And here I was trying to make WmB feel good about not buying one.............
Actually Gatos and Balaos left their builders yards fairly similiar for boat built to same initial configuration in *that* yard...........once they started getting in service mods is where the oddities pop up.
Gatos are even worse, early ones have valves and free flood ports while later ones have only free floods.
I am feeling a little better about it with the latest revelations about the idiosyncrasies between boats. Not enough to feel great about it, but I have stopped crying. ;-)
Same thing for the Tench Class?
WmB
Gotta start studying Gatos. I know a lot about the German U-boats, but not much about USN WWII era submarine history...sort of picked up there with the beginning of the nuke boats, and some of the more serious disasters like the loss of the Thresher.
...which I suppose is still a lot of nautical trivia in the till for a self-avowed aircraft guy.
likewise. what i don't know about u.s. subs.
The most famous Gato class sub was the USS Wahoo SS 238, credited with
19 sinkings. She was sunk in Oct 1943 in the La Perouse Strait in the Sea of Japan. Her wreck was recently found.
I kinda worded that first sentence wrong. The most famous submarine 'of any class' in WWII was the USS Wahoo, a Gato class sub.
LOL!
Not sure, only a handful of Tenches were completed soon enough to go to sea by war's end and most were still doing training & workup cruises around the Canal Zone. I think only one or two went on actual war patrols. As built Tenches from any given yard should be identical at least through 1946 with no wartime in service mods, many got scrapped or sold off and a few got used as test beds for new technologies but that was all 1946 through the mid-fifties.
The new Classic Warships Fleet Subs book is due out at the end of the month and would be a good start. Sub Committee's website is also a good source of information.
Yup. Familiar with the Sub Committee. Great source.
got a url?
Good start here:
Some Germans might disagree. They might consider U-99 the most famous sub, for it sank far more ships (~38) and tonnage than the Wahoo. Or U-47, which penetrated Scapa Flow, and sunk a total of 33 ships.
Dave
I didn't know they had Gato class subs.
tanks, google coughed up a few more.
They didn't. The first posting you made said that the Wahoo was the most famous Gato class sub. Then you ammended it to the most famous submarine 'of any class' in WWII. I took that to mean the most famous sub of any class, of any country, in WWII.
Dave
The model manufacturer Revell-Monogram thus designs its products with exceeding care. The company said its new model of a Gato-class submarine, a mainstay of the United States Navy during World War II, took two years to develop, as designers sweated over details that sound arcane to all but aficionados.
"The shape of the propeller, that was one issue," said Larry Lyse, senior director of engineering for Revell-Monogram, a division of the Revell Group of Northbrook, Ill. "We had to make sure the arc and the curvature of the blades are correct." Miss the exact curvature by a measly few degrees, and fussy customers might flood the Internet with complaints.
Revell-Monogram's take on the Gato-class submarine is notable not only for its fidelity to the real thing, but also for its gargantuan size. The model measures 52 inches from bow to stern and has nearly 300 individual parts. It is intended for the expert builder, the sort who might attend the annual convention of the International Plastic Modelers' Society.
The Gato model was conceived at the modelers' society meeting in Phoenix in 2004. The German unit of the Revell Group had just released a model U-boat, at 1:72 scale. Several Revell-Monogram customers told Edward F. Sexton, the company's vice president for new business development, that they would appreciate an American counterpart.
The celebrated Gato-class submarine was a natural choice, though mimicking the U-boat's 1:72 scale would produce a model the size of a
9-year-old child. (Revell's model of the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Enterprise, by contrast, is scaled at 1:400 and is just 33 inches long.)The first phase of the Gato model's development consisted of homework. Mr. Lyse and his engineering team pored over submarine photographs, and one researcher was dispatched to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc, where the U.S.S. Cobia, a Gato-class submarine, is moored on Lake Michigan. Members of the modelers' society sent in vintage pictures of subs in dry dock, to help in the design of the underside.
Despite the designers' diligence, compromises were inevitable. "The ships kept changing from mission to mission," Mr. Lyse said. The most troublesome issue was where to place the guns, because they were often moved from one part of the deck to another. A definitive answer was impossible - and Revell-Monogram hopes its more demanding customers will appreciate the problem.
After completing a so-called exploded drawing, which illustrates every model part, the designers sent their specifications to Revell-Monogram's Chinese factory. Steel molds were created, and occasionally refined when the company's testers found the resulting plastic parts too flimsy or prone to leave microscopic gaps in the submarine's huge hull.
A final version was sent to a professional model builder, who gave his approval before an assembled Gato was shown to the public at a hobby show last month.
The Gato model kit, at $99.95, is to go on sale this month. Mr. Sexton said that Revell-Monogram products were available in about 3,000 stores nationwide, but that the Gato would initially be carried by only a third of those - mainly at retailers, such as the Hobby Lobby chain, that cater to serious builders.
Because these consumers tend to be sticklers for historical accuracy, Revell-Monogram is also selling surplus Navy chambray shirts for $12.95
- "the perfect modeler's shirt when building your Gato-class submarine," the company's Web site says.
The most devoted builders, however, will still have to supply their own white hats and bell-bottoms.
I have a great idea for a Gato class submarine!I wouldn't do this with a
1/72 one, but for you ambitious guys, feel free to use this idea!Paint it pink. Get a good sized white bra... like 36DD and write LT. CRANDALL on the inside to display with the model. Put up a caption:
"The Japanese have NOTHING like that!"
It would get some great chuckles from war movie buffs.
--- Stephen
So we DO matter - except to S*k*rsky
WmB
Every bit of it - that gal was stacked. Ever notice Mama Cunningham from Happy Days was one of the nurses. I'm not sure if hs euttered more than two syllables.
Not a bad idea.
Apart from the nurses - the part of that movie I like the best is when the fleet is sending up the boat on her way into port - before she shows the colors. Dead silence afterwards.
WmB
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