Thanks for the comment! Parche led a pretty charmed life. I have copies of all of her Presidential Unit Commendation letters from multiple administrations. I had them etched onto black brass placards which were displayed on the ship in the passageways while I was its Ship Superintendent when she changed homeports from CA to Subase Bangor, WA in ‘94.
This particular model will be getting a complete (interior) redesign for ease of printing and assembly when I build the second iteration of her Special Projects configuration. This is what she looked like in the early 80’s when I served on Seawolf and we were berthed at a more secure area at MINSY.
File Availability: I get asked about this regularly. I’m creating a complete collection of Cold War nuclear submarines, which will take a few years. Once the files are finished, I might make them available through a site that only sells sliced files - not STLs, to ensure they don’t proliferate illegally in the wild. I invest an inordinate amount lot of time and effort to ensure what I design are the most accurate 3D models of US boats anywhere -at any price. Piracy is the bane of anyone who creates files that people are willing to pay their hard-earned money for - which is kind of flattering when you think about it, and I truly appreciate your interest.
I cringe when I see the “museum-quality” hulls offered by multiple companies made of mahogany in the Philippines which are painted in the US with a few inaccurate deals applied. The control surfaces are out of scale (because of the material they’re made from) while charging customers $65 - $100 an inch!
I’m also investing in a much larger resin printer so I can print complete hull sections rather than two upper/lower halves which require more work to bond, fill seams, and sand. At 1/144 scale, I could build this boat in one print cycle instead of a week, reducing the amount of toxic waste generated during parts cleaning as an added bonus.
Although most submarine operations during the Cold War are still classified, (we had to sign lifetime non-disclosure agreements to participate in the Special Projects programs while awaiting our clearances) the true stories were the stuff of hit movies without the drama or fiction. For instance, both boats carried multiple 55# demo charges. We had three, with the forward charge installed in a locker a few feet from my just prior to leaving port on a mission. There were also a few torpedoes nearby too, but I never lost a moment of sleep over it.
This is what they looked like before being uncrated and placed in their respective lockers.
I was fortunate to serve at a time in the Navy when every class of Cold War submarine existed and toured all of the SSNs in New London, San Diego, and Pearl, where I joined my first boat - a 598 class boomer before being selected to go to Special Projects. After I got out, I worked at TRF Bangor for fifteen years and the differences between the first generation of boomers (the 598 Class) and 726 (Trident) class were light-years apart.
Whew! I’m out of words so I’ll sign off.
CC
