Project 665 Whiskey long bin 1/50

[JHapprich]

Hi! Found some time to continue during holidays! I still have got parts for a large wtc kit waiting for assembly and recently purchased a large 1/72 AKULA hull for it, again from Lazar Kerzmann. That one came with a nice though not scale Emergency Buoy that needed instant copy-casting for the Long Bin. Also made some hatches from PU that still need detailing and FINALLY reinstalled the aft stabalizer after tuning to proper appearence. Will install the lanterns next and finish the basic deck details from a new set of blueprints. Had to re-measure and -mark most of the already drawn-down stuff, e.g. position of the aft em-buoy was off.
Of course, i broke the upper hull right above the forward diveplanes once again and am right now fixing that, will mill out a recess to cast-in one or two grp-rods once the provisional epoxy backup has cured.

Jörg

[JHapprich]

Today i glued the 8mm grp-rod in beetween a cutoff on the upper hull to enhance the stability of that thinnes portion of the deck:

[JHapprich]

Black box found ;-)
Any other tipps for accelerating Epoxy? Am hesitent to use a heat lamp for fire safety...

[JHapprich]

The forward deck has been ground flat again, also corrected some slight elevation of the starbord bow. Some epoxy filler will follow, afterwards will takr care of those floodholes...

[JHapprich]

Btw, i still fail to find the reason for my pictures showing up that unsharp. Am taking 12M pictures with my phone and scaling them down to 50 percent size. They are sharp on my phone, yet blurry in this forum. Odd... suggestions?

[JHapprich]

Does anyone have a good picture or plan depicting the conning topside? That is all i found, tried a KI to improve the quality:

[gantu]

Eventuell hiolft Dir das weiter.

[CC Clarke]

During the 70's the Soviets had hundreds of post-WW II era diesel boats still active. In sonar school, we spent days listening to tapes of each class to help classify them aurally. The Whiskey's had several missile-armed variations, but the propulsion systems were identical.

Once we became proficient at identifying the class by sound, we dove deep into the nitty-gritty next phase of classification: LOFAR (Low Frequency Analysis and Recording) grams, which used the same techniques as the SOSUS and Airborne (P-3 and S-3) LOFAR equipment, where a roll of paper slowly printed the noise spectrum and once enough data had rolled out, we grabbed our ten-point dividers and went to work, identifying their unique frequencies and interpolating the results, (propeller turn-counts, diesel engine signatures, and a host of other classification cues) while snorkeling and submerged on their batteries. Their three-shaft diesel boats used belt-driven electric motors on the outboard shafts in silent, "creep" mode, which was anything but quiet.

All of the acoustic and frequency info had to be committed to memory (for dozens of diesel and nuclear submarine classes) along with the equations to extract the info. Memory-wise, it was a very challenging course, and one of the requirements to advance from sonar operator to sonar supervisor.

The Whiskeys were so loud, it was easy to identify them, and of course, so ugly they were instantly recognizable visually. Like the majority of their missiles, (both cruise and ballistic) all were powered by liquid fuel and filled prior to launch, which is uber-dangerous in an enclosed atmospheric environment. Many of their boats were lost to accidental fires and I can only marvel at their bravery to have them launched while over one's head, never knowing if they were going to explode in their tubes. - Unlike the US, who ejected their missiles with compressed air before the solid fuel rockets motors ignited once they broached the surface. Worse yet, they had to surface to launch, which is tactically unsound. We quickly developed Polaris to launch submerged, making our Regulus cruise missile-equipped boats obsolete.

As stated, the Whiskey Long Bins were likely the most ugly submarines ever to put to sea, but the Soviets were compelled to do whatever it took to attempt to keep up. What they lacked in looks, they made up for in numbers, knowing most didn't have a chance. The Walker spy ring confirmed their worst fears about our acoustic advantage, and by the 80's most of their diesel fleet was a distant memory.

[JHapprich]

Wow! Thank you both, Gantu and CC Clarke, for the footage and the background!

Personally, i very much like the long bin's look...

Gantu, i have got all of those pictures already, so sad, the beautiful detailed hand-drawn plan is wrong.

BUT i ran several photos through picture enhancement software and got THIS:

[JHapprich]

I do now have a good idea of how the sailbridge looked like.
also, there are some differences beetween the first two converted whiskeys, which had the misdile section inserted, and the later 6 boats that were built to 665' specs from keel.
i will build S-142/ 570 on the conning, in dark-grey and red scheme. That boat visited the GDR once and i even have got high-res colour pictures of her parading at Leningrad from the mid-60s.

Opened Up the floodholes beneath the fwd planes today and started to correct the shape of the torpedo tubes. Forward deck is now level without filling.

[JHapprich]

Another try to have the high-res pictures:

[JHapprich]

This is the sail bridge. I think i got as close as possible.
i believe the sail on my kit should be flatter and longer, its siluette courve is to pointy...

[JHapprich]

Enough for today!

[gantu]

some more pictures

[Subculture]

He's put some glass into that hull, reckon you could knock fence posts in with it!