TomDougherty Posted April 16 Report Posted April 16 (edited) 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. Edited April 21 by TomDougherty
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