TomDougherty

In the early 1970's, two submarines were modified to carry out covert missions to recover discarded Soviet missile pieces and to tap underwater cables in the Sea of Okhotsk. One of the submarines, Halibut, had a large hanger previously employed for Regulus Missiles. It was outfitted to tow and service a camera and sonar tow body, termed The Fish. It also received a saturation diving chamber on its stern to allow saturation divers to install cable taps and recover items at depths of 400-600 feet. A second submarine conversion was perfumed on USS Seawolf, the second nuclear submarine constructed by the United States.. Originally equipped with a liquid sodium cooled reactor (which had some unique problems), it was converted in the late 1950's to a pressurized water reactor. In the early 1970's, it became the second Special Operations submarine. In this case, the hull was cut forward of the sail, and a 52 foot hull "plug" installed. This section had both an internal saturation diving chamber as well as a compartment to service and launch towed body "Fish". The submarine also received fore and aft thrusters (installed between the upper deck plates and the pressure hull) and later a set of skids to enable it to sit on the ocean floor during cable tap operations. A prior incident in which the submarine had just "bottomed", ended up settling into the ocean floor, with sand and bottom creatures entering the reactor condenser seawater cooling openings. Hence the installation of the skids. Seawolf operated in this guise to 1986, sharing Projects duties with Halibut and later when Halibut was retired in 1976, with Parche, which received Halibut's saturation chamber. The 1/350 scale model is an Iron Shipwrights resin hull and 3-D parts kit which depicts Seawolf in her later configuration.

These are 1/700 scale resin kits produced by Ralph Ratcliffe during the 1990's. They represent the Sturgeon class SSN 637, the early 688 Los Angeles class, the later 688I (Improved) class, with bow planes in place of sail planes, VLS hatches for the Tomahawk missiles, a ring propeller to protect it for under ice operations, and stern anhedrals for stability and housing countermeasure launchers. The final submarine is the USS Seawolf, lead ship of what was planned as 29 new SSNs. The hull diameter was increased from 33 feet (688 class) to 40 feet, and equipped with a pump jet propulsor. The Seawolf class hull was constructed of HY-100 steel rather than the previous HY-80, and this increased the test depth of the Seawolf class. The Seawolf weapons load out was much increased and 8 torpedo tubes fitted over the previous 4 of the LA and Sturgeon classes. With the end of the Cold War, the Seawolf program was drastically curtailed. The only Seawolf class submarines completed were SSN-21 Seawolf, SSN-22 Connecticut, and the modified SSN-23, Jimmy Carter.

One of the submarines in the last class (Benjamin Franklin class) of the 41 Polaris/Poseidon ballistic missile submarines. In 1979, the Bolivar entered overhaul and conversion of her ballistic missile system to support Trident C-4 ballistic missiles. She patrolled along with the early Ohio class SSBNs. Bolivar continued to make deterrent patrols, undergoing occasional refits at Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay, Georgia. Bolivar successfully launched a Trident test missile. SSBN 641 continued to make deterrent patrols until 1994. The model is a resin and metal kit from the now defunct Yankee Model Works.

Following WWII, the US had a large number of relatively new diesel fleet submarines. Although these were very successful in the Pacific War, the technology and development of the German Type XXI U-boats pointed to a future in which more capabilities would be necessary. The US Navy embarked on a program to modify and upgrade some of the newer fleet submarines. The overall program was termed Guppy (Greater Underwater Propulsion Program, with the Y added). This meant streamlining the submarines by removing deck guns and adding a "step sail" in early conversions, upgrading batteries (and in some of the modifications such as Guppy II, doubling the battery cells) and adding a snorkel. The snorkel meant that the diesels could be run while submerged, recharging the batteries. These conversions (Guppy I, Ia and II) were carried out in the 1950's. With a lag in nuclear attack submarine building in the early 1960's, a small number of Guppy II submarines were selected for a further upgrade, termed Guppy III. These submarines already had the doubling of battery cells, and as an initial step, a new sail, termed the High Atlantic sail was fitted. This was an improvement on the earlier "step sails" which had the bridge watch crew at a lower level (see my earlier build of Becuna on this forum). In Atlantic storms, crews on the step sail would get soaked with cold water from waves coming over the bow. The Atlantic sail got the watch crew up higher off the deck. In addition, the submarines were cut apart forward of the sail, and a 15 foot long "plug" was added to create space for a dedicated sonar room. Also added was the BQG-4 PUFFS passive ranging sonar, which are the three "fins" on the deck. With PUFFS, the length of the submarine was used as a baseline to triangulate a bearing to a target by the time of arrival of the sonar signals at the 3 PUFFS sonar receiver units. The GUPPY III submarines filled the gap for patrols until the SSN program accelerated with the Permit and Sturgeon classes. In the early-mid 1970's, all of the diesel GUPPY III class were retired, some 30 years after they were initially built as WWII fleet submarines. This resin kit was from the now defunct Yankee ModelWorks. It depicts USS Clamagore in its GUPPY III configuration. Clamagore was the last remaining GUPPY III and was a museum boat in South Carolina. However the museum could not maintain upkeep and it was scrapped in 2022. I was fortunate in visiting in 2018 and took plenty of photos with my Nikon DSLR for reference.

This is the Iron Shipwrights 1/350 scale Richard B. Russell. It was the last numbered Sturgeon class submarine built prior to the Los Angeles class. In August 1977, the Russell was fitted with a large housing ("bustle") attached to her hull just aft of her sail, containing a tethered antenna buoy. Russell was one of the later "long hull" Sturgeon submarines, stretched from 292 feet to 302 feet in length. Russell was equipped as a Special Projects submarine and operated with other Projects submarines (Seawolf SSN 575 and Parche SSN 683) out of Mare Island.

This is the Iron Shipwrights kit of the last Seawolf class submarine. The Jimmy Carter had an additional 100 foot section added amidships for "ocean engineering". This gave it the capability to [classified], [classified] and [classified].

So you know what the terminology and acronyms are like to monitor mRNA levels using MuLV reverse transcriptase and Rnase H to convert the RNA transcripts to DNA for NGS with Illumina. To say nothing of editing with CRISPR-Cas. For what it's worth, my main complaint was about the light gray type & the use of IUJ. The format didn't bother me.

Didn't have to dig deep for the journal reference. I just retired from the Department of Microbiology at Harvard Medical School. Multiply drug resistant pathogens are a major issue in both urological and gynecological wards, and we did molecular biology and drug development on a couple of those pathogens. One of the journals where such cases are reported was the IUJ (science journal). And we would monitor articles and the journal was referred colloquially in the field as the IUJ, just as we referred to Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy as AAC (where I have been on the editorial board for 20 years). So as soon as I saw IUJ on the cover of the new format, the urogynecology journal popped into my head.

I just put up a separate posting on the almost unreadable light gray (grey?) print. IUJ is also abbreviation employed for the International Urogynecology Journal published by Springer Publications.

I just received the first issue of the revised (??) Journal (now termed the IUJ. The article print is extremely light. Light gray on a glossy page. Many of us are long time model builders (hint, we're old guys) with aging eyesight. There's a reason why so many of us have Optivisors. Trying to read light gray print on a glossy white page is difficult, to say the least requires strong light to make out the minimum contrast of the print with the page. See attached photo of journal page and note the contrast between picture captions and the article text. Could you turn up the text contrast for later issues; like maybe dark gray?? BTW, the IUJ is already the abbreviation for the International Urogynecology Journal. Unlikely the two will be confused.. Update I started to read the articles (which seemed quite good) but only got to the Bearcat build before the eye strain was too much. I did go through and look at the photos, and noticed that as mentioned by someone else, the photo sizes were all over the place. On page 41, there is a caption about an F-105F Thunderchief Wild Weasel build, but the photo is of a B-52. I have an F-105F in my collection and was interested in seeing the build, as I had just finished reading Dan Hampton's Hunter Killers. I note that the SIGS on page are listed as IUJ SIGS; I thought we were IPMS SIGS, not tied to the Journal?? I hope that the editor(s) take the comments by several members into consideration for future editions.

Photos of the Iron Shipwright's kit of the USS Glenard P. Lipscomb, SSN 685. The Lipscomb was a modified design Sturgeon class submarine, which had turbo-electric drive in place of steam turbines. This was another effort (along with the previous Tullibee) to produce a quieter running submarine using turbo-electric drive. Steam was provided by the S5W reactor to drive turbo-generators. To accommodate the large DC electric drive, the SCB302.68 design resulted in a displacement of 6,400 tons and a length of 365 feet. Much more displacement and length than the contemporary steam turbine Sturgeon class of 302 feet and 4640 displacement. As a result of the longer hull and increased wetted surface, the Lipscomb, while quiet, was notably slower than the Sturgeons (Lipscomb submerged 23 knots, Sturgeon 26 knots, top speeds). As with other Sturgeon class submarines, a towed array deployment system was added subsequent to launch, with the reel in the forward ballast tanks and a curved cover running down the hull to a supported deployment tube on the port stern fin. Lipscomb was in active service as an SSN, but was retired after only 18 years of service. The Iron Shipwright's kit features a resin hull and 3-D printed sail, planes, rudders, accurate J-screw and masts. It is one of a number of new IS kits of postwar submarines recently released.

New Iron Shipwrights kit Background: The USS Narwhal, hull number SSN-671, was a totally unique and experimental nuclear-powered attack submarine and one of the most successful boats of her era. Her unique design made her the quietest attack submarine in the U.S. fleet in the 1970s. The Navy challenged Electric Boat to build a quieter submarine. A unique design under project SCB 245, Narwhal was her own class. Forward of the reactor compartment she was broadly similar to the contemporary Sturgeon-class submarines, but with a slightly larger diameter to accommodate the natural circulation reactor setup. Electric Boat identified reduced sound signature improvements. The first was the main reactor coolant pumps. These large, high-pressure pumps spin under heavy load and can be the most significant acoustic source of any nuclear-powered submarine. General Electric designed Narwhal’s unique S5G power plant with the reactor vessel situated low in the submarine’s hull and the two steam generators situated above the reactor, cocked slightly to fit into the hull. This arrangement facilitated a natural flow of the reactor’s primary coolant. This pressurized-water reactor (PWR) design heated its primary loop in the reactor and convection moved the water into the steam generator near the top of the loop where energy is exchanged into the secondary loop system to generate steam for propulsion. After heat transfer, the primary coolant flows back down towards the reactor vessel in a return loop. Both initial low power conditions as well as when high power for maximum speed require the reactor coolant pumps. However, there is a wide region of power between these two conditions that allow the main engines and turbines to run normally without the main reactor coolant pumps working. To address acoustic noise from the the standard propulsion turbines which required a large reduction gear system to slow the propeller to usable, efficient turns, a revolutionary, direct-drive main engine turbine that was mechanically linked to the shaft was installed. This system operated at a lower RPM and was larger than the original reduction gear design, 12 feet in diameter and 30 feet in length, resulting in a slightly wider submarine than the Sturgeon class design, on which Narwhal was based. The main seawater intake system is used to cool and condense the expended steam from the main drive turbine. Two unique seawater scoops were added to the stern planes that would force water into the main seawater system as the Narwhal moved forward. During low speed, slow approach operations these scoops moved enough water to cool the condenser loads. Also, new ship service turbine generators which operated at a lower RPM(quieter). In a subsequent overhaul, sonar was upgraded to the AN/BQQ-5D spherical bow array system along with a long line TB-23 towed sonar array was added on the starboard side, with a deploy tube on the upper stern plane. The natural circulation reactor design was incorporated into the Ohio SSBN S8G design, as well as the Seawolf class S6W and the Virginia S9G reactors. Other aspects, such as the direct drive turbine were not repeated in subsequent classes. Also, the condenser cooling scoops violated SubSafe principles by having long internal piping runs under sea pressure, so short direct runs with pumps were employed. The Kit: This is a prototype kit (all 3-D printed) of USS Narwhal, SSN 671, developed by Jon Warneke of Iron Shipwrights. The kit depicts Narwhal in her post overhaul configuration with added TB-23 sonar towed array deploy tube. The final kit will feature a resin hull and 3-D printed sail, masts, planes, rudders and propeller. The propeller is an excellent rendition of the 7 blade J-type damped screw on the Polaris SSBNs, and the Skipjack, Permit and Sturgeon SSN classes. The kit should be available soon from Iron Shipwrights.

I recently purchased two tool caddies form Charliesplasticmodels. These come in a couple different forms, are $10 each, and I have found them extremely useful for corralling many frequently used tools, glues, files and paint brushes together in one space. They come in two varieties each of both "tool" and "finishing" caddies. Just thought I would pass this along... https://charliesplasticmodels.com/product-category/3d-printing/

Updated posting in later pages.

Sailfish was originally built as a postwar (WWII) radar picket submarine, and commissioned in 1956. The diesel powered submarine was equipped with BPS-2 and BPS-3 radars installed in the sail and on a short pylon aft of the sail. The postwar radar picket role was short-lived and the radars removed. In 1965, Sailfish went into the Philadelphia Navy Yard for upgrades, and emerged with the 3 AN/BQG-4 PUFFS sonar "fins" on deck. These were employed to derive bearings on nearby ships and submarines by using the deck length as a baseline to discriminate the time of arrival of acoustic signals at each unit. Sailfish served until 1978, when she was decommissioned and eventually sunk as a target. The Iron Shipwright 1/350 scale kit consists of a resin hull and 3-D printed pieces (sail, masts, rudder, planes, propellers and PUFFS units).

That rendition of the Blue Angels F11F is extremely well done! And it looks like the kit had its challenges. The first time I saw the Blue Angels, they were flying this aircraft, and at the end of the show, one of the solos would break the sound barrier. Here's a few photos of the F11-F at Pima Air Museum, in Blue Angels colors. The starboard side has a lot of weathering but the port side paint job is still decent (back in 2018).

Great job, so far, Chris. If you need any photos of one of the shuttles (Discovery), I have 24 Mix photos of a walk around. I have distance shots, but the closeups may be the most valuable to you. Here are some samples:

Here's some photos of the real thing, at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, AZ.

As built, which is what this kit depicts, roughly around 11 inches long. The Special Projects version with the added hull section was roughly 52 feet longer.

New kit prototype build of test shot-resin & 3-D printing USS Seawolf SSN 575, the US second nuclear submarine was built alongside of the first SSN, USS Nautilus in Electric Boat’s South Shipyard. Although built roughly at the same time, several external differences were apparent. The BQR-4A bow sonar in the lower bow of Nautilus, was moved to the upper bow on Seawolf. The sonar “windows” were initially individual rubber coating backed by thin steel (later replaced by a single, curved fiberglass window). The “step sail” similar to the contemporary “Guppy” conversion fleet submarines, allowed the fitting of a small, pressure cylinder conning tower in the sail itself. Moving the periscopes up allowed the submarine to be deeper in the water at periscope depth. Also modified from Nautilus, although less visible, was the stern. On Nautilus, the twin propellers were mounted directly on large, stern fins which fully enclosed the propeller shaft. Seawolf instead had smaller fins and an exposed section of the propeller shaft, with a bearing housing and support struts for the screws (See Seawolf 575 stern at 1956 launch photo). However, the biggest difference between Nautilus and Seawolf was the reactor. While Nautilus had the S2W (STR) pressurized water reactor, Seawolf was launched with the S2G (SIR) liquid sodium reactor. The sodium cooled, beryllium moderated reactor could operate at much higher temperatures and lower pressures than the S2W pressurized water reactor. This offered the possibility of generating superheated “dry” steam at significantly higher temperatures and greater thermal efficiencies. The sodium reactor pumps were electromagnetic, with no moving parts. The steam generators had a system of tubes within tubes, with the liquid sodium, and intermediate tube with a sodium potassium mix, and the last tube having the secondary loop water to generate superheated steam. The intermediate tubes kept the water and sodium from mixing, a highly undesirable event. In practice, however, the high temperature sodium proved highly corrosive to the stainless steel materials employed for the superheaters, and pinhole leaks in the heat exchanger forced the operation at reduced power and abandonment of the superheated steam loop. She was limited to using lower temperature saturated steam. Seawolf cruised for >20,000 nautical miles over 2 years with the liquid sodium reactor at 80% power. In late 1958, Seawolf returned to Electric Boat and the sodium reactor replaced by an S2Wa pressurized water reactor virtually identical to Nautilus. After operating in the 1960’s, Seawolf was converted to a NURO Special Projects platform with an extended hull plug (with special operations equipment) installed forward of the sail. The Model The model represents Seawolf in the early 1960’s. I was approached by Jon Warneke of Iron Shipwrights who was looking for candidate submarine models that had not yet been kitted in 1/350 scale. Jon and I exchanged numerous back and forth design details, with detail input also from Jacob Gunnarson, Jim Margerum, Jim Christley and David Grogan. The finished model shown in the photos is the prototype version that Jon sent me for assembly, which is all 3-D printed from his design files. There are minor (but important) differences in the finished kit, most notably in the bow sonar panels, a subtle revision in the sail sections blending, sail running lights relocated and the aft deck details revised, all updated based on the latest information. The final kit is a resin hull, generated from a 3-D masters rubber mold and all of the other model pieces are 9K 3-D prints. Many of the parts are provided in multiples (masts, propellers, propeller shafts, etc.) so these delicate items can be successfully removed even when “disaster strikes” on some tries (been there, did that). And then there is the “no questions asked” parts replacement policy at Iron Shipwrights. Kit available from Iron Shipwrights starting October 1. Seawolf launch photo of stern design, different from Nautilus. Prototype test shots of the build of the Seawolf model in 1/350 scale

Ed, With regard to: Submarines: 413B (1/350. 1946 and later). Entries in this category are true submarines in that they have a shape optimized for extended underwater operation; streamlined, enclosed conning tower and few if any rails. I think there are points to consider before putting a 1946 date and then the description of the category. The post war period was an era of relatively slow changes, and many new roles were tested for the large number of fleet submarines remaining. They didn't all get the same streamlined conversions and many retained fleet boat features but had specialized postwar roles which are often interesting modeling subjects. A select number of fleet submarines were converted slowly to the streamlined Guppy designs, with streamlined bows, sails,, and snorkels. The modification were through the early 1950's and some (Guppy III) were in the mid-1960's. Some fleet boats (many) were never modified but often the deck guns were removed, and the submarines were employed for training or other purposes (e.g. Lionfish, Archerfish) and a few had little modifications but received large deck tanks to hold Regulus missiles (Carbonero) and some received the Migraine radar installations on deck. Also, some were never streamlined but did get new streamlined conning tower fairwaters (Fleet Snorkel versions). So, I would suggest that you might modify the category to just Post WWII. I realize that this muddies the definition a bit without the 1946 date, but a lot of interesting ideas were tried on fleet submarines post war before submarine design settled down to the familiar streamlined tube variations in the 1960's.

Nice work on the rust streaks. One suggestion would be to delineate the waterline with a gray scum line and maybe some light green (algae). Also, don't extend the rust down below the waterline. It should terminate at the waterline, as the water would disperse any rust streaks. I usually don't "dirty up" my submarines, but when I do, I find that pastel chalks are great for weathering. Make a mistake and just wipe it off a wet paper towel. After you get the effect you want, seal with a clear coat (dull coat).

Thanks, Mark, for your comment. The Navy tried one more DC turboelectric drive submarine, the modified Sturgeon class Glenard P. Lipscomb. It was very quiet, but again slow, like Tullibee. DC does not scale well as power is increased. However, the upcoming Columbia class SSBN class, the Ohio replacements, are currently planned to have AC turbo electric drive. The AC electric motors will be more compact than the massive DC versions, and much quieter than steam turbines and gear trains currently in use. At one point, later block versions of the Virginia class were also planned to have turbo electric drive, but I think that was dropped.

This is a model of USS Tullibee SSN 597, a 1960 attempt at a small nuclear powered hunter/killer submarine. During the 1940-50's, an SSK program consisted of both converted WWII fleet submarines, which were equipped with a large BQR-4 bow sonar, as well as building small, diesel SSKs with a bow that had both the large BQR-4 and a smaller "chin" mounted BQR-2. The goal was to have a "barrier" strategy and use the long range BQR-4 low frequency sonar to detect Soviet diesel submarines and hunt them in the event that a war in Europe broke out. While the fleet boat SSK conversions worked reasonably well, the smaller SSKs (K1, K2, and K3) were found to be deficient in a number of areas, and only three built. Most alarmingly, however was the arrival of nuclear powered submarines. Nautilus (SSN 571) and Seawolf (SSN 575) quickly demonstrated the ability to move rapidly in three dimensions underwater, largely defeating the 1950 era sonar sets such as the BQR-4. The solution was to equip submarines with a BQQ-2 sonar sphere, a large metal ball with multiple hydrophones (1200+) aimed in three dimensions. To test this concept, a nuclear powered, small hunter killer was designed and that was Tullibee. The hemispherical bow was given over to the BQQ-2 sonar sphere, with the torpedo room and torpedo tubes moved further aft and the tubes angled out at 10 degrees. Also, the submarine was equipped with an early version of PUFFS fins. The PUFFS was a passive fire control system that used time of arrival of sound along the baseline of the hull to generate a target bearing. The hull was long and narrow (273 feet X 23.7 feet) to place the bow sonar sphere as far away from the machinery spaces as possible. Displacement was only 2300 tons surfaced, and test depth 700 feet. Because the early nuclear submarines proved to have noisy steam propulsion plants with turbine and reduction gear noise, Tullibee employed quiet turboelectric drive. A compact, 2500 shaft horsepower S2C nuclear reactor provided steam to drive electric turbogenerators. The electrical power from these generators was then employed in a DC direct drive electric motor system coupled to the propeller shaft. In service, Tullibee proved to be very quiet, albeit slow (16 knots top submerged speed). Her turboelectric drive plant proved to be troublesome over time. The decision was made not to have a separate hunter/killer SSKN and attack submarine SSN, but to combine the hunter/killer and attack missions in the Thresher/Permit class. These submarines had sonar spheres, relocated torpedo tubes, and were quieted by placing the steam turbines and gear machinery on sound isolation rafts, greatly reducing sound transmitted externally. Thus Tullibee ended up as a unique, one off experiment, and not the prototype for a fleet of SSKN hunters. The model of Tullibee is the old 1/350 scale Yankee ModelWorks resin kit. I pinned the various control surfaces to the hull with metal wire inserted into pre-drilled holes and fastened with cyanoacrylate glue. The kit has a photo etch propeller, which I replace with one of Mike Fuller's superb 3-D printed propellers. Early in her career, Tullibee had a five bladed propeller and a small set of PUFFS fins on her upper hull. There were three PUFFS installed, but the center fin is abaft the sail, beneath the aft turtleback. These items were later replaced by a 7 blade J-propeller and a larger set of PUFFS fins. The resin kit did not have ballast tank openings, so I added a set of photo etch vents in the appropriate places. After priming, Tullibee was finished in her "as launched" color scheme, with the rescue buoys still in orange. It is a unique looking early nuclear submarine.

Thanks! These modified submarines were overshadowed by the emerging nuclear powered submarines in the late 1950’s-early 1960’s. In fact, it would take more than ten years to build enough nuclear powered attack (SSN) submarines to fill the numerical gap that the Guppy boats filled in the early postwar era. I have one more Yankee ModelWorks/Tom’s kit of the heavily modified Guppy III class to build. This is a model of Clamagore, a Guppy III museum ship at Patriots Point, SC.