I mentioned and showed some pictures in the "Calling All Russian/Soviet Navy fans" topic, but here is a seperate topic about my last project the Project 712 (NATO Code Name: Sliva class) Ocean Going Salvage and Rescue Tug.
Four of these tugs were built. Three of them serve in the Russian Navy:
SB-921 Baltic Fleet
SB-406 Northern Fleet
Shakhtyor Black Sea Fleet
SB-408 works in service of Tsavliris
They have a length of 68.8m and a beam of 15.4m (quite big for a tug)
They have strong cranes, one in front, and the biggest in the back. And extensive diving support facilities along with 60t bollard pull to tow ships up to 40,000t.
I'm building this tug (SB-406) for my diorama of the big Northern Fleet exercise in 2005. It was the first really big exercise of the Russian Navy since the end of the Cold War, so I decided to make a large diorama of that exercise. They were not so certain of themselves anymore and had one Sliva class and a bigger Pamir class Ocean going Salvage tug in their fleet.
This is another not so common subject and pictures were hard to find. Plans of course are non-existent of this class. They were built by the Rauma-Repola wharfs in Finland back in 1984 and later.
I based my model on measurements on Google Earth (where I found two of the class). And of course estimations from some pictures I have.
This time I used "Mac's method" (Method which Mac used for his build of an Ecuadorian Corvette more than a year ago). I tried the same method with the Talwar, but this was not suited because the Talwar had more sloped and straight sides.
This time however, the method is very applicable, since the hull is rather complicated.
It practically means you build up the (small) hull of layers of styrene sheet. You cut out your main deck shape as the main template. After that you start sanding untill you reach the required shape.
One disadvantage of this method is that you cannot reach sharp edges by sanding styrene. If you want a sharp corner, then you have to cut by blade.
The hull is not entirely correct, but I'm rather happy with the results up till now. As you can see I painted the main deck and lower level of the superstructure because this part will be covered later.
The windows are very difficult in this scale, and I'm not entirely happy with them, but there is little I can do about it I guess.
I carve the windows out first, then paint them with gloss black. Afterwards I paint with white around and try to make the narrow line (as you can see on the real ship), however due to the carving, the surface is uneven and the narrow lines often end up bent or blurred.
Here are some pictures of the real ships. The biggest problem I have is that I have NO pictures of SB-406 herself except for a black and white one. So practically I don't know her colours. However, I found two very small pictures of her towing K-159 (which sank under tow) and those show the same white superstructure along with a yellow crane. The hull however seems to be the same dark gray as used by the capital ships of the northern fleet. She is also visible on some pictures of the exercise, however light conditions on those pictures were too bad to give a clear certainty about the hull colour. I know there exist some pictures taken during their period at anchor near Iceland during the exercise, which were taken from the sky. And the tugs were assisting Kuznetsov and Velikiy in those pictures, but I'm unable to find those pictures back... If anyone happens to have them, they would be very welcome!
She is also suitable for fire fighting with four big cannons and a big self protection by a high number of sprinkler nozzles around the ship:
here are some of the earliest pictures during the build:
