Nope, I have seen an I-400 in the SAS and the same boat at NATS. Even watched it put a hole in a ship. Very cool for 5 seconds, and very much the technological treat.
Wow, lots of responses and questions since I last posted. Yes, it was an evolution to see what weight ratio of molded fin section to solid head was needed to get them to track straight. The fin section is molded several at a time and the heads don't take a lot of time to make with a lathe. Everyone needs to remember that running a submarine that fires these torpedoes is more a novelty, than a full time in the action fighting ship. There are something you can tinker with and have a different kind of fun. In addition, these are being used in a 1/72 scale sub. Our member that is doing this, was very instrumental years ago at getting the original 1/144 subs with WWCC to operate, but they had no where near the performance of the sub he is operating now. His sub may be in the larger scale, but it's still a very, very small ship.
Don't do it man! You're going down a dark path from which there is no return! How long is the qual card to operate one of those things? Are you going to run drills and field day for ORSE? Are you going to adjust the ventilation lineup when charging the battery? Take care of the quarterly data reports? Install shore power after every battle? Where is your procedure!? Oh wait... there's no reactor... OK, you're good. Have fun!
Ugh, just the thought of dragging shore power cables into the escape trunk... in July...in Kings Bay... makes me break out in a sweat.
Frank in the SAS is the guy that made the I-400 actually dive and use a spurt gun. Just looking at that ship on the bench was cool, but the amount of work and potential for one little thing to go wrong chased me away from pig boats
The thing I have always enjoyed about our group is that it's not all about the combat. I'd say each of us is about 1/3 modelers, 1/3 innovators and 1/3 combat. It's been a really strange transition for some of us. When I did Big Gun 1/144 it was all about the combat. I had a 17 gun FN Richielu and it was one awesome fighting ship. I could pick out a ship and sink it with little or no effort. Since we got into the 1/72, we still like the combat, but we also want the ships to look great when being torn up. Deryk who has done most of the work testing and coming up with these torpedo ideas and making them work was the same. It use to be the combat, but now he really gets into the innovation. I have some video of his torpedoes shooting at my USS Maddox. As soon as I can get them prepared and figure out how to upload to this site, everyone will get a chance to see what he's accomplished. Hopefully; maybe it can be adapted to the 1/144 scale.
Well I tried with the video; not going to happen so I put these video still photos together to show everyone how the torpedo tests went. Above in photo #1 we have the torpedo barely visible coming out of the bow of the IJN I-201, with little or no disturbance to the water yet. In photo #2 is a different view showing the torpedo completely out of the bow and on its way to the target. The water is obviously being disturbed now. In photo #3, the torpedo has almost found its target, barely inches away from slamming into the side of the USS Maddox. If you look closely you can see a prior test shot laying in the water near the stern of the destroyer. In photo #4 we are back to the original view and you see that the torpedo has just made penetration in the hull. The torpedo shot from the submarine was so fast, the image in photo #1 above and #4 here are side by side still frames in the video. In photo 3 and 4 you can see that the torpedo has veered off a straight course by a few inches. This angle is constant with each shot and obviously increases with distance, so you do have to aim a bit to the left of your target. Here in photo #5 we see the energy of the torpedo and water impacting the side of the ship. Photo #6 we have the torpedo clearly in the hull of the destroyer. The last photo #7 is a close up of the torpedo hanging from the hull. The shot is somewhat misleading because it appears to have only barely penetrated the hull, until you realize that it went into the hard bottom of the ship. The hard bottom of Maddox was covered in light gauge K&S fiberglass cloth and resin. Several of the shots were taken from 4-5 feet, but to get good photos of both the firing and target vessels, we pulled the ships closer together (about 24"). We also did test shots from between 70 and 90 psi. Higher psi increases the range, but the shots became more erratic with the ratio torpedo being used (weighted head to cast resin fin section). Optimum range is 4 feet, but you have to be careful with the bow angle when you take your shot. USS Maddox was volunteered for these test shots having been retired from almost constant, active warship combat from 1992-2014. You can see that most of her deck detail has been shot off and the hull from her last fight has been heavily battered.
Can't upload videos, have to upload to another location and then the forum will autoembed the media given the link. Essentially a question of space, videos eat a ton and I don't have a ton on the VPS. Media Upload sites we can auto embed from (obviously depending on privacy settings on the videos too): Dailymotion Facebook Liveleak Metacafe Vimeo YouTube Of those I would only really recommend Vimeo and YouTube
Are the torpedoes hollowed out at all or are they solid through? Can you elaborate a bit on the launching mechanism?
Of course! Always have to set the correct gyro lead angle before shouting (In Curt Jurgens voice) "Torpedoes....LOSE!"* * Note: In German, "Lose" is pronounced like the Spanish "Los" & means "loose" like in "let loose the dogs of war"** And now I find I have to do an asterisk to my asterisk **I know it's "let SLIP the dogs" in the original, but I thought that misquote illustrated the meaning better
Shouldn't that be "Torpedos los!" ? I'm not sure that I can conjure a word in Hochdeutsch ending with an e that doesn't vocalize it Source: took a few years of German in HS and college, watch Das Boot in German, English dubbing is for the weak.
I'll be posting a post soon (that didn't sound right) regarding questions i have about the plans and the shopping list for the HMAS Canberra
The torpedoes are solid, so they have the weight to travel through the water. They are fired pneumatically, just like surface guns. As I said, between 70 and 90 psi.
