Calling all GUPPY (Gato, Balao and Tench-class SS) fans

[mike_espo]

Looking at some of the reply on the AFV Guppies, in kinda disapointed. Accuracy seems poor. The Atlantic sail seems incorrect and difficult to fix, the decks on both Guppy variants are incorrect with the slope forward of the sail.

I was looking to do a Portsmouth sail USS Tusk using the ADV Guppy 1b, but cannot find a 1/350 Portsmouth replacement sail anywhere

Any ideas? Thoughts on the ADV Guppy kits? Suggestions welcome

Thanks all

[Tom Dougherty]

I need to check my embarrassingly large set of submarine kits, but I am 90% sure I have a couple of resin Portsmouth sails from the old Tom's Model Works resin kits. If I do have 2, I can part with one for you. That would at least give you a start. If I recall correctly (it's been a few years since I worked on those kits and had to stop due to my real life research work), they got the sail deadlight shapes reversed, with the EB round ones as oblong glass and the Portsmouth oblongs as rounds.

[mike_espo]

Thanks Tom. That would be great. Let me know how much.

[Tom Dougherty]

Yep, I do have two 1/350 Portsmouth resin sails. From the old Tom's Modelworks kits of long ago.
The Portsmouth deadlights are correct on this sail.

As with any early resin, it needs a bit of clean up and I did some additional work for accurizing the resin versions. I removed the molded on railing surrounding the Electric Boat version (also seen below on the Portsmouth sails) and fabricated a railing out of thin copper wire with short standoff pieces also made from wire and installed in drilled holes at intervals around the sail. Added a bridge hatch and some instrumentation from styrene pieces and additional thin wire as tubing connections in the bridge cockpit. I scribed in the access doors on the sail and sanded down the raised versions. Also added a whip antenna along with the provided masts.

[mike_espo]

Ill take one How much?

[Tracy White]

For those interested - I popped copies of SS-563 Tang's 1972 Booklet of General Plans online on my site.

[Vepr157]

For those interested - I popped copies of SS-563 Tang's 1972 Booklet of General Plans online on my site.

Thanks Tracy, these are great! How did you obtain the plans?

Jacob

[Tracy White]

They were scanned in at NARA.

[Woodstock74]

Anyone have any pictures of the SV Radar mast used on the GUPPYs and Fleet Snorkels?

[Vepr157]

I think what you're looking for is the SS-2/BPS-9 radar. The SV was a late-war radar that I think didn't make it onto the GUPPYs and Fleet Snorkels. Here are a few Booklets of General Plans that show this radar: https://www.hnsa.org/manuals-documents/ ... ns-online/

[Tom Dougherty]

Check out the link for photos I took several years ago of a Guppy II. It includes several shots of the masts. As mentioned, the SV was a late war edition to fleet submarines. The radar installation on this Guppy is not an SV antenna, it is an SS-2.

http://www.steelnavy.com/BecunaTD.htm

Tom

[Woodstock74]

I've been in contact with the researcher for the USS Torsk. The Torsk, while a Fleet Snorkel with a Portsmouth step sail, indeed had a large well ahead of the snorkel for what is indicated as the SV Radar on the blue prints. I understand it was later utilized for Regulus downrange guidance, and maybe called a Trounce antenna? Anyone know what that looked like? Or, was the SV repurposed as a Trounce antenna and it's effectively the same thing?

[Vepr157]

David Stumpf's Regulus book says that the SV was used as the Trouce guidance radar. The list of submarines that had Trouce equipment were (according to Stumpf):

* Carbonero (SS 337)
* Cusk (SS 348)
* Torsk (SS 423)
* Argonaut (SS 475)
* Runner (SS 476)
* Medregal (SS 480)
* Swordfish (SSN 579)
* Seadragon (SSN 584)
* Sculpin (SSN 590)
* Snook (SSN 592)

The fleet boats presumably used the SV radar for Trounce. The Skates had either SS-2/SV or a BPQ-2. The Sculpin had a BPQ-2 parabolic dish with a bar-like element from the BPS-9 below it. The Snook had BPS-9. So it seems that the SS-2/SV, BPQ-2, and BPS-9 could all be used for Trounce.

You can see two flavors of SV radar in these photos of the radar picket Spinax:
http://navsource.org/archives/08/pdf/0848927.pdf

[Tom Dougherty]

TROUNCE (AN/BPQ-2) used pulse coded signals to guide the Regulus I cruise missile, which had a range of around 400 miles and a 1 megaton nuclear warhead. Only a handful of submarines were either converted or purpose built to launch Regulus. The launching submarine had a TROUNCE antenna, as did a downrange guidance submarine. Again, a handful of non-Regulus missile launching submarines were used for downrange guidance.The AN/BPQ-2 apparently replaced the narrow beam SV-1 originally employed in tests. The SV radar was found to be difficult to track the fast Regulus because of the radar narrow beam. Note that these tests were all in the early 1950's.

The original SV-1 antenna was on an extendable mast near the rear of the conning tower fairwater deck. that originally had the omnidirectional SD radar. The SV-1 was installed on fleet submarines late in the war (primarily 1945) and had a large dish. This dish was much larger than the SJ dish. See photos of the SV-1 on Flasher and Pampanito:

[Woodstock74]

Excellent responses here, thanks very much!!

I'm in a GUPPY manic phase right now...

What I'm wondering...the GUPPY hydrodynamic updates were inspired by the late war German boats. But when it came to design execution, I would think someone did R&D (tow tank testing, whatever the hydrodynamic equivalent is to a wind tunnel) that the GUPPY developments were based off of. Surely this wouldn't have been experience driven, monkey see (German boats) monkey do (GUPPY updates) as there would be an opportunity to baseline the German boats and then actually improve upon them. And from that R&D a specification would be derived. So if there was R&D done...where is it?

The second question then...why two different initial sails (excluding the Atlantic for now), EB and Portsmouth, that arrive at two different visual solutions?

And forgive me, I just don't know, Electric Boat is a privately held company...who ran Portsmouth, was that the Gov't?

[Vepr157]

Yeah, there was almost certainly testing of the GUPPY hull form as well as the various forms of GUPPY sails (note that the first two GUPPYs, the Odax and Pomodon, initially had tiny sails with no snorkels). This hydrodynamic testing would have been done by the Bureau of Ships in the David Taylor Model Basin (DTMB).

The direct design connection between the GUPPYs (or the Tangs or the Nautilus, for that matter) is actually pretty weak beyond them both being streamlined submarines with large battery capacities. The most direct influence was probably the shaft-line stabilizers installed on a few GUPPYs, about half of the Tangs, and the twin-shaft SSNs. These helped stabilize the submarine at high submerged speed, but initially were extremely noisy due to their proximity to the propellers and resulting uneven wake. On the later boats, the distance between the blades and trailing edge of the stabilizers was increased, which helped reduce cavitation at shallow depths, and low-frequency blade-rate noise at deep depths.

A submarine design at that time had three stages: the preliminary design (done by BuShips), the contract design, and the final design (which was sometimes synonymous with the contract design). As the design progressed and got more detailed, the shipyards became more and more involved. For the GUPPY IIs, both Portsmouth and Electric Boat were allowed to produce the contract design. Although the general charictaristics of the GUPPY II had been specified by BuShips, there was some latitude in the design, which is why the two shipyards designed different sails. Then these two shipyards acted as "lead yards" for the others (Mare Island, Philadelphia, and Boston Naval Shipyards), which would produce the design specified by the lead yard. I haven't taken the time to verify this, but I would guess that only the GUPPYs converted at Electric Boat would have the Electric Boat-style sail. Typically the other Naval Shipyards would follow Portsmouth's design.

This sort of design variance between shipyards is more common that you might think. For example, the Portsmouth-designed fleet boats have a different limber hole pattern than the Electric Boat-designed submarines. Or the fact that the Portsmouth-built Tangs had a different sail and periscope arrangement than the Electric Boat Tangs.

And yes, Portsmouth is a government yard (you will often hear references in regard to the fleet boats as being built to the "Government design") as are all the other Navy Yards (now called Naval Shipyards).

If you're interested in GUPPYs, I highly recommend John Alden's excellent book The Fleet Submarine in the U.S. Navy.

[Tom Dougherty]

I am currently working on an EB step sail Guppy. It�s a combination of Yankee Models Work resin hull and Tom�s Modelworks sails, which are more accurate. I also have one of the rare resin Guppy lll kits from Yankee MW as well. It has the three PUFFS fins. Again, I will use the more accurate Tom�s Atlantic sail. I have some articles written by Jim Christley on the Guppy program which I can share if you are interested.

I agree with Jacob, the Alden Fleet Submarine book is an excellent resource for the Guppy�s and related conversions.

[Woodstock74]

I am currently working on an EB step sail Guppy. It�s a combination of Yankee Models Work resin hull and Tom�s Modelworks sails, which are more accurate. I also have one of the rare resin Guppy lll kits from Yankee MW as well. It has the three PUFFS fins. Again, I will use the more accurate Tom�s Atlantic sail. I have some articles written by Jim Christley on the Guppy program which I can share if you are interested.

I agree with Jacob, the Alden Fleet Submarine book is an excellent resource for the Guppy�s and related conversions.

I've done a Portsmouth sail in 1/350, it's available on Shapeways. This is sort of a "generic" Portsmouth sail:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/KEYKA ... 5&li=shops

I did a USS Torsk-specific Portsmouth sail too:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/U55CE ... 8&li=shops

Also drawn an EB sail:
https://www.shapeways.com/product/QHPGT ... 4&li=shops

Is there a need for a better Atlantic sail given the availability of AFV's? Let me know, I'm game. Also open to critics of my work up to this point.

Yes, have the Alden book and just got Christley's yesterday. Christley appears to be the GUPPY whisperer, so I'd be interested in anything additional he'd have to say.

[Tom Dougherty]

Jim Christley spent a fair part of his submarine career on Guppy boats. I used to love to talk with him at SubCommittee Regattas, as you pick up little pieces of wisdom when speaking with him. Like wear old jeans when doing battery well inspections (spilled sulfuric acid eats holes in them) and don't wear jeans that have metal studs. You are climbing among DC busbars which don't mix well with metal studs. Also, how they would run submerged on diesel with the snorkle, and when the snorkle was dunked in rough sea states, the diesels would suck air out of the submarine compartments. This caused suddenly decreased pressure with eardrums and sinuses becoming painful. Then when the snorkle cleared the waves, the pressure would shoot back to normal. Rinse, repeat for hours on end. Sleeping became impossible. This was a particular problem on Guppys, as the US diesels were 2 cycle vs. the German Type XXI 4 cycle engines. The 2 cycles had blowers and needed a lot more air; hence larger diameter snorkels and when dunked, a more rapid decrease in air pressure due to the 2 cycle diesel air demand. I don't think those guys who served in that early Cold War period have ever received the recognition they deserved.

Let me know which Christley articles you have. I have all of his SubCommittee articles on Guppy sub & happy to send you some PDFs..
Jim had a web site but alas, much of it is gone.
More sources are: https://quietwarriors.wordpress.com/smo ... eet-boats/http://rnsubs.co.uk/articles/development/guppy.html

Still some final work to do on these models (like add the screws, decals, and mount them on a finished board)

[Guest]

Jim Christley spent a fair part of his submarine career on Guppy boats. I used to love to talk with him at SubCommittee Regattas, as you pick up little pieces of wisdom when speaking with him. Like wear old jeans when doing battery well inspections (spilled sulfuric acid eats holes in them) and don't wear jeans that have metal studs. You are climbing among DC busbars which don't mix well with metal studs. Also, how they would run submerged on diesel with the snorkle, and when the snorkle was dunked in rough sea states, the diesels would suck air out of the submarine compartments. This caused suddenly decreased pressure with eardrums and sinuses becoming painful. Then when the snorkle cleared the waves, the pressure would shoot back to normal. Rinse, repeat for hours on end. Sleeping became impossible. This was a particular problem on Guppys, as the US diesels were 2 cycle vs. the German Type XXI 4 cycle engines. The 2 cycles had blowers and needed a lot more air; hence larger diameter snorkels and when dunked, a more rapid decrease in air pressure due to the 2 cycle diesel air demand. I don't think those guys who served in that early Cold War period have ever received the recognition they deserved.

Let me know which Christley articles you have. I have all of his SubCommittee articles on Guppy sub & happy to send you some PDFs..
Jim had a web site but alas, much of it is gone.
More sources are: https://quietwarriors.wordpress.com/smo ... eet-boats/http://rnsubs.co.uk/articles/development/guppy.html

Still some final work to do on these models (like add the screws, decals, and mount them on a finished board)

Is that Tullibee in the background 1/350? Scratchbuilt?

Through a stroke of luck, someone has put me in touch with Christley. So I've sent my inquiry regarding the initial R&D for the GUPPYs to him. Fingers crossed!