merriman wrote:
Are the soup cans in your cupboard oriented by content, and are the labels facing just so?
David
They are!
But just kidding: my pragmatic self did first make a model (since yesterday in the Gallery). But given the new information injected by you, now I'm getting a good idea on how to improve upon it, without thrashing the whole thing entirely. Seems quite pragmatic to me!
Maarten
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
Well, not too difficult, as I described. Here's my Ethan Allen in new version.
- Length unchanged.
- Deck over missile bay replaced with a new version, 5mm longer than the previous one. All hatches enlarged accordingly
- Sail moved forward by 11 mm, so much closer to the bow. Added sliver to make the sail follow the curved contour of the forward hull deck
- Sail to vertical rudder distance is now the same for the Ethan Allan and the Lafayette.
Some pictures:
I left the Allen unpainted for the moment to show clearly the change.
David, many thanks for spotting the error in the assumptions, and Jacob & John for providing the documents to get it right! Good teamwork I would say.
Maarten
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
merriman wrote:... and very good execution, sir. Thanks for sharing.
David
Thanks for the compliment
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
The Lafayette was my last boat. I caught her coming out of her Posiden upgrade refit at EB in 74. My Qual boat was the RE Lee SSBN 601 a 598 boat. The 598s never were upgraded past Polaris A3 birds. They were small hot rod boomers with the heart of a Skipjack. In fact the 598s were only a few knots slower than the Permit SSNs. I loved the 601 even though she was a small and very cramped boomer compared to the 616 and their patrol radius was limited to the Polaris short range and were usually 3 knots to nowhere in Ivan's backyard especially on WESTPAC.. The Lee ended her career as an SSN after they emptied her bird farm of the old A-3s. AS for the 608s I remember the Tom Edison being wharfed to the :afayette at Port Caneveral for Operational Reactor Safeguards Exam ( ORSE) and weapons trials. I do not remember any obvious difference ( Hull wise ) between the two boats. However they were very different otherwise. Both the 601 and 616 had 7 blade screws back then. No "outriggers " on the sternplanes.
"When you shoot at a Destroyer and miss. It's like hit'in a wildcat in the A-- with a banjo" !
Lt. Joe Willingham Skipper USS Tautog SS-199
Thank you for your submariner's story, it certainly adds to the topic! The period of the Cold War boomers...
As we were able to ascertain there were certainly dimensional differences between the 598, 608 and 616 types, but the overall looks were quite similar of course.
Maarten
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
I just picked up my MikroMir 640 Ben Franklin kit from Hannants at the Telford show. First thing I looked for were the endplates at the horizontal dive planes - they weren't there! In fact the kit looks like a plain copy of the Lafayette kit, only with new decals.
Did all the 640 boats have the endplates, or was Ben Franklin an exception?
Knowledgeable answers, please!
Maarten
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
thanks for your confirmation. I'm afraid MikroMir got it wrong this time, by cutting corners to get a kit onto the market.
So, then I will scratch those endplates myself, documentation on the Franklin class was passed in this thread earlier on.
Cheers!
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
You guys know a lot more about this than me, but on the 688 sub forum there is a link to a propeller site that shows several Ethan Allen and beyond FBMs that dont have the vertical plates. If that is what you guys are talking about....
Only the 640 Benjamin Franklin boats had the endplates, the Ethan Allens and Lafayettes hadn't.
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
Maarten Sch�nfeld wrote:So, then I will scratch those endplates myself, documentation on the Franklin class was passed in this thread earlier on.
Here some pics in the raw form, so you can see well what I did. Still some sanding to be done when all cement is dry.
It was necessary to modify the aft diving planes to a great extend, as these appeared incorrect in the first place. Also for any of the 609 or 616 boats that is. The only difference is the wider section where the endplates are based on. Some homework to do on my Lafayette and Ethan Allen models!
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
It would be nice if there was an Ethan Allen.... Im not sure where to cut he hull on the Lafayette to make one, or if it is even possible to modify one to make Ethan Allen.
Maarten Sch�nfeld wrote:Here's the math: there are eight missiles lengthwise, each Poseidon missile adds 22", so that makes 176" in total. The difference between the Allans and the Lafayettes is 180", so only 4 inches not accounted for, or less than .3mm on 350 scale...
Most authoritative sources quote the length of the Ethan Allens as 410 feet 4 inches, so the difference with the Lafayettes is only 14 feet 8 inches, or 176 inches. This equals therefore exactly the added increase of the diameter of eight missiles.
I was convinced, so I bit the bullet. Here's my Ethan Allen, in company with a George Washington and a Lafayette model, with the missile compartments aligned:
SSBN 1.jpg
SSBN 2.jpg
I'm only somewhat uncertain about the location of the hydrophone stump on the bow, it seems somewhat closer to the sail than on the subsequent Lafayettes. Can someone shed some light on this maybe?
Hi kgrf15,
Starting from here you can find everything you need to convert a Lafayette into an Ethan Allen. Beware, my assumption on the size of the tubes was not correct, but then you have to read through the entire thread. Good luck!
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
While getting more intimate with the Franklin class I started wondering: looking at the pictures of the rudders it seems that the top draft mark is 38 (feet), meaning that the total rudder height is around 40 feet total.
It seems to me that the Lafayettes and Allens had a much taller rudder, the top standing around 47 feet: the draft marks over 40 are not applied. Picture of SSBN 611 John Marshall (Ethan Allen class) below.
Did the Franklins have a less tall rudder, and was this maybe related to the endplate fins taking part of the side forces? In this case I touched on another error in the MikroMir kit, the rudder being of the same height as the Lafayettes. It needs to be reduced then by about 6mm.
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
Maarten Sch�nfeld wrote:David, many thanks for spotting the error in the assumptions, and Jacob & John for providing the documents to get it right! Good teamwork I would say.
Maarten
Hi gentlemen,
I'm getting more and more doubts how correct MikroMir's Lafayette and Franklin kits actually are. With your help I got the Ethan Allen more or less right, but now these others seem to require more scrutiny.
To come to the point: does anyone has plans of one of these 616 plus boats, giving the same frame position details as we had for the 608 class? That would really help cracking this puzzle!
Thanks in advance!
"I've heard there's a wicked war a-blazing, and the taste of war I know so very well
Even now I see the foreign flag a-raising, their guns on fire as we sail into hell" Roger Whittaker +9/13/2023
I'm puzzled and would like to ask for help on George Washington (SSBN-598) design history.
Most common literature say GW was initially designed from just laid down USS Scorpion, a Skipjack SSN by "cutting the hull behind the sail and adding a missile section".
However, Norman Polmar in "Cold War Submarines" (Brassey's, 2004) writes "this fact is but a myth": the "cutting" was only virtual, being done on the blueprints, not for real and both boats share many common parts and equipment (page 119).
Comparing both boats dimensions, one finds a width of 33ft for George Washington and 31.5ft for Scorpion, so both hulls obviously don't fit.
Comparing internal profiles of both (Polmar p121 for GW, p135 for Skipjack) it's hard to find exactly the same arrangement aft of the torpedo room.
I don't know what to think. Should I follow Polmar's writing or "Common statement"?
If you look at the dates involved, the Scorpion had just been started a few weeks before it was reordered as the George Washington. When submarines were built in that era, the hull sections were placed on the building ways, all medium to large equipment was installed in place, and then the completed sections were welded together (which takes several weeks to accomplish). Once sections were welded, from there on in, everything to be installed had to go through a small hatch, so smaller equipment was the rule. If I recall, it was only 8-9 weeks into the build when the Scorpion SSN was reordered as an SSBN.
Much of the equipment for the GW was originally intended for Scorpion. The engineering section and SW5 reactor compartments were basically the same. The control areas had to be redesigned to accommodate the missile control and firing equipment, gyro stabilizers were added, as were ballast compensation tanks for the missiles and the missile compartment itself was obviously newly designed. To fit the missiles, the larger compartment was necessary, and the hull diameter increase for the missiles is partially hidden beneath the turtleback section. It basically had to bulge to 33 feet to fit the Polaris missile tubes into the basic Skipjack hull. The rudders were beefed up and the sail redesigned to contain extra equipment and masts. The submarines did not have the rafted machinery spaces (neither did the Skipjacks) so they were acoustically louder than the follow on classes which were based more on the Thresher/Permit designs. It was a quick, interim design to get some SSBNs out sooner than the planned dates.
