches. 

I’ve got a couple of old books here called The Great War illustrated and i will have a look at these as well as all your recommendations i was thinking that i may be able to use a st of plans for an old cargo ship ihave i think it was the Esconda.Gentlemen any thoughts .

Andy

 Andy

There is a book published recently which tells the story of the Q ships in WW1 there are a few piccies, but the book is an interesting read with plenty of info about  Q operations which if you read carefully will give clues to placement and disguises for weaponry.   As far as I know there are no plans for weapon  placement info, as all such arming was top secret and usually carried out by the crew in secret locations for obvious reasons.  There is also a book about the german raiders who also used disguised merchant vessels, I have listed both below

Smoke and Mirrors – Q ships against the subs WW1   Deborah Lake   ISBN 0-7509-4605-9 Sutton Publishing Ltd

The Kaisers Pirates-German surface raiders WW1   John Walter  ISBN 1-85409-136=0 Arms & Armour Press

 Hope this is of some help          Merlin