Four GUPPY subs in 1/700 (Or: I actually finished something)

[proditor]

My Father in law is an awesome guy. He's seriously one of the nicest guys, and best human beings I've met in a long time. I feel privileged to be counted as part of his family. So when Christmas rolled around, i decided to try and make a mini-diorama of the 4 boats he served on in the Navy. He was a diesel submariner in the early 60's, and he served on the Cutlass, Runner, Cubera and got his dolphins on the Torsk. We went to fleet week here in Baltimore the last few years they've had it, and it's been cool to see the young guys react to him. He's always been proud of his service, and IMHO, rightfully so.  

I quickly realized that there are no 1/700 Tench class boats, and certainly none that are Fleet-snorkel, Guppy II, and with all three types of sail. So what to do? Well the interwebs informed me that at 1/700, I could cheat and use a Gato class for the hull. But the sails...ugh.  So I cheated. I contacted Jeremy over at Kokoda Trail Models and begged him to run me off three sails for the GUPPY subs. He was a champ, and did it in time for an early December arrival. Close timing, but better than after!  So I got to cutting, and painting, and then fiddling with with some Vallejo water effects, and here it is, quite literally finished on Christmas Eve for delivery tomorrow morning.

I know it's not a Whiff, but I'm actually rather proud of these little guys as I tried a bunch of new techniques, and I actually finished a darn project.

The boats are, left to right: Torsk, Cubera, Cutlass, and Runner.






Runner Close-up




Cubera Close-up




Torsk Close-up




Cutlass Close-up

[Captain Canada]

Nice one ! I'm sure he will love it, and nice to hear that you get along so well ! Also nice to hear about the service from Kokoda Trail ! I was thinking of ordering their 350 scale Trackers.

[PR19_Kit]

Excellent job Proditor! 

I'm amazed there were so many classes of subs at the same time, and that they had such different sails. No doubt there was a very good reason for that though.   

[Cobra]

Superb Job,Proditor You did a Top Notch Dio! Hope To see more Great Works from You! as my Late Grandpa used to Say,"Glade Yule"! Dan

[nighthunter]

Very nice, you found a large gap in models, and filled it, bravo!

[Joe C-P]

That's good work there. Nice to see a subject not often portrayed in model form .  

[NARSES2]

Nice little diorama, great present

[proditor]

Thanks guys!  Sorry I fell off the planet for a bit there, I got sick as a dog right after Christmas, and I'm just starting to feel normal again.

The gift was well received, and apparently he's been showing it off to his old navy buddies. There was talk of making me an honorary submariner, which was amazingly humbling.

My Father in law also serves as an electrician on the John W. Brown, a Liberty ship out of Baltimore. Now what he doesn't know is that they DO make a model of the John W Brown, so someone might just have another diorama in his future, say, right around his birthday. 

[McColm]

Great work.

[buzzbomb]

That works nicely.

The ocean looks effective

[NARSES2]

Yup I admire people who can pull off a good seascape 

[proditor]

I cheated on the seascape, it's something called Vallejo Water Effects. You brush it on like thick paint and shape it, then you let it dry and it looks a lot like water. Apparently the nest step that I totally missed it to put on a gel top coat, but I think it's decent enough, and if I obsess too much about some of the water stuff I've seen (and will not in a hundred lifetimes be able to replicate) I will use what little mind I have left. 

PR19: Here's the kicker, that's all one class of Sub. Well, maybe three, but here's the story (short form) After WW2, the USSR embarked on a huge attack sub building program, using captured German Type XXI subs as a blueprint. This rightly scared the bejeezus out of the Navy, who asked for brand new subs and was told "No, you have like 500 Gato, Balao, and Tench class subs, and we just built those!" So the navy got tricky and created a series of rebuilds called GUPPY (Greater Underwater Propulsion Power Program. The Y is for pronunciation, so it wasn't just GUPPP) that would introduce some major changes to the hull, and especially the conning tower.

So that went okay, subs went from underwater speeds of 6 knots to 18, but it was still REALLY expensive. So they created a series of different levels of the GUPPY program, and various sub-levels to those (GUPPY I, Ia, II, IIa, etc.) and a very austere conversion called the Fleet Snorkel Program, which just modified the tower (Now called a Sail due to the massive increase in size), added a snorkel, and cleaned up the electricals.

Now why so the sails look different? Well, the one on Cubera is called the Electric Boat sail and the sail on Torsk and Runner is called the Portsmouth Sail. Both were approved at different manufacturers. So basically, depending on where you got converted, you got one of those two sails. The more traditional looking tall sail on Cutlass is called the Northern Sail, and was designed for duty in and around the North Sea. It also became the standard as the ships were continually modified over the decades.

The kicker to all of this? One of them is still in active service. Admittedly, guarded and limited, mostly training, but still active service. In 1973, the Republic of China took the USS Cutlass in hand, and now she serves as the ROCS Hai Shih.

[PR19_Kit]

Very educational Proditor, thanks very much.