A few years ago, I toured the USS Cavalla (SS-244), a Gato-class submarine set up as a museum ship in Galveston, TX, so I decided to build a model of it. AFV offers different 1:350 scale kits of Gato-class submarines built in 1941, 1942, and 1943, so I chose the 1943 version, that being the year USS Cavalla was built. A little research showed me, however, that USS Cavalla was extensively modified in the 1950s, with a new sail fitted, two of the forward torpedo tubes removed , and a bulbous nose fitted to the bow to house new sonar gear. I decided that these modifications were beyond my scratch-building abilities at such a small scale, so I built USS Cavalla as she was during WWII.
