i-400: giant scale with Seirans

[shadowpeo]

Those scans are the same

Those scans are the same plan set sold by 'great_plans' on ebay.

Yes they are, I got them off him a while back when I was told about them, Always looking to make them more accurate though, although the Vectors of them have not been done yet

There is another chap who made some 1/48 white metal castings for the IJN subs. substuff@aol.com Chris I think?

Chris Proctor, Don't know what happened to him he disappeared a while back from memory he did a 1/48 I-400 sometime between 1998 and 2001 I have tried using WBM to access his forum posts on the old site but they don't show up as I recall he had some good info

EDIT: Just had a look at the plans I don't think it would take to much to vectorize them, especially the side views, the top views are a bit harder with all the planking and what appear to be limber holes

[fung pang]

Chris Proctor has the I-19

Chris Proctor has the I-19 class submarine.

with all these infromations, time try my 3rd build of the i-400, this time in 1/72.

did any one cut up their 1/350 tamiya, yet?

[shadowpeo]

Chris Proctor has the I-19

Chris Proctor has the I-19 class submarine.

Ah, Quite Right it was an I-19 now you mention it it jogs the memory

[ghethco]

Hi Carl,

I send Art a

Hi Carl,

I send Art a PM on the Subcommittee boards, haven't seen a response. If you contact him, let me know.

Thanks for letting me know about the 'great_plans' drawings. Sounds like I don't need to buy those then.

Gary

Those scans are the same plan set sold by 'great_plans' on ebay.

I'd be willing to work on a community project. I've got a lot of I-400 references, and also have the wooden 1/160 scale Hasegawa I-401 kit w/plans.

BTW, is the guy in NZ that's an I-400 expert named Art? Art is a great guy! I'm going to have to email him again, I haven't chatted with him in a while...

Carl

[dietzer]

Gary,

Art doesn't watch the SubCommittee.

Gary,

Art doesn't watch the SubCommittee. I met him thru 1/96 scale warship combat. He's the one that told me about the J-Aircraft naval forum.

I'll try to email him soon. Someday I'd like to fly to New Zealand and meet him face-to-face, but I don't see that happening anytime soon.

Carl

[ghethco]

first i-400 drawings

I've finished the tracing of the side view from the new Sakaida book on the i-400. Attached is a snap of the Autocad workspace.

Gary

[ghethco]

i-400 side view close-up

Here's a zoom on the hangar/conning tower area. I'm pretty sure that the hangar was inclined downward toward the aft end. I've drawn at least a guess at this in in magenta.

Gary

[anonymous]

Hi ShadowPeo

your email adress is

Hi ShadowPeo

your email adress is ok because i get allways an error report. I star a bit too vector the plan.

Gantu

[ghethco]

i-400 CAD drawings

Hi guys,

I've finished the side and top views, and at least an outline of the front view. See attached. Now the real fun begins! Now we get to start comparing drawings and photos.

Gary

[ghethco]

i-400 top view

Here's a close-up of the conning tower area top-view.

Gary

[ghethco]

i-400 and scale "truth"

OK, so the object of this little exercise is to come up with a set of drawings that is reasonably close to a representation of the real article. Part of the fun of a subject like this (where no surviving examples exist) is that you have to do some forensic detective work. As we'll see, drawings are often full of innacuracies. Photos are better, but they are also fallible since old photos are often fuzzy and even at best you have varying amounts of distortion produced by the camera lens. Still - photos are often the best source of "truth" and we'll treat them accordingly.

First, let's take a look at some of the other drawings. This first set appears to have a lot of commonality with the drawings from Sakaida's book. My guess is one is based off the other, or they have a common ancestor. Attached are a couple of areas for comparison. The red lines are the tracing of the Kyoshi Harada drawings from the Sakaida book. Maybe Tony can tell us the source of these drawings, I'm not sure.

As you can see, they at least roughly agree in terms of overall shape and proportions.

Gary

[ghethco]

More i-400 drawing comparison

And now for something completely different...

This is where the head scratching begins. These drawings were supposedly made with information from the captured submarines. My overall impression of them is that they are probably less accurate in terms of overall shape and proportions than the other two. But -- you be the judge! Tell me what you guys think. As you can see, these drawings are vastly different in almost every respect.

So -- where does the truth lie??? Isn't this fun??? Strangely enough, I do find it quite interesting and amusing in a weird masochistic way...

One thing -- this drawing has cross-sections, which will be useful even if they're not totally accurate.

Gary

[ghethco]

i-400 photo comparison

Now we can compare the drawings with surviving photos. First, here are the first two photos I'm going to use. The first one is the only known surviving photo of the i-400 while still in Japanese hands. With Seirans on deck no less! Boy, what I wouldn't give to have been there!!!

The second was taken after capture, I think at Pearl Harbor. Note that there are two of them in the photo, one right behind the other. This complicates the interpretation of this photo, but I think the extents visible are of the sub in the foreground. Do you agree? The crane, deck gun and antenna of the background sub are clearly visible.

Gary

[ghethco]

i-400 photo comparison

Now we overlay the drawings. Take a look. The large discrepancy in the size of the conning tower/hangar tube in the first photo, leads me to believe that this is in fact a photo of the i-13 or i-14, which had a smaller hangar capapble of stowing only two Seirans. A look at the rudder area confirms this, as the arrangement of the rudder and aft deck differs in that area also. What else can we glean here?

The second photo seems to be more in agreement, but pretty much everything on deck seems to be shifted forward. Hmm...

I have one more complete broadside photo of the i-400 that I haven't scanned yet. That one should help. It's from the Monogram Aviation Publications book on the Seiran.

Gary

[ghethco]

third i-400 broadside photo

Here's the one other complete broadside photo I've seen of the i-400. This is the one I referred to earlier from the Seiran book.

Gary