Tom Dougherty wrote:
Jacob has pretty much summed the situation up. Hal Sutton basically took a guess at below the waterline outfitting of the early Parche Special Projects conversion. The saturation diving chamber at the stern of Parche is the same one originally installed on Halibut in the early 1970’s.
One aspect I have been thinking about is how much wetted hull drag the rather large large keel insert would add to Parche, in addition to the drag from the saturation diving installation. One might expect maneuvering thrusters and a deployment tube for robotic cameras (“Fish”) under the keel, but how large an installation would be needed?
As an aside, he also put a similar “gondola “ structure on the later Parche version with a 100 foot extension. I would have guessed ( note: “guessed”) that much of the necessary Projects functions would have been incorporated into the extension interior. Again, lengthening the hull adds wetted surface area drag, slowing the submarine, so any large external additions like a gondola would only further exacerbate the drag. Again, just my conjecture. I do see that Mikromir has come out with the later version as well. The “after extension “ Parche drawings on the box cover they released still show the saturation diving chamber at the stern, which is wrong.
I’m not at all criticizing Hal’s work; it’s a “best guess” on his part, and I’m a fan of his work on Covert Shores. Speaking with people who worked in (Seawolf SSN575) or around Parche, they all said that when in drydock, the lower areas were very much covered, strictly off limits, guarded, and unless you had authorization to be working in that area, forbidden. When Seawolf was expanded by 52 feet with a Special Projects compartment, a warning was given at sea when operations were about to commence, and the compartment was sealed off to everyone except the Projects group. Even if you were in the Seawolf crew, you had little idea what was going on in that area.
Don't think you're sticking your neck out too far by stating the increase in length and the addition of the gondola structure would have had adverse effects on performance. That would be alot of increased wetted area. I once asked similar of a former crew member, "Hey, any hints about below the water line? Even just a yeh or neh on Sutton?" I was merely fishing regarding if there was a gondola structure
at all (I've read elsewhere on the Net that there was NOT and that Sutton, "got it all wrong"-- this from someone who served on her [it was a Veteran's group for the Parche]) He came back with the expected never having seen it, which is pretty understandable. But I countered by saying, if you were familiar with the general performance and handling of a standard Sturgeon (he was), even having never seen what the Parche looked like, you might have anecdotal evidence something major was afoot given what must have been large performance and handling differences. That unfortunately ended the conversation...at least be bought one of my 3D printed conversions!
I too used Sutton's work for my 3D printed conversion. But with Mikro-Mir's kit my conversion has become old hat given the price point. About the only thing I think I can offer will be upgrades to the Mikro-Mir kit, like improved detailing of the insides of the moon pool, which the conversion already has and I don't think Mikro-Mir did anything about. So a repackaging of the existing CAD after I get my hands on the kit.