Gato/Balao/Tench class submarines

Jolly fine work Ian

Well Done my old fruit

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It's always fun to see the Shipbucket representation of a ship I've actually seen in person

Thanks guys. A few more (likely the last of this thread):

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This is TANG (SS-306) in April of 1944, during the boat's second war patrol. She is camouflaged in the usual Measure 9 overall black of the period. During this patrol, TANG was assigned as a lifeguard submarine off Truk where the boat rescued 22 downed aviators.

TANG exhibits the standard features for the "as built" BALAO class submarines, which incorporated many of the wartime improvements made to the GATO class. Two 20mm Oerlikons sit on the fairwater, with a 4"/50-caliber deck gun forward. The SJ and SD radars are mounted aft of the periscopes - this arrangement would be revised on later boats.

TANG was lost in October of 1944 after being hit by a malfunctioning torpedo that made a circular run. 78 officers and crewmen were killed in action, with only nine men surviving the sinking and their later imprisonment and torture at the hands of the Japanese. TANG and her commanding officer Richard O'Kane registered 33 ships sunk totalling 116,454 tons, making her one of the highest scoring submarines of the war.

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This is DRUM (SS-228) in July of 1945 after the conclusion of a refit period at Hunter's Point Navy Yard in San Francisco, CA. The boat is camouflaged in Measure 32/9SS-B.

The lack of large targets worth the expenditure of a torpedo as the war reached its conclusion meant that special emphasis was placed on the gun armament of the American submarines. The highly successful 5"/25 wet mount was occasionally mounted both fore and aft on some boats, leading to the "gun boat" configuration seen on DRUM here. Otherwise, DRUM shows very standard late war GATO class features, with SV air search and SJ-1 surface search antennas, ST range-only radar on the attack scope, and APR-1 countermeasures receivers arrayed on the shears. A 40mm Bofors Mark 3 mount sits on the forward edge of the fairwater, with a 20mm Oerlikon twin mount aft on the cigarette deck.

DRUM would survive the war to become a museum ship in Mobile, Alabama.

Awesome...I'm commanding Drum in a SH4 campaign right now. Nice to see how she would've looked about the time I'm currently playing!

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

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I said I was done, but as usual I keep finding iterations.

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This is TORSK (SS-423) in February of 1945, with Measure 32/3SS-B camouflage. TORSK was a TENCH class boat, a wartime incremental improvement over the preceding GATO and BALAO class submarines. The TENCH class incorporated a new propulsion system, a completely redesigned ballast tank arrangement, and a revamping of the torpedo rooms (allowing four more torpedoes to be carried). Externally, the only visible difference between the TENCH and BALAO class boats is the sharper knuckle on the lower edge of the bow, a result of the redesigned forward torpedo room. Otherwise, TENCH class boats were built to the same standards as the BALAOs. An interesting feature of TORSK, usually seen on late-war boats, is the angled dive planes; these allowed the boat to crash dive much faster, as the planes are already rigged down and would immediately force the bow under while diving.

A late-war class, few of the TENCH boats saw any service, but TORSK completed two successful war patrols in the last days of the conflict, sinking the last Japanese ship of the war on August 14th, 1945.

TORSK survived the war, serving in the peacetime US Navy, and went on to become a museum ship in Baltimore, Maryland.

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

This has been another very informative thread.

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As one of the people who painted over the stupid mouth on TORSK I'm glad you drew her. She looks great. With her and TANEY drawn now we only need CONSTELLATION and LV116 Chesapeake drawn in shipbucket style to have all the Historic Ships in Baltimore collection done.

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Thanks guys.

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This is COBBLER (SS-344), as the ship appeared in November of 1948 while underway to Groton, CT, for conversion to a GUPPY design. The boat is camouflaged in Measure 32/3SS-B, though the pattern has been painted in the sharper postwar pattern that eliminated a lot of the complex blending of the wartime design.

COBBLER mounts two 5"/25 deck guns, along with two 40mm Bofors Mark 3 medium AA guns on the fairwater. COBBLER's bow planes have been angled down, a common late-war modification to increase dive times to periscope depth. The periscope shear and radar mast arrangement is the late-war configuration designed by Electric Boat, with the SJ-1 surface search set on a small mast ahead of the shears, and the SV air search antenna on a third "shear" type mast just aft of the scopes. An additional whip antenna is sponsoned off the SV mast. An inclined ladder has been fitted on the cigarette deck to allow the crew of the aft gun to reach it faster during battle surfacing.

COBBLER's most interesting modification during this period is the topside rudder aft; complaints by wartime skippers of the fleet boats' lack of underwater maneuverability led to this attempted solution. It was not found to be satisfactory in service and was not widely adopted.

COBBLER would serve in the postwar US Navy, receiving the GUPPY III modernization in 1948, before being transferred to the Turkish Navy in 1973 and serving on as TNS ÇANAKKALE (S 341) until 1998.

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