Thanks, Have to keep that in mind. As to those holes, I just eyeballed them. I used a piece of tape that I had marked, as a guide for the spacing. If I did it again I’d use something stiffer for the guide. The drill wandered quite a few times, and the holes had to be plugged and re-drilled. I’ve got the 1/72 scale Gato, but have refrained from building it for lack of space.
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Thanks, very much.
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Thanx for the tip. I might try making a starter indent w/ a #11 X-acto & refrain from using my Dremel and twist drill my thumb & fore finger to death . Your aft TBT is a thing of beauty, better than the 1:72 Revell one … scratch built ? Yep, the Revell Gato size is daunting . Considering the quality & amount of detail you put into 1:144 , if you tackle 1:72, it’s gonna be a jewel. I’ll start posting my progress & a complete list of resources .
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Glad to help. I was really happy with how that TBT turned out. I stretched my scratchbuilding wings with that and those railings. I used a twist drill for those holes and did them in groups of twenty over a period of time. It went rather quicker than I thought it would. Looking forward to seeing yours. 
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Limber hole arrangement and shape depended upon where the boat was built. My 1/72 Gato that I’m building as the 249 has been languishing a couple of years now, but from what I can tell all the way up to 1945 it did not have those holes that you have drilled. If I did had to do it though (and I’ve had to drill a lot of holes on the sail) I’d make a straight line with hard masking tape, or that old school label making tape, and then use dividers with points on both ends to mark the hole locations. I’d press the points in to give me some starter holes.
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Definitely right about the many differences between boats, they varied considerably. As the war progressed they added more holes to allow trapped air to escape and improve dive times. In this photo of Gato’s fairwater you can see those deck edge holes.
I like your idea on how to do them, have to remember it if I do another.
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You have caused me to check my Flasher referenes again. Yup, by 1945 they still didnt have those holes on the upper hull.
Your photo illustrates some of those holes in the rear of the fairwater, however, that also do not come in the kit. The Flasher had many of them as well, so I used the method I described above to drill them out. I also had to thin them from inside as it was sheet metal and the walls of the holes look too thick if you don’t thin them out.
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You could spend a lifetime building Gato-class subs and never have two that were exactly the same.
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And with some extra hull pieces from Revell and a rework of the sail to late Gato standards it would be feasible to build an early Balao from the Revell kit.
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