HMAS(CG) Sea Dragon

[Old Wombat]

Over on Beyond the Sprues I'm moderating the Floaty GB (Badly, as I was four days late kicking it off! ) for which I have stated I will enter two ship builds.

This build is an Orange Hobby 1/350 Tarantul III Corvette, which will be "Westernised" & "Australianised" for service with the Royal Australian Navy Coast Guard.

Here she is as of earlier this evening:





(06/06/2019: Edited for a slight name change in the title.)

[Old Wombat]

At the end of Day 1's modelling session we have two incomplete hulls:



The smaller one is Sea Dragon, which has, so far, been the more difficult build - not least because the single-piece hull was moulded with a paper-thin port side & a starboard side verging on 3mm thick.

[NARSES2]

Interesting comparison. I had no idea of the size differential.

[Old Wombat]

She's about the same size as a Flower-class corvette but with half the weight, half the range & thrice the speed.

[NARSES2]

And probably 4 times the firepower 

[Old Wombat]

No recent movement on this but I'm thinking Western gas turbines (R-R?) run a bit more efficiently than Russian ones, from what (little) I've read, which should improve her range slightly.

Now, if I add another cm or two to her length, that gives what appears to me to be a fairly significant increase in fuel storage when scaled up (3.5m/7m increase in length=approx. 30,000L/60,000L (realistic?*) increase in fuel load).

What I'm not sure about is how much that will improve the range (ie: Is it worth the effort?).


I'm also thinking of adding 2 (German?) marine diesel engines to 4 Rolls-Royce marine gas turbines & taking her from a COGAG propulsion system to a "CODOGAG" system (which is a whif melding of the CODOG & COGAG systems).



*: I got approx. 56,000L/112,000L if most of the extensions' volumes were filled with fuel but then decided that you'd probably only be able to use about half the total volume at best.




Of course this is all very technical & I'm probably over-thinking it but, sometimes, I can't help myself.

[NARSES2]

Of course this is all very technical & I'm probably over-thinking it but, sometimes, I can't help myself.

Nothing wrong with that at all. I may not get technical but I can certainly get over historical 

[zenrat]

If you decide on German engines then make sure you put the appropriate badge on the radiator grille bridge...

[Old Wombat]

If you decide on German engines then make sure you put the appropriate badge on the radiator grille bridge...

And a "Winged Lady" (a.k.a. the Spirit of Ecstasy) on the bow?



BTW, I've been engaged in several PSR sessions on this over the last few days, she's had (roughly) 15mm inserted just aft of the superstructure.

So, the model now measures 17cm long, which equates to about 59.5m (195' 3"), which means she's still 3.0m shorter than the average length of a Flower class corvette 62.5m (205').

(For my own benefit) I'll be going with 2 × MTU 4000 16V 6,225 horsepower (4,642 kW) MAN diesels (developments of the engines used by the Armidale class patrol boats) & 4 x Solar Turbines (Caterpillar) Taurus 70 gas turbines (Output Power 8290 kW (11,110 hp)).


(EDIT: Gas Turbines changed after further research to slightly smaller units, each lighter & slightly more powerful than the Zorya-Mashproekt UGT6000's fitted to Tarantul class ships, which have UGT3000's instead of diesels.)

[Old Wombat]

Not much visible progress but much PSR & thinkin' have gone into this so far: Oh, she is 15mm longer & she has her first colour coat on!





With her stablemate:

[NARSES2]

I hadn't realised the difference in size. Thanks for that pic 

[Old Wombat]

Bloke I know's going somewhat cross-eyed building 5 x 1/350 scale R2-D2's for these builds!

Then he's going to be building 4 x 1/350 scale 25mm Bushmaster systems, too!


Thank the gods they're not 1/700 scale!

[NARSES2]

Braver you then me mate 

[Old Wombat]

Braver you then me mate 

Brave? No!

Stupid? The jury's still out!

[NARSES2]

It'll be worth it in the end