Completed: USS Philadelphia – 1/700th scale Arii kit
Posted by Don Murphy on August 7, 2014, 14:35:59
Although her hull number is "690", the USS Philadelphia was actually the first of the "688" (Los Angeles Class) submarines to be built and completed. With the entire classes' production spread over multiple shipyards, there were races to see which yard would complete their boats first and thus, get bonuses from a government at the height of it's Cold War spending (read: bottomless pocket). The hallmarks of the entire class were easy/quick building due to modular assemblies and a finished product that was far and away, faster and quieter than anything in the water at the time. The previous Thresher (renamed "Permit" following the loss of USS Thresher) and Sturgeon Classes were holding the line for the US Navy, but drag races were being held and the Russians were showing up with Mustangs and Corvettes. What was needed by the US Navy was a Ferrari or Lamborghini. Two one-off classes (Glenard P. Lipscomb and Tullibee) tested new theories and materials. The result was the Los Angeles Class.
The boats were heavily armed by American standards and easily surpassed all speed requirements. Sound silencing was at a premium. Oddly, the boats were not as rugged as the Permits and Sturgeons so those two classes would remain in the intelligence gathering and under ice operation role due to their deeper diving depth and sturdier sail construction. The key would be the role and the gear fitted to the role. The BSY-1 sensor suite put the LA's in a different ball park altogether. There was nothing at, under or above the water that couldn't be tracked, analysed, targeted and if necessary - killed - by the new 688 boats. As they left the shipyards, a handful were retained in Groton and added into a new squadron, Submarine Development Squadron Twelve or SUBDEVRON 12. This squadron was experimental and like Top Gun, trained the submarines in new tactics, weapons and equipment. "Bottom Gun" was the name given and in next to no time, the class would undergo radical changes including strengthened sails, vertical launch weapons and even quieter sensors.
The original twelve of the class, including "Philly" would be known as "Flight I" boats. As built, they had the basic BSY-1 SONAR suite and four angled 21 inch torpedo tubes. The room's interior held 28 weapons which included submarine launched Harpoon for anti-ship use, MK-48 torpedoes for anti-ship and anti-submarine use and an anti-submarine weapon called SUBROC. Submarine lauched Tomahawk could be carried as well which gave the boats a strategic role. The next group with vertical launch weapon tubes would be the Flight II. This mod took the Tomahawk missiles and mounted them outside of the torpedo room in twelve vertical tubes. This allowed the submarine to almost double it's weapon capacity. Vertical launch tubes, quiet hull coatings and bow planes would be on the Flight III boats. These would be the final versions of the Los Angeles Class submarines. Our kit is from Japanese company ARII who concentrates mainly on modern subjects. Their submarine kits normally have a full hull and also come with a waterline hull, so you effectively get two kits.
I didn't include my patented ruler in the photos but the "finished" kit is little more than three inches long. The color scheme is Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black all over. The non-skid top stripe is Testor's Acryllic Aircraft Interior Black. The kit comes with two sails but only one set of scopes and masts. So you have to decide which of your two kits is going to have scopes/masts up or down. Oddly though, the holes for the masts are open on both sail tops. The kit is really good for the price.
Yes I have had a couple of these ARII subs and (though their details are very crude - not at all unusual for 700-scale kits), they are indeed notable for the second, above-waterline sub - also accompanied (or at least, they used to be) with a molded clear-acetate "slice" of ocean surface, on which to mount it. And I figure they leave the mast mounting-holes into both sails to give the builder all possible options - with it being easier to then fill in the unused ones than to accurately locate- and drill any new ones. I can testify to the difficulty of this - even in 1:200 scale - from reworking the sail cap for my (your) Renwal Casimir Pulaski conversion.
Regarding submarine-launched cruise missiles, I do take a dim view of their "strategic role" - their actual usage (including from subs) in fact being to conventionally-bomb defenseless cities, still filled with civilians, in Iraq: a cowardly act for the world's last remaining SuperPower (after provoking/suckering that country into attacking Kuwait), the start of The Post-Cold-War-Ugliness, v1.0.
And What is The Deal with SUBROC: a weapons system by the late '80s, and advent of the 688s, already at least 30 years old, maybe more. Of all the 688-deployable systems, it is of course the only rocket-boosted-torpedo weapon: a clear and obvious niche. So why, then, have we (read: "I") never heard about any new "Mark"s - or improvement(s) - or anything beyond what I just wrote in a single sentence - about SUBROC? Can this weapon continue to be that secret - still, after all these years - really?
Your description of the BSY-1 sensor suite, and the 688s in general, evokes at least 2-3 decades of spectacular advances in Sonar Research and Engineering, and Ocean Acoustics in general, which both came at the perfect time and - looking back on it - could have made for a great professional life for me, personally. At that time, though, all the Physical Oceanography college training was focusing on water currents and waves, beach erosion, etc., of which I had little clue, nor interest. Indeed, I can still remember by those days having thought that submarine acoustic/sonar/quieting research must already have "been there and done (all) that". Perhaps that, too, was a deliberate secrecy from the public, to Keep a Step Ahead.
And (for another example) for many years I had known about Tullibee, who has really been savaged as ineffective, in the historical record (though her initial idea - to make a quieter reactor cooling system by exploiting coolant convection for circulation, eliminating noisy pumps - has to me always seemed brilliant). Don't know much of anything about Lipscomb - and maybe that was always the plan: to "drop hints" publically about Tullibee while shielding completely from view the "Real Juice", being squeezed out of Lipscomb...
In any case (in addition to having been born-and-raised just outside Philadelphia, myself) the early, "old-school" 688s, with their sail-mounted diving planes, are my clear favorites. I know all the later boats, ever since, now have bow-mounted/retractable planes: better for bumping up under- and through ice packs. But sailplanes - the further forward and higher-up on the sail, the better - really say "Cold War Attack Boat" like nothing else, to me. (No doubt memories from my youth, and devouring as many pics in books, magazines and on model box-tops as I could.)
Great little build and (especially) writeup, and submission to ModelFleet, Don!
Yeah, I did enjoy the fake ocean they came with. Well...some of the kits, not all. As to Tomahawk, the impetus for them was none other than the Soviet "carrier killer" missiles, those huge Mig-sized things that the Bear D and Bear F slung under their fuselage. In fact, that's what the Tomcat was built for; shooting those things down. CIWS has/had been on the drawing board for some time but again, it has to wait until the missile is C L O S E before shooting it down. Admirals don't like that kinda drama... So Tomcat could outfly anything the Soviets could launch.
Russian drum-beating at the time, foretold of a carrier on a par with Enterprise and also nuclear powered. Kirov and Frunze were laid down at the time to be her escorts. The USN dithered with killing it and then President Carter cancelled the B-1 in favor of a long range missile that could do the same thing as a bomber. The Navy jumped on the funding wagon and soon, ALCM/SLCM were born. The Navy's purpose for building it was always conventional. The USAF's was to give life/punch/power to the ageing B-52 fleet. After hearing Carter's reelection speech in person, the gist of USAF ALCM was always going to be nuclear. And at a range of 1500+ nm, not too shabby. The slow speed was derided by the Navy but lovers shouted down the haters by preaching that they would "flood Russia with them, so that the Russians wouldn't have enough planes to shoot all of them down." Hmmm...
Basing the shell on ASROC and indeed the launching mechanics, the USN quickly adapted it's trial rounds for submarine launch and BGM-109A was born. It was a small family with A being the nuclear 1200 nm range tactical nuke, B being the 2000lb warhead anti-ship/carrier bird and C being the one that flew down the length of the runway spitting out submunitions. A suitcase with the nuke tools made its way onboard the SSN's and that way any of the B's could be so-configured. The Navy's initial B test was vicious and sank the target ship in record time with one round. SUBDEVGRU TWELVE did the honors with either Dallas or Groton being the "bearer of bad news." The next B test was shot against a CIWS armed ship that failed to shoot it down. CIWS and host went to the bottom. A C test was ordered and tore up a healthy chunk of Point Mugu.
Publicity wise, the first the USA would know of it was Carter's reelection bid and the USS New Jersey with her eight quadruple B and C launchers. Long Beach and the Virginia's got 'em and a handful of Sprucans. The next public outing of TLAM would be the vertical launch Sprucans and Tico's. Once Reagan reached office, the B-1 was back on the drawing board and the TLAMs went away in favor of the revolver launcher SRAM which is specific to the B-52 and B-1 only. During Operation El Dorado Canyon and Operations Prarie Fire I and II in the mid 80's, SSN's attached to the units "may" have launched some at Libyan/Iranian units/targets but that can't be confirmed or denied.
Flight II and III boats launched TLAM C's at Iraqi airfields during Desert Storm and Louisville launched the first TLAM B which was a reworked BGM-109B converted from anti-ship to bunker busting. Other than that, the sub fleet's been pretty sparing with them though British boats so-equipped fired them during OIF.
ASROC was nuclear tipped and served one purpose; to kill an enemy boomer. It was pretty much a suicide weapon as the noise it made leaving the ocean pretty much gave the shooter's location away. Like a lot of Cold War weaponry (ASTOR, Weapon Alpha, Davy Crockett, etc) it was retained only to make the Soviets think that it worked and cause them to spend themselves into oblivion trying to counter it. Tullibee's nickname was "building 598" as she rarely got to sea, if at all. Her propulsion system was just so hopeless.
Yes, Tullibee was roundly unsuccessful - one of several cool-looking subjects that, nevertheless were so historically disappointing (see also: the entire French Navy during WWII), that I don't even want to model them!
And - not to beat a dead horse, but - your elaboration on Tomahawk/Carter/SAC, during the late '70s, really exposes the utter idiocy then (and indeed throught the Cold War) in play. With Trident-MIRVs already deployed by the hundreds throughout the world's oceans - on the quietest, most successful submarines of all time, no less - WTF possible need could there ever have been to further "...flood Russia with (cruise missiles so they wouldn't) have enough planes to shoot all of them down."?!! What the hell: SLBMs alone - not to mention all the SAC ICBMs - were already sufficient to flood Soviet airspace and impossible to shoot down! Add to that all the nuclear bombers - both USAF and from USN carriers - and you start to see just how truly ridiculous the "argument" for Strategic Cruise Missiles had become...
It was at about this same time that - incredibly, apparently for the first time ever - some scientists calculated what kind of fires would be started by such an all-out nuclear exchange - and concluded that the resultant Nuclear Winter would starve to death about half of everybody in the Northern Hemisphere (at least)! I suspect this was a major turning point - not for the Washington nor Wall Street crazies, who remain hopeless to this day, but - for Soviet leaders, who were prompted to consider decision to just "Fu** all This Sh** - it's Not Worth It!". The Only way to Win is: Not to Play.
Oh and just one more mini-rant (within my Uber-Rant ) - this regarding Jimmy Carter: At the same time as the above circus, Carter delivered his odious and infamous "American Malaise" address - wherein he, practically in the same breath both acknowleged the killings of JFK, MLK, horrors of Vietnam, etc. - and yet had the balls to blame the American People for their "crisis of confidence" in USGovt! With of course no acknowlegement of his role in it - and responsibility to EARN back a JUSTIFIED public confidence. With the Founding Documents of the USA continuing - then as now, and always - to remain crystal clear on what The American People are obigated to do, whenever their government (continually) fails to meet its responsibilities...
Indeed, in the very same summer of 1979 - as Carter gave his Broke-Di**-Sapper speech - his CIA was instituting a new organization, designed to give the Soviets "their own Vietnam", in Afghanistan: the Muslim Terrorist Muja-Hideen. With their Bag-Man, to reliably launder/deliver the ever-important (black-budget) cash - for weapons, vehicles and other equipment, etc. - being a Saudi oligarch: one OSAMMA BIN LADEN. (Thanks, Jimmy!)
The rest is, as they say, History - much of which the American People still have not learned, and/or continue to refuse to look upon, honestly, to this day. This is how It Ends - this is how You Lose it All...