Tom Dougherty wrote:
As I mentioned above, it is the 1966 “as built” USS Sturgeon in the kit. In order to do a late model, you will need to lengthen the hull, add a dome aft (I believe this is the WLR-9A) and a towed array hull fairing, tube, tube support structure and deployment tube on the port side. I have never seen a vortex attenuators hub on a 637 class screw.
As far as lengthening the MikroMir 1/144 Sturgeon hull, it is about 1/8 inch thick glass reinforced resin (GRP), not polystyrene. Not impossible, but a tougher job to lengthen than if it were polystyrene.
My bad, when I said “late model” I really meant late period, i.e. ‘90s 637s, but didn’t realize it until it was 1am and I was on a train in the middle of nowhere and no way to edit the post.
As for doing a stretch, nope, most I will do is add the necessaries like towed array, etc. The 1/350 can represent my stretch.
As for attenuators (we called it “the device” cuz hush-hush at the time), we had them on Aspro and Tunny, probably on the other boats too but I can only vouch for those two. A semi-interesting story about Aspro’s device, during availability when the torpedo-damaged screw was replaced (a story for another time and place, perhaps), shipyard lost it! It was going to be a big deal with NIS coming down with charges of sabotage, etc, and putting out to sea with a dunce cap instead. We had to get a talk about it since technically it was our equipment (Machinery division), but hey we didn’t take it offf, ask the crane operators! Anyway it turned up somewhere and all was right with the world once more.
Scott