The Ship Model Forum

Yes. It looks like just a simple hatch that hinge outward. There is a hint of a crease right under the chine line on the Frunze, just like on the Pyotr Velikey. I think this is what made it look to me at first sight like the edge of the hatch is in fact below the chine line. I should have known the siren song of trumpeter being right once for a change was too dangerous to be drawn to. Apologies to the builder of the model of PV shown above.

I wonder why there is a crease there below the door on both ships. I suspect the deck is actually at the level of the crease, the create is an artifact of welding the deck to the hull side, and the hatch is actually above a low bulwurk some distance off the deck.

Anyway, I am trying to think ifof a realistic way I can make a working hatch door on my model that would look right when closed. Reproducing the tightness of the door seam is much harder if the hinge is actually at the top edge of the door then if it is behind the door.



The video posted by Sauragnmon seem to show the missile is ejected with only moderate force and drops into water just like a torpedo, and then some seconds later, after the missile presumably orients itself (by bouyancy?) to point its nose up, the rocket motor fires and the missile takes off more or less vertically before leveling off in the direction of the target. This behavior makes sense since SS-N-15 is also used as submarine launched weapon, so it has to swim before taking off from the surface.

AFAIK, there is little performance and effectiveness advantage to SS-N-15 compared to SS-N-14. Both have similar range, speed, and deploy the same terminal weapons at the end of their flights to attack submarines. The main difference is where as SS-N-14 requires special launchers and can only be fired from surface ships, SS-N-15 uses torpedo tubes and can be fired form both submarines and surface ships. So SS-N-15 affords greater commonality and logistic simplicity. SS-N-14 also has a secondary anti-surface role which I believe SS-N-15 can't fullfill. But AFAIK no one takes SS-N-14 seriously as an anti-ship weapon.

So logistics may be the main reason for switching over from SS-N-14 to SS-N-15 in new built ships. This reason may not be strong enough to modify existing, perfectly functional ships like the Udaloy I in Russia's current budgetary and threat environment, especially is existing inventory of SS-N-14 is sufficient to meet their needs.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

As I said, I don't know of many other nations or weapons that would fit the profile in that video - not very many nations, far as I know, use belowdeck torpedo tube systems like the Russians do, or tube-launched missiles with a profile like that. I think Neustrashimmy and Chabanenko might have been turned to in-built tubes to reduce radar returns off the round tubes of the exposed tube launchers, and probably allowing closer storage of munitions to the launchers for increased response time.

From the video, it seems to eject about the same level of force as Western torpedos, and has that launch delay Probably for safety of the launching ship.

Ultimately, I am hypothesizing from the information I saw, versus the situation we were discussing. I'd seen that video before, and thought it might be pertinent to this discussion.

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Die Panzerschiffe - Putting the Heavy in Heavy Cruiser since 1940.

It's not Overkill, it's Insurance.

If you think my plastic is crazy, check out my Line Art!
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I think the profile fits SS-N-15 particularly well because the missile is also used in submarines, which would require that it be able to swim in water and then launch itself from sea surface, just like in the video.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

An Udaloy I upgrade would not have been too expensive, the Moskit launchers and Bandstand radars could have been taken from the old Sovremennys, the ASW armament in shape of the Vodopad would have been added through their trainable torpedo mounts. This would have given them nearly the same capabilities as both Udaloy and Sovremenny together like on Chabanenko. They didn't do that though.

Anyway, perhaps that is not a real practical discussion.

In the meantime I continued my search and found this, the Slava mount:





Before jumping to conclusions, I'm still analysing other images, also from the inside. At first sight it looks like a trainable mount, however adding other stuff I have and the width of that hatch, it would seem that the mount is not trainable, but rather retractable. Perhaps trainable in a limited arc since I've seen a torpedo launch pic that seemed to have the torpedo flying at an angle with the ship's longitudinal axis. I'll see if I can find something definite.

Also, from a quick search I found that the Varyag actually has 5-bladed props rather than 4-bladed as found on Moskva and her sisters.
I also found the answer to the question about the Slava class tunnel-rudder arrangement.
Here is a picture that gives a definite answer as well as a perfect view of the tunnel shape:




It reinforces my thought that the tunnel is just there to help recover the VDS

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The merchant shipyard

On both the kirovs and slavas, the tunnel seems to more a smoothly blended depression in the hull bottom then a sharp edged feature. It seems the shape, depth and size are highly tailored for individual hull form. I think you are probably right about it's function. Udalloy with VDS has it, but Sovremenny of similar size, speed, but no VDS doesn't have it.

I agree the torpedo hatch on the Slava seems too narrow to allow much training. perhaps it telescopes or slides to ensure a malfunction during ejection does not cause a torpedo or a vodopad to strike the edge of the hatch opening.

But the hatch on the Frunze and pyotr veliky seems substantially wider, wide enough to allow a mount to train from being stored inboard pointed forward to train to well abft of the beam. It might be the wide hatch was a leftover feature from kirov herself, with possibly a trainable mount, and later ships retained the hatch but replaced the mount.

I still have doubts that launching Vodopad fundamentally require the tubes to be fixed.

It may be that since Vodopad takes off vertically from water and is totally indifferent to which direction the weapon is launched, opportunity is taken to save space and make the tube fixed.

It may also be that Vodopad required special tubes with features not found in normal tubes, such as, for example, different data contacts through the tube wall for firing instructions to pass from the ship to the weapon, and it so happens these special tubes were never adapted to trainable mounts because VodoPads are indifferent to the direction of launch.

I am guessing here, but the notion Vodopad has to be shot out with great force seems unconvincing.

I would still be very interested in what the tubes on Pyotr Veliky looks like.

I've solved the problem of mimicking the top edge hinge on the torpedo hatch with thin steel wire, and I now have an openable hatch on my 1/350 PV with an empty space behind it.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

At least on Slava I can confirm now that it's a trainable mount. I've studied some pictures of the mounts etc. and it would seem that the mounts are exactly the same as on the Udaloy I class trainable mount.
Another give away feature which I hadn't noticed before is that they are being reloaded from the stern section through a double door on both sides of the helo pad. I think that's actually the reason why that helo pad is so small/narrow. Rails are running on both sides, straight into these two doors, which are aligned to the torpedo launchers in stowed position.
Here is what I'm talking about. Although it's funny how they reload the Osa system, it's not what this picture is meant for. The reload hatch for the torpedo's is the one/two doors behind the fire fighters on main poop deck level, it has a red rectangle on it.


Here are two pics of the Varyag propellors. She has a 5 blade prop with a considerable pitch. The other units have four bladed more traditional shaped props.
There are better pics than this one, but I just love the rare angle of it (and yes the props are painted).

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The merchant shipyard

Can you share pictured of Slava mount? Some Russian sourced references had concurred with you before about slava tubes being fixed. But if that is indeed false, it would increases my confidence udaloy II and later units of kirov also had trainable mounts behind their hatches.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

WOW Neptune Where do you get these images. They are GREAT!!!

I hope to be able to boards one of the Slava class warships when it comes to Sydney for the naval review in October.
I have put a challenge down for myself to take a minimum of 1000 pictures or the Russian Slava ship.
I have two zoom lenses and since I will be at Garden island with a display of my own model Russian warships and from what I have been told
about our group, they have the display in front of the Russian visitors so I may not have to worry even boarding her just take them from where
I am on the dock. Fingers crossed anyway.
If and when I have my pictures I will post them for anyone to download. Remember, minimum 1000 pictures, might be a whole lot more.
If you don't know my work follow the link showing some of the models I shoot.
https://picasaweb.google.com/117406019355179963375

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Building
1/72 Admiral Kuznetsov
1/72 Frunze Russian Battle cruiser
1/72 Steregushchy-class corvette

Mick
Tumut Australia

Hi Chuck,

I could, but that's going to take me time, and I don't have any right now, anyway, in case you don't believe me:

Let's approach the problem from a different point of view.
I've only seen one ship with real fixed tubes in a transverse direction and those were the old Belgian Wielingen frigates... One tube was however placed at a different longtudinal distance from stem/stern than the other in order to have space to reload them on a narrow beam.

So let's assume Slava's tubes are retracted inside, yet both mounts are at same longitudinal distance from stem/stern. That means they are opposite to each other. That means, with a length of torpedo of 7.2m, the mounts would together take more or less 15m. Slava has a beam of only about 20m, leaving 5m between the two mounts. That's far from enough to reload them. Only with a slightly trainable mount, that would be possible.
However, take into account their placing. The hangar is coming somewhere in between of the mounts, since it sits slightly into the hull. The mounts are slightly forward of the hangar, but it leaves very little space to put any angled reloading system for the torps in there.
Practically they'd only reload them from the outside in this case, and that's extremely unlikely.

Turning the mounts in longitudinal direction seems much more plausible, certainly with the hatches behind them on either side of the helo deck. That would allow them to reload in the "normal" way as practiced on the Udaloy I and other classes.

You may be correct that there is some contacts missing on the older mounts much like the wire guided torp systems in submarines (which allow a certain type to be launched or not).

Next post I'll drop in some more pics.

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The merchant shipyard

So there we go.

Slava firing a torp. Looks like a forward angle compared to ships transverse axis. Certainly when looking at the orientation of the torpedo hatch.



Here is an inside view. Note the small overhead space. It matches with the rather low reloading hatch on the poop deck (see previous pic and compare height with the firefighter next to it)
In this picture, in the lower left corner (and higher as well) you can see daylight protruding, something unthinkable from the torpedo hatch, since it's supposed to be watertight. There is no real sign of any opening mechanism forward of the tubes. I think the part (light colored beam in upper left corner) you see above the tubes, close to the camera, is in fact part of the opening mechanism of the hatch, which in this case would be located on the side of the tubes.
I suspect the light to be coming from one of the portholes located in a compartment adjacent (forward) of the tubes. Either way, it's not coming from the outside hatch (note the light hole on top, which isn't there in the hatch either).


It would be nice if the video from which these screenshots were taken would still be visible, but I can't find it.

On another note, the elevator of the Kirov class. I found out how they manage to lower that beam enough to lift the elevator fully up. The cylinders are actually double cylinders. They don't have a single shaft, but a double one, enabling them to stretch much further than the body length. I'm more and more convinced this cylinder mechanism is the way they lift the elevator.
You can see the step in the shaft in this picture:

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The merchant shipyard

Adding to the torpedo tube discussion, there is also weight to consider. Torpedo tubes are pressure vessels and therefore of more robust construction and heavy, especially for the larger Russian torpedoes. Moving such a mass laterally would be difficult. Whereas a pivoting set of tubes would be far easier with the center of mass at the pivot point - like the USN Mk-32 tubes. As I recall previous Russian/Soviet tubes pivoted.

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Charles Landrum
USNA 1983
Norfolk, Virginia

To Neptune:

Thanks for the pictures.

I had a similar discussion at warship projects, a source there quoting Apolkov's reference on Russian cruisers (which I don't have) claimed kirov, Slava, and both Udaloy I and II had trainable tubes. Kirov herself and the first 4 Slavas had quintuple mounts that can fire only torpedoes. The next three Kirovs had quintuple mounts that can also fire Vodopad. Both Udaloy I and II have quadruple mounts capable of firing Vodopads. Starting from the 5th Slava, scrapped incomplete, there would be triple mounts that can fire Vodopads.

Regarding the hydraulic jacks in the elevator well, I don't think they lift the elevator platform in the pulley arrangement lile you illustrated a few posts back. To work like that, the traveling pulley wheel would have 1:2 leverage and would move exactly 50% of the distance by the platform. Assuming the gray beam on the bottom of the jacks carry the traveling pulley, it seems the traveling pulley move much less that 50% the travel of the elevator platform.

Note the separate track for the gray beam behind the main track for the platform, and how the beam has not much room to move up even when it and the elevators are down.

in this shot of the chain jack system with elevator platform in the fully up position, the beam seems to have moved only a small distance up:

http://www.balancer.ru/forum/punbb/atta ... &type=.jpg

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

Well actually the travelling pulleys and beam should be in up position when the elevator is fully down. That is the case in the pictures and the 3D view we have. In the picture I posted in last previous post, you can see the elevator is not fully down yet and the jacks are not fully retracted either. I do agree that the extension of the jacks in that picture doesn't seem to correspond fully with elevator position. As for how far that grey beam can move down, we don't really have an idea about that, might as well go much further below the elevator base.

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The merchant shipyard

That depends on if the traveling pulley is on the elevator side of the pully system or on the other side. Your drawing illustrates traveling pulley on the side away from the elevator, in which case the pulley moves in the opposite direction as the platform. But for this arrangement to work, there needs to be two layers of chain runs visible on the elevator side of the pulley.

An alternative but similar system consistent with one layer of chain run being visible is to have the traveling pulley on the side of the elevator. In this case the traveling pulley must move in the same direction as the elevator.

The point of this type of pulley system is reverse mechanical leverage. Your actuator excerts twice the force needed to move the elevator, but only needs to act over half the distance that the elevator needs to move. This affords compactness. It makes no sense to accept reverse mechanical advantage, only to lose compactness advantage by making the pulley movement extend below the deck.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

Pyotr veliky has a 10 tube rotating and elevating rocket launcher near the bow. This is clearly different from standard Russian 12 tube RBU-6000 213mm anti-submarine rocket launchers, or the 6 tube RBU-1000 300mm anti-submarine rocket launcher.

What caliber is this launcher and what other ship is it on?

Also, there appear to be 4 other rectangular, fixed tube rocket launcher on the bow. Are these chaff or flare dispensers? Do they duplicate the function of the two little twin tube flare and chaff launcher turrets just behind the breakwater on the f'c'stle?

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

I am in the process of converting the contents of a trumpeter box labelled "1/350 Russian cruiser pyotr veliky" into something resembling pyotr veliky. I thought I start a list of corrections I am making for other people's reference.

I do research as I build, so I will add as I go.


Here is what I have done so far:

1. Extended chine line on sides of f'C'stle to the anchor, chine line does not end half way along hull side as depicted by trumpeter

2. Reshapef anchor recess. The anchor is actually actually a semi-circular depression in the hull side, there is a roughly rectangular raised pad behind the recess for the anchor flukes. Trumpeter detection showing a raised D shaped thing is totally wrong

3. Add a tunnel depression under the fantail. Real ship has it, trumpeter doesn't

4. Reshape rudder. The rudder on the real ship is, in aeronautical terms, low chord, High aspect ratio. The hinge line is also different from trumpeter

5. Real ship has 5 bladed props. Trumpeter provided only a fairly poor 4 bladed prop.

6. Remove crescent shaped protrusion next to props. These probably come from a set of plans of the ship floating around on the internet. Some other Russian ASW type warship has something like it (symmetrical blister shapes near the propeller, the crescent shape appear to be trumpeter invention). But Pyotr herself definitely doesn't. Pyotr also doesn't seem to have the hull bottom water scoops for its boiler condensers. For me the jury is still out on the underkeel sonar.

7. Remove all cable fair leads molded onto various deck sections. Trumpeter's idea of fair leads resembles nothing else in the world. In any case, they should be right on deck edge, not standing back 2 scale feet from deck edge

8. Anchor chain and hawse holes molded on fore deck is too far apart. The 2 anchor chain runs should be the same distance apart as the anchors. They should be about 9 mm apart.

9. Pyotr veliky uses 10 tube, 300 mm rdu-12000 rocket launcher on the f'c'stle, not 12 tube, 230mm rdu-6000 as depicted by trumpy

10. There are 3 sets of deck houses on the fo'c's'le. All three are wrong. The front one right behind the rocket launcher should have higher blast shields. The top of the blast shield is at least 3 feet higher than top of the deck house on the real PV. Trumpeter depiction is closer to what is on the Kirov. There are 4 large ventilators on its roof, much larger than trumpeter depiction.

11. The center deck house is really not a deck house, It is more of a low rise platform on the deck. I don't know its purpose. But it is higher than trumpeter's depiction. Also, trumpeter has the protruding vent cowling the wrong way. They should be on the front and open to the back.

12. The 2 square deck houses near the rear edge of the fo'c's'le are space reservatrions for SA-N-9 missile silos. They stand off about 3 feet from the back edge of the f'c'stle, and does not come right up to the back edge as trumpeter has them. Also, their roofs are perfectly level, not slanted in parallel with deck sheer as trumpeter has them. Also on the Pyotr Veliky, they are connected. The separated configuration is closer to Kalinin/Adm Nikhamov.

13. The anchor chains don't run straight from anchor capstan to hawse hole. Instead it runs through some kind of large braking machinery with hand wheels.

14. There are two large portholes on the side, about midway along the length, of the fo'c's'le. This appears to be unique to Pyotr and not present on other Kirov class ships. Trumpeter doesn't have them.

15. There are small blast shields for the deck ventilators next to RDU-12000

16. There is a towing fair lead right at the tip of the bow.

17. There are 4 access hatches on deck between runs of anchor chains. Trumpeter does have them

18. The tops of the matches for Granit missile are flat, the grid pattern depicted by trumpeter appears to be entirely fictional.

19. The collapsable underway replenishment derrick stowed on deck forward of the S-300 missile hatches bears no resemblence to the real thing.

20. The hatch for the helicopter elevator on the fantail does not close flush with the deck. Instead it protrudes slightly above the deck, Also the corners of the elevator hatch is square, not round, unlike the elevator themselves.

21. On PV is a trench on the fantail to the starboard side of the variable depth sonar (VDS) door. It accommodates the towing fairlead. Trumpeter entirely overlooked both the trench and the fairlead.

22. There are 2 steps to the shallow platform above the VDS door, not just one.

23. The raised line molded onto the fantail for the helicopter pad marking is reversed, with back side pointed forwards.

24. The tracks on fantail deck for securing the helicpters do not have anything protruding above the deck, trumpeters depiction with little gears on either side is imaginative but completely fantasy.

25. The center track is actually offset to port side, and not dead center as depicted by trumpeter.

26. The side tracks are too long

27. The long set of rail tracks that runs complete around the superstructure is only raised on the sides of the ship. Due the the camber of the ship's decks, these tracks go from raised to recessed as they cross the ship's center line.

I've finished the hull, the fantail and the f'c'stle deck so far, will post more change requirements as I go.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

The twin launchers on both sides of the breakwater are the PK-2 Zif launchers, they launch decoy rockets with an auto reload system below deck.
The 4 "things" you're referring to, I'd need a picture to be sure which parts you are talking about, but I think you are talking about the PK-10 Chaff dispensers. They're something like an oval filled with tubes.

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The merchant shipyard

The only clear picture of these launchers i can find are of a model of the pyotr veliky, shown half way down this page:

http://forums.airbase.ru/2006/09/t60201 ... tr-ve.html

They are located on either side of the two raised platforms on the f'c'stle intended for the unfitted forward sa-n-9 battery.

Unfortunately none of the pictures of the real ship that I can find show these launchers clearly. But they do show objects of approximately right size and shape appear to be there at the location where the model has these multi-tube launchers.

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Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

Indeed those are the chaff launchers. They can be found on pretty much all Russian/Soviet ships in the very same shape. Normally however they don't have the tubes (chaff rounds) installed and have some caps over the holes.

Here you have one on a Nanuchka corvette with the caps in place.
http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4057/09250043kq0.jpg


The base structure is different from ship to ship. On Udaloy class destroyers these are mounted just behind the bridge on the side of the superstructure.
I'm not sure if they are mounted in that place on Velikiy, I was of the impression that they were mounted on her main missile deck, but that could've come from a different ship or class.

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The merchant shipyard

To be more complete, here is a picture of the Levchenko (taken by D. Wooley), where you can see three of the launchers behind the bridge. There are more of them aft near the crane.
On Kuznetsov they are mounted near the forward Kashtans (and probably other places as well), considering the amount on the Udaloy class, there's probably more of them on the Kirovs as well.

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The merchant shipyard