The Ship Model Forum

Here is a comparison between the Ethan Allen class and Lafayette class:

https://i.imgur.com/Lnzpo8O.png

These elevation views are from the Piping TABs for SSBN 611 and SSBN 654-659. I don't know if this has been mentioned previously in this thread, but all Polaris boats after the Lafayette class were dimensionally identical. Some like to break the Lafayette class up into the James Madison and Benjamin Franklin classes, but these are probably best classified as sub-classes or flights of the Lafayette class. The only major external difference I can think of is that the fairwater planes for the Franklins are about halfway down the sail, whereas the earlier boats had them higher up. Also, some of the later boats had end plates on their horizontal stabilizers, but I believe this was retrofitted to some earlier boats. And some of the later boats did not have split upper rudders.

Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

The upper rudders were also taller on the 616 boats. Best seen with a picture of a 640 and 616 moored side by side at a tender.

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Our CO prior to flying to the boomer: “Our goals on this patrol is to shoot missiles and torpedoes.”
Junior Nuke Officer (me) : “Captain, don’t we really want to be like Monty Python and ‘Not be seen’?”
CO “You seem to be missing the big picture”
“Oh”

Interesting, does the rudder height have anything to do with the two different styles of rudder (split vs. all-moving)?

Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

I believe so.

_________________
Our CO prior to flying to the boomer: “Our goals on this patrol is to shoot missiles and torpedoes.”
Junior Nuke Officer (me) : “Captain, don’t we really want to be like Monty Python and ‘Not be seen’?”
CO “You seem to be missing the big picture”
“Oh”

I have been talking with Boris at Polar Bear, and he has agreed to develop a model of the Ethan Allen this summer. Jim Margerum has also been discussing this with him as well, and has been sending drawings and photos. I'm sure that Boris can use anything that anyone has that can help show details.

Bill Morrison

P.S. Boris is also working on USS Seawolf (SSN 575).

Not so. The ten boats in our squadron (SUBRON 15) comprising the 598 and 608 A-3 boats had tubes that were too small for the SLBMs that followed Polaris. (The 608s were the first boomers built from the keel-up for that purpose; the 598s were re-configured Skipjacks with a rocket room welded between the Ops and Reactor compartments.) It made sense (logistically) to group the A-3 boats together in one place.

During their final patrols, (most of which were in/out of Polaris Site 3 in Guam) our tender was the ancient Proteus, which was only equipped to handle the A-3. When SALT 1 was ratified, (which reduced the number of allowable SLBMs) it was decided to pull the less-capable A-3s out of service first, since the Tridents were being built and additional missiles would breech the treaty. The 598s with the least amount of EFPH (Equiv Full Power Hours) reactor fuel left had their patrol lengths reduced to six weeks, then changed homeports to Pearl as Slow Retreats (vs/ Fast Attacks) basically submarines of opportunity and were sent to Bangor for missile offload prior to eventual scrapping, starting with the Theodore Roosevelt. Trivia: The Theodore Roosevelt submitted the very first work request (what was called a 2-Kilo, for the name of the form) to the newly-established Trident Refit facility. It was titled something generic like, "Fix Boat" in Nov 1979. The framed 2-kilo was prominently displayed in the main Production Conference room on the Delta pier.

The Poseidon boats quickly followed, shedding their missiles as the Tridents quickly left EB and came online.

So now you know - from one who was there.

Does anyone know what the small sonar dome/fin between the rudder and superstructure is?

http://navsource.org/archives/08/609/0861117.jpg

I think it was only on the Ethan Allens, and it seems to been installed when the submarine was commissioned, but taken off at a later date.

Could it possibly be part of a BQG-1 PUFFS array? Here is are preliminary designs of the Ethan Allen from the National Archives I recently found (ignore the hex wrench; I was using it as a weight):

https://i.imgur.com/q5aG7iH.jpg

Note the four PUFFS arrays: two fixed and two retractable. The Thresher initially had a similar four-part array designated BQG-1, which was later replaced by a larger array (two arrays in the sonar dome, two in the amidships ballast tanks, and two in fins on the stern stabilizers) designated BQG-2. Obviously the configuration of PUFFS shown in the preliminary Ethan Allen design didn't make it to the final boats, but I wonder if a different arrangement did.

Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

Also, before anyone says it's an acoustic intercept sonar like an early WLR-9, here's a picture of an Ethan Allen with both a DUUG-1 active intercept dome on the bow and the mystery dome on the stern:

http://navsource.org/archives/08/609/0861001.jpg

The stern dome could indeed be an acoustic intercept sonar, but I think there's a slight possibility it might be part of a short-lived BQG-1 PUFFS array.

Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

Looking for a James Madison class model in 1/350 scale. Can anyone point me in the right direction.

Yankee Modelworks made a 1/350 resin kit (#35016) of the USS Daniel Boone, a Lafayette Class sub. According to Wiki, the differences between Lafayette and Madison class subs was internal.

MicroMir makes a 1/350 Daniel Webster. There are several currently available on eBay. FreeTime Hobbies also has it listed as in stock.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

I agree with Martin on the Mikro-Mir kit (the Yankee Model Works kit, if you can find it, is less detailed). Blue Ridge sells the Lafayette and the Webster, so those would be suitable as a Madison (although the Webster would have to be modified to eliminate her unusual "mini-sail"). Apart from the usual ship-to-ship differences, they were identical to the Lafayettes except for the missiles initially fitted, as Martin said.

Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

Does anyone have a good image or drawing of the towed array fairing on the Franklin class? I want to do a late fit boat. Thanks to Maarten's posts, I already know about the control surface modifications I need to make.

Here is Von Steuben with Pogy after primering.

A towed array on a Franklin class? I honestly never heard of that! Only on the SSNs I believe. Or have I missed something?

_________________
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell"
Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023

Yep, pretty much all of the Polaris SSBNs had towed arrays. The 598-class SSBNs just had a tow point on their starboard stabilizer for a clip-on STASS towed array:



The 608 and 616 classes (and the 640 class, if you want to consider them as a separate class) probably initially got similar tow points, which is what I think this photo of the Henry Clay shows:



They subsequently got reelable BQR-15 towed arrays. The drums that stored the cable were inside a hump on the starboard side of the turtleback:



The array was stored in a fairing that went to the starboard stabilizer:





This photo of the Will Rogers and a drawing I have of the Francis Scott Key suggest that there was an alternate arrangement where the towed array fairing took a more direct route to the stabilizer like the tubes on the 594 and 637-class SSNs:



Here is a photo showing three 640-class SSBNs and one 608 class, all with BQR-15s:

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC

Excellent! Those are exactly what I was looking for.

Even though there is no fairing, MikroMir kindly includes the hump as a seperate piece.

The STASS (Submarine Towed Array Sonar System) installed aboard the 598 class contained a hinged stub cable storage compartment located on the starboard stern plane stabilizer that contained enough cable to reach topside with a couple of figure 8 turns thrown in for good measure. A day before we would leave for patrol, divers would remove the cable and lay it into the tow point before passing a line topside for us to haul the rest of it on deck. When we got outside Guam's Apra harbor, a Mike boat (a repurposed WWI landing craft) with the array on a reel would come alongside and we would pass the stub cable over to them. They connected it to the array and reduced speed to trail the array behind us away from the screw, far enough away to prevent fouling.

When we left Pearl Harbor for the final time to transit to the West coast for eventual de-activation (Oct '79) we prepared to pull the stub cable topside. The diver left too much slack in the cable and when we spun the shaft (the shaft seals are tightened import and loosened when underway, so the shaft has to rotate occasionally to maintain the seal) the Fickle Finger of Fate intervened. Anyway, the second pic of me displaying the result is priceless. Our CO was always a screamer, known for his epic meltdowns, and this initiated yet another. For us, it was just one less piece of equipment to monitor as we headed to San Diego. He blamed us for the diver's mistake and made our lives (extra) hellish for the entire transit.

The array was from the BQR-15, which in later boats was equipped with an onboard storage and handling system. For the 598's, the channel amplifier was the BQR-25, and the display processor was the BQR-23. I think there were something like 20 beamformed, waterfall narrowband channels to monitor and only four could be displayed on the screen at once. The Sonar Supervisor (sitting in the back of the shack) would rotate a dial and the channels would cycle on and off the screen the screen. During operation, it was sensitive enough to pick up the turbine signatures of high-flying commercial aircraft for short periods of time. The CO hated to be underway without it.

San Diego-based, Spectral Dynamics built the BQR-23, based on their proven BQR-20, 20A, and 22 series spectrum analyzers. They all stood about five feet high and were divided into function-specific rack-mounted, slide-out units. None were light. Unit 4 was the monitor - an 18" monochrome green screen CRT. We had one fail on a Seawolf mission with no spares. The BQR-22 was a dual-channel spectrum analyzer that we relied on to analyze our primary sonar acoustic data. One of the spooks heard about our problems and brought us a dual-channel spectrum analyzer that fit in the cavity unit 4 occupied. Not only was it small, it had more capability! They got the money for fancy equipment and we didn't.

Ouch.

G'day All,

I have the Mikro Mir 1/350 USS Kamehameha kit with the twin Dry Deck Shelters (DDS).

I want to correct the aft control surfaces. I have read through this thread and if I understand correctly, the USS Kamehameha was a Ben Franklin (640) class so it should also have the end plates. My question is, what would the dimensions of the endplates be in 1/350? Martin's excellent work has shown how to correct the missing end-plates, but does not include their dimensions,

cheers,

Pappy

Here are some drawings that might help. To give you some dimensions to scale these drawings, the distance between the main axis and the baseline in the profile view is 16'6" and the total breadth of the stern planes is 40'4".




Jacob

_________________
Under Construction:
1/350 Typhoon
1/350 Skate
1/350 USS Nautilus
1/350 Tang
1/350 November
1/350 Hotel II
1/350 Alfa
1/350 George Washington
1/72 Type VIIC