Model Fleet: Tale of THE TAIL

Tale of THE TAIL

Posted by Matty on June 13, 2009, 20:39:54, in reply to "S-BOAT: Details of Form and Fit, into WWII"
Message modified by board administrator June 14, 2009, 12:04:26

Undoubtedly the most dramatic change(s) experienced by the S-18 class boats - roughly on a par with the transformations, at about the same time, undergone by the Lexington class carriers - was the refit evolution of the upper aft casing - ultimately affecting even the aft deck, as well.

Originally, the S-18 boats were launched with a dorsal skeg; a long vertical "fin" connecting the aft tip of the deck to the top of the rudder:

Click on Image to Enlarge At left, note the skeg is the only exposed part of the stern; its dagger-like appearance, especially in the upper-middle pic, belying the extensive underwater hull and stabilizers, just below the surface (the latter actually faintly visible in the cloudy water). All but the bottom pic date from the early '20s, the one at lower-middle being the earliest I found, depicting a complete skeg; on S-37 in October, 1923. At bottom, a pic dating to the early '30s reveals the skeg on S-38 (inset) remains virtually identical - right down to the lashing ring, which is also just visible on S-40, at bottom-left. So (at least) these boats retained the skeg, unchanged, for (at least) a full decade, after launching.

However it appears that several nose-down sinkings and/or strandings during the '20s prompted the installation of a stern escape hatch/trunk; necessitating (at least partial) removal of the skegs, in a "safety program" of refits. Most boats appear to have undergone it in the late '20s - early '30s, however the 3 graphics to the right, above, clearly prove that some (at least) started losing their skegs far earlier. At center-left and -right, S-32 reveals her (apparently uniquely) modified skeg; with just a section simply removed from the middle; the yard pics at center-right undoubtedly showing the actual refit work, dating it to October 2, 1923. At far right, a pic captioned "S-30 - S33 - S-20" may show the start of the more standard, full-skeg removal, dated also in the caption to "October 2" of either "1926", -"28" or -"23" (the last number being illegible, but most resembling a "6", IMHO).

Whatever the precise start date for each refit, once begun each boat apparently proceeded along the same evolutionary path of refits, extending up to WWII:

Click on Image to Enlarge The first modification, which I dubbed the "slant-chopped" appearance, seems to have been just that; the skeg was simply chopped off, and with it the extreme aft tip of the deck, and slice of underlying casing, leaving a tiny flat, forward-sloping "transom" - shown particularly clearly at top. The forward slope angle appears identical for S-31, -32 & -33 at top, as well as S-36 and her close sisters (including S-37) at middle. However the lead ship of the class, S-18, at bottom - as well as several others of the class (not shown) - clearly got the chop at a significantly lower angle. The top pic is dated "1930s", which is consistent with its inter-war gray/black paint job, as also seen at middle and bottom; only the latter being implausibly dated to February 4, "1943" - though -34 would be far more likely.

By the early- to mid-'30s It appears all boats in the class had progressed through the above and on to the next stage of refit, which I dubbed the "cannister-chopped" stern:

Click on Image to Enlarge A full-height, stern escape trunk was added, and transom refined adjacent to it, as clearly shown at left; the top pic showing S-36 (right), S-32 (center) and (S-42 class boat) S-47, in 1936. Likewise, at upper-middle, lower-middle and bottom, S-31 dated "1932", S-28 dated "mid-'30s" and S-37 with her near-sisters, undated, respectively, show the "cannister-chopped" fit as well. Note it includes a small wedge-like hump atop the aft tip of the deck, creating, from some angles the appearance of two escape trunks, though there was only ever one, AFAIK.

The all-black paint and (white) block numbers - plus other features visible in the latter pics - belie the above dates; arguing instead for the early- or immediate pre-WWII period, and the graphic at right proves unequivocally that (at least) some, probably most, of the boats exhibited the "cannister-chopped" stern well into WWII, including at top, S-41 in 1942; at middle, S-22 under RN operation in April, 1943; and at bottom, S-21 circa 1943-44.

Circa 1943, apparently most boats, on their first wartime return stateside for major overhaul, received the final, and by far the most radical refit to (among other things) their aft ends:

Click on Image to Enlarge At left, this transformation, which I dubbed the "modernized" fit, is shown for S-35 on May 2, 1943. Riding high, she reveals the escape trunk has been cut down (or removed), and the aft casing apparently removed yet further forward. Note also the sole remnant of the original skeg is simply a raked vertical stabilizer for the rudder. At bottom, in more typical, stern-down trim, S-28 on January 23, 1943 appears, from this low angle, to resemble the original, complete-skeg boats, at the stern. This is yet more pronounced in pics of her at center; the top two from the same date as above. Of course, other features identify the fit as the "modernized" type, but, from a distance the clearest recognition is from overhead, as shown for S-21 and again S-28, at lower-middle and bottom, respectively.

At right, an apparently common - if not predominant - variation of "modernized" refit included a gentle but distinct hump, just before the aft end; ergo, my ad-hoc naming of it as the "humpbacked" fit. At top-left and -right it appears to good advantage on S-38 and S-41, respectively; moored opposite sides of the same pier and photographed (I decided) on the same day in April, 1943. At middle, a low side-view of S-38 in November, 1942 leaves no question of her identity as a uniquely "humpbacked" refitted boat, and at bottom, even the forward quarter-view of S-38 - again from the above photo-shoot in 4/43 - reveals the hump to create a bulging, more rounded look to the aft casing than on any of the original-fit boats.

The "modernized" fits were the last to be seen by the class during WWII, after which all were (finally) decommissioned. Meantime, it had been quite an "evolutionary history" of stern refits - the Tale of The Tail(s) - for this class, eh?

Cheers,

-Matty