Posted by Don Murphy on September 18, 2014, 11:58:35
HMS Trafalgar
HMS Trafalgar was the lead ship of a new/novel class of Royal Navy attack submarines. Reputed to be deeper diving, quieter and faster than any submarine known to man, the Trafalgar's delivered. In spades. Armed with a novel arrangement consisting of five torpedo tubes, the T boats carry an estimated 30 - 45 weapons in the spacious hull. HMS Trafalgar herself remained at Gosport Naval Base as a test platform and for publicity/showing the flag purposes. A British-designed reactor pioneered radical quieting techniques all the while, giving the ship a marked increase in silent speed.
As Britain's self-assigned NATO role was ASW, in particular, defense of the Greenland-Iceland-UK gap and the important USN and RN "boomer" bases in Scotland (Holy Loch/Faslane), the RN sought to gain the ultimate defensive/offensive platform. Improving on the Swiftsure Class, the same under-ice/deep diving capability was kept but also improved due to a more rigid hull construction utilizing new metals. To hide the metals and also for insulation, rubber tiles were applied to the outer hull of the submarine which had a bonus of stealth performance against virtually all Soviet SONAR equipment.
Wargames against NATO (particularly American) submarines were equally brutal with the Trafalgar's "getting the drop" on every victim, every time. Even notoriously quiet diesel boats were not safe and Soviet ships transiting the Med frequently followed every step of the way by a spy-sub Trafalgar. Five of the class remain in service and have been updated with a newer SONAR than that on Britain's newest attack sub! Classification wise, the T boats have a higher classification and strategic value than even missile submarines! Most photos of Soviet/Warsaw Pact submarines came from trailing T boats! One poor Typhoon skipper was relieved after his first patrol when he returned to port to see pictures of his very boat underwater, taken by a T boat that had followed him his entire patrol.
Our kit is a nasty, heat damaged ARII which wasn't in my SLEP or pending pile as it was missing too many parts. Some of the parts were warped and dimpled but hey - I don't enter many contests so no chance of this one getting in. The opportunity to knock this kit out came up and I decided to just throw it together, paint it and be done with it. The colors are pretty standard: Tamiya Semi-Gloss Black and Tamiya Flat Black.
superb build - well done! One point of correction to your text - the RN does not have 'boomers'. RN missile subs are known as 'bombers'. Different name - same outcome!
Once again, fascinating: again, not for the model particularly - which is after all a waterlined 700-scale torpedo-hull ("nasty" damaged ARII, no less), without even sail planes - but for your historical/technical snippets. Where on earth do you go, to read these things - in particular, British "reactor pioneered radical quieting techniques" and "hull construction using new metals" - or are these tidbits that your "career-professional privelege" brings your way? (And it so, WTF are you doing revealing them, on-line??! )
Seriously though: the Brits didn't invent Anechoic (rubber) Hull Tiles, did they? I was sure I saw those - actually, the square pits where tiles had been battered off - on Soviet Victor (or even earlier) boats. Also, some speculation/pics of mysterious devices to emit a slime (polymer) coating, over accelerating Soviet hulls. Can you tell us anything about that, Donny?
Swiftsure boats had an all-over coating. Trafalgar's had the individual tiles. Trafalgar also pioneered sail mounted SAMs (I believe a navalised "Blowpipe" or "Javelin") which the RN didn't like but eventually made it's way to the Israeli boats.
I heard about the Soviet slime stuff but like a lot of things Soviet, they simply ran out of money and the residue was as beautiful to a hunter as an oil slick. The idea was to allow itself to be trailed, clean...then emit the coating and slow down. The trailing sub is then un-able to feed the coated signal into it's database - supposedly. Norman Polmar's tome on Soviet boats goes into it briefly. But like he also muses, most NATO nations may not have had tons of subs, but they had tons of sub hunting aircraft! So the slick was easily picked up.