Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Thanks Greenman,

Here's the hull half pulled from the mould and the last shot showing the WAA pieces taped on for inspection. I'm very happy with how this is turning out.







Joel

[bill rogers]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Joel,

In your previous post you used 1/4" threaded rod for "hold down anchors". I'm afraid I don't understand what you are doing here. At first I thought you were going to use the threaded rod to jack the plug out of the mold but then I see you cut the rod flush with the plug. Can you give us a bit more narrative on your "hold down anchors" please?

Thanks,
SSBN659

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Hi Bill,
Thanks for the question...Those hold down bolts are for holding the hull half straight, tight and flush to a parting board. In those pictures, I had unthreaded the studs from their encapsulated nuts so I could sand the foam flush with the mould. Later, I'll rethread them, put them through holes on a parting board, then put fender washers and nuts on the other side and tighten up. It's also good that the studs are removable because I will have to occasionally join the two halves together to match some continueing detailing. I'll go through the whole process when I get the materials for the board so you can see a little better

Regards,
Joel

[bill rogers]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Ah, the lights just came on! Now I understand. Thanks Joel.

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

On to the parting board construction now so I can attach the hull halves and start to make them look beautiful!
Construction materials used for this part of the project is:

• 5/8” MDF board
• ¼” Ultra-high-molecular-weight polyethylene board (UHMWPE or sometimes shortened to UHMW)
• 1 1/8” by 3/16” angle iron
• Various nuts and bolts

These materials are what I have lying around in the garage, but if I had to build these boards all over again I might be compelled to use these same materials over again. In the case of the UHMWPE I am especially pleased. This stuff is used in arenas to repel 100 mph hockey pucks, is used as skid plates on the bottoms of 4x4 trucks to help slide over rocks, and I’ve even heard of people skating on it when there is no ice...This is pretty much as tough as plastic gets. I kinda fluked out when my son needed our 4 x4 sheet cut down to make more manageable for practicing his slap shot off of. I decided to try using the rest that was left over for my parting board instead of having to go out and buy melamine or something. I’m glad I did as this stuff is impervious to chemicals, is very resilient to sanding, and is very slippery...nothing sticks to it!
Anyways, I clamped both boards together and roughly cut them up with my circular saw. Final trimming was done by running all the cut boards through my table saw.



The MDF and 5 foot lengths of angle iron were clamped together and holes were drilled through both materials at the same time. The top of the MDF was counter sunk to allow for bolt head flushness to the surface. The poly sheets were then placed loose on the board – no glue, no screws.





Next the threaded rod studs (cut down to proper size with the ends filed) were installed back into the hull halves. The halves were placed on the poly sheet and the hole locations were marked. An oversize hole was drilled for each mark through the wood and plastic. The rods were placed through the holes and wing nuts and fender washers were used to secure the whole thing tightly from the other side. Now I can easily adjust the whole plug on the board if needed with the puck board being sandwiched tightly between wood and hull. I’ll screw in some sort of mould keys later, but I want to be left alone from obstructions on the flat surface for now.



Just over 5 feet in total length, here are the halves ready for some beautification

.

Here are a few shots of the top half pulled from the intermediate mould]http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u319/Rapperkiller/Seawolf/P1012762.jpg[/img]





Now its time to clean up these parts, install major details, then start applying some of this ton of photoetch that I'm currently preparing on my pc for this beast!

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Now, on installing major equipment on the bottom hull, this meaning the WAA blisters.

First task was to do the fine shape sanding on the bottoms of the WAA blisters. Heavy sandpaper was taped to the location where each part was to be mounted. A wood block was hot melted to the top of the blister to give me a good grip and control as I sanded down the bottoms of these blisters. Hot melt is a great temporary adhesive and usually comes off fairly easy with a little manipulation, and this was pretty much the case on every WAA except for one, where the majority of the sonar window tore out with the wooden block. No big deal, just a little more to fill later.


The trick here is to make sure that all the blisters line up to each other, in my books they would pretty much have to - to triangulate data properly. I couldn’t see the system working with all the arrays firing off at different angles because the computer would need a basis in which to have reference. The one dimension that all three arrays have in common is the width of the blister before the tapers. With that being said, my reference point to make sure these line up properly is the upper top edges of the arrays before they start to taper down. I used the straightest stick I could find in the shop and double-sided taped the arrays to the edge of the stick.


The stick was placed into position onto the hull where the blisters were to be. I don’t know if it was a fluke or not, but the blisters fit perfectly into place mating to the curves of the hull. Usually things aren’t supposed to be this easy for me, but in this case they were and I’m extremely happy about it, let me tell you!


The shapes were traced out using a Sharpie, the blisters taped to the hull and the stick was then removed. The area on hull underneath was roughed up and cleaned and the blisters could then be glued down permanently. From here, it’s a matter of filling and fairing as per usual as these on the real boat are completely blended in because of the rubber coating.






In primer awaiting final filling and an epoxy primer seal-coat

[subicman]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Joel,

Love the work! I was re-reading this post from the beginning and was pondering your initial statements about this class of boat. I will not deny it is a extremely capable plateform, shipmates and people I know who have served on them have nothing but glowing reports about it. Fast, and deadly. Although, I have to disagree with your statements about the Virignia Class being inferior. 8 tubes is pretty much what makes seawolf, though she doesn't have vls tubes. Virigina went back to 4, but brought back the 12 vls tubes. She's quiet, just as quiet if not more than Seawolf, and the capability, man if you could see what we can do. Having reported to one of these boats, my eyes have been opened further than ever before. Some of the stuff that was designed into the class allows them to do more than Seawolf could hope to ever do. The Seawolf"s size limits what she can do, she is truly an open ocean, take out a enemy SAG singlehandedly girl. The Virginias though, they have the advantage of being smaller (roughly same as a 688 size). This allows open ocean, and litoral roles, truely a stealth multi-mission platform. Still, I once again re-iterate that the Seawolves are incredable machines in themselves.

Unfortunately Seawolf and her sister have been regulated down to being a one on service, the other in drydock supplying parts to the Jimmy C. role

Tim

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Thanks Tim,
...interesting point and fair enough on the Virginia's capabilities. I must say you are in by far the better perspective to judge which would be the better boat. I guess one should expect the newer submarine to able to more. From my perspective, I was under the impression that besides the need for litoral capable submarines, the navy was feeling the pinch but still needed submarines, so they had to comprimise and go with a new, cheaper, and less capable submarine. Usually (but not always) I will associate "you get what you pay for" in terms of quality, but from the beginning of this article up to this point I have done quite a bit of digging into the Seawolf's past and have found that the huge sums of money spent on these boats wasn't all spent on the initial construction, but alot was spent on fixing bugs as well. That has to be expected with any new design that has been seen through construction. Perhaps Virginia has so many similar traits as the Wolf so that it's teeth cutting wasn't as hard.

Still, just for conversation's sake, which boat would you want to be on if one went rogue and they ended up having to fight each other? (theater= middle of the pacific ocean)

Joel

[Rogue Sub]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

A BOOMER !! Do you know how much beer you can fit in an empty missile tube Joel?

Tim your not all correct about your above statement. You have to remember that when the Seawolf was planned, they planned to make many more then three. Since it was contracted all the suppliers and sub contractors started pumping out replacement parts etc. to be ahead of the curve because they were sure of a positive return on the items. Due to all that there are actually PLENTY of parts to keep the Jimmy rolling for a long time. The fact that the other two are in port all the time has more to do with the fact that this class does break down all the time.

[subicman]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Kevin,

Depends on the type of parts. Alot of the Manufactureres that were making the parts for the planned Seawolf Class went under because of the canceled order for the class. When I was out in Wa last month for my school, I was in class with a guy from the Seawolf and a guy from the CT. Both told me that alot of their equipment is cannabalized by the Jimmy C in order for her to make her underways. This is also where I learned about the one in Drydock the other somewhat operational rule for these boats. It seems if the it involves some of the systems there are parts, and for otthers....none.

Joel,

Joel, that is a good question, and my answer would be Good ole Gussie (USS Augusta SSN-710)! She may have been old, and only had 4 tubes altogether, but we had the very first WAA, we knew how to employ it, and our crew we had up to de-commissioning was hands down, in my twenty years in to date, the best dam crew I ever served with. There is a plaque on the wall in the Enlisted club on a Island in the Bahamas (Where the submarine weapons range is at) that says SSN-710 USS Augusta, The BAD Rabbit and it isn't very PC. This symbolizes all the other submarines we F****ed when they where having their Torpedo readiness exams by shooting them first. The rabbit boat is the one that is supposed to be hunted, if they shoot you first,the hunter typically fails.

But to be more pointed the platform doesn't matter too much when you are talking about a US boat, its the crew and the CO and in the case of a VA verses a Wolf, I would take the one that has CAPT Haumer, CDR Stewart, or CDR Weed (Any one of these three officers I would readily go to war in as much as a rowboat with a rubberband rifle, let alone a state of the art stealth machine of death) as the CO and from what I can see, my current enlisted crew or a whole host of others from previous crews.

[manowar]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Kevin, would that be draft beer? I can see it now "On tap - Pressurized, O2 free, Cold, crisp, fresh Ohio Lager". Maybe Bud should rent you guys out instead of having the Bud plane to the Superbowl, that way the party would last longer and you could get there in stealth! Although, there is a good chance of getting high centered somewhere and not even making it to the superbowl

Tim,
Could I assume that those WAAs on the Gussie were one off and didn't follow on the other LA's? Are you sure that was the first boat to have them?

Joel

[Rogue Sub]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Joel
it has been an idea dreamed by many sailors on many patrol. Imagine if the columbians had an Ohio at their disposal!

Gussie was not the first. Can't say who was but she was old.

[subicman]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Joel,

They were the prototype for the ones on the Wolfs and The Va's....

Kevin, you know I am right on this one, gotta trust the Fast boat sailor that served on her......We were the first, and then there was one (maybe more) 3rd flight boat that got a set with different processing. I know that when i was on Boise (764), we didn't have one. I believe that the initial production ones went onto the Wolfs, and now they are standard on the VA's.

Hey if you don't believe me, ask Bill.

Tim

[subicman]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

AN/BQG-5 Wide Aperture Array
The AN/BQG-5 Wide Aperture Array is a flank array on the SSN-688 Los Angeles attack submarines. The AN/BQG-5 WAA System was designed and developed for the SSN 688 Class (Los Angeles) submarine as a stand-alone back-fit to the 688 Class. The WAA gives the 688 Class a state-of-the-art passive target location capability. This long range passive target location promotes ship Self-Protection by providing a first strike capability.

With the following exceptions, there are no differences in the acoustic models used to generate Flank (WAA) array data.

1.The first of these exceptions is that this array has a variable upper frequency limit. A special table in the sensor suite data file stores array upper frequency limits which are a function of array geometry and target location. The Flank array model first retrieves an arrival angle from the prop loss tables based on target depth and range, own ship position, propagation path, and a selected frequency specified in the sensor suite data file. The target bearing and arrival angle are then used to select an upper frequency limit. This frequency is then used as the upper frequency range for subsequent SNR calculations. From this point on the modeling is identical for all arrays.
2.The second exception which is made for flank arrays is that the panels of the array are spatially distributed. From a detection standpoint, the array is treated as a single receiver, however the user can specify an array spacing parameter which is used to generate receive delays for each panel. Mid-bow and mid-stern delay times are generated based on target bearing, and range. These delay times can then be used by TMA algorithms to generate range estimates for a given target.
3.Finally, the Flank array requires an initial detection from either the towed or spherical arrays to initiate Flank detection processing. Once the Flank array has been steered to a taret from an initial towed or spherical bearing, it will attempt to detect a contact.
Division Newport's Lightweight Planar Array technology has been applied to the AN/ BQG-5 Wide Aperture Array (WAA) sonar panels. It reduced the weight of the array panels by 54 percent (compared with the original WAA Engineering Development Model), and acquisition cost savings of 37 percent are expected.

A subset of the seven sensor AN/BSY-2 Combat System, the single sensor AN/BQG-5, was deployed on the USS Augusta in 1994, and initialized properly the first time it was powered up on the submarine, and generally performed outstanding in its first sea trials.

.

[subicman]

Re: Monstrosity! 1/72 Seawolf

Here is a link to an Amazon Excerpt from a Naval institute press book with a paragraph on the WAA.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8MwyTX ... -5&f=false