EC-121 Warning Star- Talos armed *finished*

[sandiego89]

The Long Beach was a big ship for sure, more radar sets than you can shake a stick at!

The Long Beach sure had a ton of stuff topside, radars (billboard and regular), ECM, and the massive fire directors for the beam riding Talos missiles.  Oh and a pair of 5-inch guns and directors as an afterthought.

The fire directors were massive.  I cheated on my EC-121 and made a small fire director radar in place of the nose weather radar, good thing this is WHIF! 

The other thing that gets me is the height of the navigation bridge.  With a long slender hull and the high bridge, she must have been "fun" in rolling seas.   

[Weaver]

I suspect that part of the reason why the SPG-49 Talos tracker/illuminators were so large was due to the same problem that Sea Dart had, namely the relative insensitivity of the polyrod seeker neccessitated by the nose intake. You need to hit the target with many more watts to get an echo that's usuable by the 'hard-of-hearing' missile.

Talos was, I think, the first SAM that could fly a ballistically efficient path rather than a straight pursuit course, decades before compact inertial nav platforms and digital datalinks made it commonplace. It did this by having beam-riding mid-course guidance for the missiles, controlled by beam transmitters that could elevate separately from the target trackers. If you look at the SPG-49s on a Talos ship, you'll see two tiny dishes next to them, usually fore and aft of them on separate mountings, one of which is on a VERY tall, narrow tower. These produce the guidance beams for the missile, sending it high out of the SPG-49's tracking beam, trading speed for height that can later be exchanged for range. They guide it into semi-active homing range of the target, at which point the SPG-49 switches over to illumination mode.

[NARSES2]

That really is a neat build 

[zenrat]

Excellent.


Talos are ram jet powered.  Would a Connie be flying fast enough for them to work or would they need the solid fuel boosters to get up to speed?

[sandiego89]

Excellent.


Talos are ram jet powered.  Would a Connie be flying fast enough for them to work or would they need the solid fuel boosters to get up to speed?

Talos needed a booster.  I modelled one into my build- about half the length of the ship based booster, figuring the Connie would give it a bit of height, and some speed.  Everything aft of the small rectangular fins is booster. 

Thank you for the input of the Talos guidance systems Weaver.  A very impressive and complex system.   

[Glenn Gilbertson]

Great idea and an impressive model - well done!

[Captain Canada]

Gorgeous ! Love big machines with big missiles. The Connie is a far bigger machine than she appears. Especially with those long legs on the ground ! Your rendition looks superb. Well done !

PS-go some google image searches of Argentia Newfoundland, the US Navy base that housed these beauties there was also impressive !