So with the LS boat I now also slowly come on the home stretch. There are only a few plans which unfortunately only show the port side in half section, there were also only a few pictures of the gun turret. So one has to make some guesses. The boat comes with some inboard, helm station and the commander’s seat in front of the UK receiver and the platform that allows the commander to look aft from the hatch through the RZA to release the torpedoes. I also depicted the engineer’s station. The LS7 was armed with two 45 cm LT torpedoes and a 1.5 cm Mauser in the Donier turret.
On the to do list are still to draw the fixation for deck/hull position and to detail the gun turret. Below are a few pictures of the drawing and detail status. The part will be printed in resin in 1:35 scale.
I think there is always a good chance that as a NON_Resident you just don’t know all the boat types of the other navies, I feel the same way about the US PT boats. Regardless, this type of boat has already found its way into War Thunder and is probably one of the better ones in the Tier 3 segment (whatever that is, I don’t play War Thunder) but here’s a moving impression of the boat: BEST Low Tier BOAT - German LS BOAT (War Thunder Naval Forces Gameplay) - YouTube
Wrong in this illustration is the release of the torpedoes. These were released to the rear out towards the enemy, when driving away from the enemy (not like the other S boats, when approaching the enemy forward). But otherwise it makes a very beefy impression.
LS = Leicht-Schnellboot (light speedboats or fast boats), were a class of midget S-Boot, that were meant to be deployed from larger surface ships and attack enemy craft with torpedoes. Think of mini PT boats.
n difference to other German fast attack boats, the ships of the “Leichte Schnellboote” class were never planned to operate by their own. Instead, they should be based on auxiliary cruisers or other vessels operating in overseas areas to support the operations of the mother ship. To do so, small boats were able to be fitted with different kind of weapons, form stern launched torpedoes, to mines and light machine guns.
They should be able to attack other ships by their own, lay mines in areas where the auxiliary cruiser could not operate or to transport raiding crews to allied merchant ships. In addition they were also able to operate against submarines in a limited way.
Because of their small size, those boats could only operate in light sea. Of the 12 boats completed, only three were used on board of an auxiliary cruiser, most of the others were sent to the Aegean or Black sea where they were for escort duty or submarine hunters.
A small update on the turntable mount on the LS7 light speed boat. Some things remain pure speculation in the absence of plans. Bearing of the gun carriage, where the shortwave receiver could be. If someone knows more about this, he is welcome to share it here. The mount still needs quite a bit of wiring, but since each cable is a separate drawing, it will take a while until they are all in place.
We are currently in the progress to print the second prototype to see whether the part are correct in size. Tongue and groove joints always need some reworking in the residual print because resin clogs the edges in the slots. But this is more of a Firstworld problem if you know that the slots need to be scraped off again with a scalpel blade. In the meantime we finished the boat rack in Filament print. The name tags in 2 color filament print
We have also made some progress with the pilot print. Parts fit together well, sit neatly and show the drawn details. Still, there are some things to change to improve the printing result. Here are a few pictures.
Attached are some detail pictures, the rear-facing RZA, the caps for the rudder steering - this will still be a challenge to steer the rudders, because they are behind the transom. The hatches and the water outlets. I separated the water outlets so that the flanks of the hull can be sanded better.
The inner torpedo tubes were printed from filament, resin is not very good inside and the support structure in the tube is not easy to get rid of. Getting the torpedo in afterwards will be rather difficult. The railing is still a challenge, both in printing and in construction. The railing goes from the stern to the wheelhouse. For an RC version we will certainly have to separate it artificially, because otherwise you can hardly get to the inside to change the battery or turn on the radio.
My friend Frank has installed a few brass shafts, positioned the uder and finished the stern torpedo system, now the two 45 cm air torpedoes fit wonderfully into the tubes. The tubes are supported again on the inside so that they lie straight. Furthermore, the caps of the rudder linkage can be seen at the rear.
Drawing-wise, I am currently decorating the superstructure with riveted window frames. The railing for the front part of the superstructure was also added as well as the rod that connects the roof rail with the hull. But that’s it and the hull and superstructure are finished. The turret mount will take some more time to detail.
Now the wheelhouse is finished. The trough ventilator has got its mount for the emergency sail mast, the wheelhouse has got window frames with rivet tape at the windows. There was also a position lamp and a few controls and buttons at the foot of the torpedo target column. Now the attention is on the turret mount.
A small update on the printing status. Attached are pictures of the new superstructure, now with riveted window frames and roof rails. The deck was also reprinted, due to the size the part lost its shape in length and width. Now the deck has a honeycomb structure and additionally some longitudinal and cross braces. The crane eyes are also on the deck with which the boats were put into the water by their auxiliary crew. The holes for the railing are also set into the deck. The torpedo target column has also got some details. The support lugs on the edges would still have to be sanded off to make a proper model - we will leave that to the model builder.
To quote Trapattoni (Italian soccer trainer at Bayer Munich pressconferenz) “I have finished”, today I put the last details on the turntable mount. Now it has to be printed and mounted - if it works as I thought it would, especially the tolerances are important. I don’t think that the modeller has to remove a little bit of flight resin, open up holes or file them down. But the parts should fit together and through. Well, we will see - trial and error is the way forward. Here are 3 views of the boat. All in all it took me 2 years to draw the boat, because I kept coming to points that could only be roughly drawn due to a lack of pictures or exact descriptions that could be googled. The deck still got its bumper corners at the back. With the regulations for the turntable mount it can be best detailed now, which has its limitations in 1/35th scale - in 1/10th scale you can think about it.
see you
