Welcome to the wonderful world of the Gato.

I just recently started mine, USS Bream SS-243 Late War.

Pix are pretty sketchy as to what's in behind the dive planes, there is the actual machinery that moves them and probably some piping on the pressure hull as well as framing.

Blueprints are available from Floating Drydock but it gets confusing and very expensive. 

You might be able to find something at the Batfish forum since they have been replacing the wood decking and have posted a few pix if you dig through all the topics. 

Have you decided on what boat and what date you are going to build her as, or are you going straight OOB?

No 2 boats where the same and they changed as the war went on.

While the model for the most part depicts a few boats at different stages of their careers there would be differences even in sister ships built at the same time.

The forward torpedo shutters are actually wrong for the Cobia, they should be the flat Balao style. 

Some of the things you will have to modify and add are replacing the 2 marker buoys with round ones and probably moving location depending on the boat, than there is adding the exhaust openings along the edges at the rear.

Will you be adding the flood/ballast tank openings on the bottom?

If you are doing a boat form a diffirent yard besides Electric Boat than your limber holes may be different and the anchor well may be on the port side. 

Not sure what you mean about the pix.

Are you asking how to post pictures?

If so you will need to open an account with a free on line host like Photobucket.

Once done you hit the upload image button once the window opens look for the file and image you wish to upload and click on it.

Once the image has up loaded move your mouse over the image and a menu will drop down, select the type of link and click on it, next in your post here just right click and paste (with some browsers use Ctrl v).

IMG code will post the image without having to use the little tree icon in the menu above.

Eric... 

places of intrest for pictures.

NavSource 

USS Pampanito in drydock 

Ship Camouflage 

Reelmilitaryflix has some color film from a few boats on patrol 

Fleet Type Submarine on line - actual operations manuals for fleet boats 

Submarinemuseums  - look through the forum sections for some interesting stuff

AMP has a Fleet Boat forum 

If you are a paying member, subcommitteee has a section as well, they recently made it so non members can no longer read that section.

For accessories there are a number of vendors.

AMP, Nautilis, ISB, White Ensign, Eduard.

For figures

Czech Masters, Warriors and a few others. 

Thank you for all the great info thus far!

Have not picked out a boat, but since the bow doors (as molded) don't go with the Cobia, then that one is ruled out.

I don't plan on going too nuts past OOB, but there are some issues that need to be addressed.

I might end up just running styrene baffles behind the bow plane holes to prevent the "see through" problem. I will do some more research..............

I would rather have PE gunsights, but I am not going to do a new deck etc.

This will be a representative type display, but nothing can be too obviously out of character.

I am very interested in getting the exhaust correct ( easy fix) and will retain the prop guards, as the "fishing" story by the Japanese is great for conversation, so it will be a boat that retained them.

Basically, with minimal mods, I will build a boat that closely follows the Revell example OOB.

Take a look through the Navsource site and look at the diffirent boats to see what fits the best.

another thing to keep in mind when picking a boat is the deck, the model has a metal deck where just the area around the fairwater is wood.

Some boats had full wood decking. 

the Eduard bridge PE detail set has gun parts including sites as well as detail bits for the hatchs.

If you go to the Eduard site they have the instructions posted as a PDF file so you can see what the set has and what's involved, just do a search for Gato.

Eric... 

Division 6 wrote:

another thing to keep in mind when picking a boat is the deck, the model has a metal deck where just the area around the fairwater is wood. Some boats had full wood decking.

Thanks! That is very important info- this is beginning to get very interesting.

I forgot to mention, remove the doors on the sides of the fairwater, only museum boats have them to keep the public out and also remove the broom from the periscope sheers.

Also don't use part 49 (breather) they don't exist on the boats.

Eric... 

Have you decided on what boat and what date you are going to build her as?

Is anyone doing the...

Tigershark?

It's been done but not correctly, it needs to be built as the USS Balao SS-285.

Eric... 

Marked the instruction booklet for broom elimination, and the breather.

Anybody got a pic for Fairwater door removal? Not exactly sure here.

My first impression when getting the kit was to build the Growler, in one photo, I can make out the prop guards, now to find out if she had wood decks.

There is a door on both sides, see picture below.

From the looks of this picture she had metal decks.

That's all I could find.

Can't tell for sure but the fairwater may have come to a point in the back, sadly I didn't find any Mare Island pix.

Eric... 

Thanks- Getting rid of the doors shouldn't be too bad before the halves come together- I will just brace it with some clay and cut from the inside out, then file off the door rivets on the perimeter-

The hydrodynamics (or lack of) is an eye opener.

Looks like you eliminated some locker doors too-

Yeah the Bream didn't have them.

Inside the opening is the rear of the conning tower tube to the front and a wall with holes on the upper half to the rear.

The aft end is where the air induction vents are hidden, they allow air to be pumped into the engines and the rest of the ship.

The rivets are actually around the door.

Look for pix of the Silversides since there are some pictures of the area showing part of the inside area.

I'll see if I still have the link somewhere.

Eric... 

Heres the link to the photos.

Eric... 

Metal/Wood decks - Eric has heaps of great knowledge (and skills!), but I disagree on this one:

That pic is of the crushed bow, but all the boats had metal bow decks, even in wood deck boats(rest of deck started just aft of that section).  I can't find any other pix of Growler, but 212-222 (with some unverified gaps) all had wood, Grouper most definitely (214 to Growler's 215), so I'd say wood.There's a list (minus Growler) at the AMP library section: http://amp.rokket.biz/reference.shtml

Dive Plane: Here's a pic of the dive plane uncovered...

keep us posted! And feel free to join our forum, we have great members like Eric and others, especially handy in the fleetboatsection.

Hope it helps. With Eric's info, you're in great hands.

You make me laugh my friend.

Research is your friend, it also helps that others have helped my research including yourself, I spend more time looking for or at pictures than I do building models one of the reasons it took me almost 2 years to start on my boat.

Where on earth did you find that great pic. 

The only reason I had guessed on the Growler being metal decked is there is a lot of metal that appeared to be more than just the bow section, there is also a pic of them replacing the bow which nicely shows the frame work off. 

Than again your probably correct since she was one of the first built, I forgot to look at the series number, silly me.

Can't even find decent pix of the boats built with her. 

Eric... 

That's an odd looking anchor well, what boat is that? 

Guppy refit perhaps? 

Eric... 

After looking some more the wood decking would start right beind the cleat & roller just before the capstan, basicly right below where the picture of the damaged bow ends.

Another thing I found is that the torpedo doors are the type that are scooped the full length, not just at the front edge.

For reference for all the bow doors the Haddo in drydock pix should work.

Eric... 

Thanks for the kind words!

It sure could be a GUP, no idea what boat, stumbled across it recently. The gearing and supports look pretty close to the Navpers 16016 1950s manual, so it was a Gato/Balao at one time at least.

Torp Shutters - yes, spot on. Go to http://amp.rokket.biz/reference.shtml there's a list ("Gato Torpedo Shutters") of many boats with confirmed and suspected shutter styles ("Valley" is what we have termed the long scoop). Growler is confirmed Valley in the bow, and based on 214 and others in that series by EB, strong likelihood Valley in the stern.Then there's the actually rare "spoon" style (Revell kit, and NOT the Cobia!!!), and the flat/angle style "Balao".

 Haddock just not enough evidence, but suspect from lack of curving either Spoon or Balao.

Accurate Model Parts have a spoon resin set for the bow, and have almost completed mold master for the Balao style, and have drawings for Valley scoopy style, hopefully will be available soon.

http://amp.rokket.biz/am_1_72_gato_sets.shtml

This is great stuff as Eric says, building on info!

Cheers,

Wink

Here are 2 pix inside the hull casing, over at AMP:

http://models.rokket.biz/index.php?topic=233.new#new

SORRY, sorry, you said "HADDO" and I took it as "HaddoCK" (guess I was hungry!).

SS255 Haddo Oct 42 EB V N

Absolutely confirmed Valey Shutter bow, no shutter stern (navsource.org)

You had me second guessing myself there for a moment.

Here's the Haddo pic I refered to. 

You aren't near the ond Navy bases are you?

I'm wondering if they have any archival pictures and such.

I need to take a road trip to Mare Island to look around, I briefly went to the Museum about 20 years ago, looked through the Baya's periscope.

I really wish I still lived in the BA, as all the cool spots are within a short drive.

Eric... 

Theoretically the Navy, along with every other government agency, turns their records over to the National Archives & Records Administration when they are "finished" with them. Since Mare Island is shut down their records were turned over to NARA; there was an effort by some Mare Island workers to get a bunch of the photos (illegally) transferred to a local museum but NARA got wind of it and managed to recover everything that was left.

Most of the records you might be looking for are probably back at the main branch in College Park, but there are also regional archives as well; I've been researching at the Seattle Archives near my home for years (They hold the records for Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton) and am heading down for my third trip to the San Francisco archives in a couple of weeks.

Based on my experiences researching at those three archives plus Laguna Niguel, I will say that if you're looking for plans, go to College Park. The shipyards sent mos of the plans back east and they wound up there when BuShips turned them over. They may have kept correspondence files for a ship and some general documents such as the camouflage instructions I posted earlier, but if plans exist 99% of the time they are schematics of work done, such as damage repair, etc.

As a final plug, I post a lot of the interesting documents I find to my web site for others to read, http://www.researcheratlarge.com/

Thanks for the info, Intersting site you have.

HyperWar has some pages similar like this one on the Growler I just found. 

Main page of damage reports on a few subs, some interesting pictures.

Eric... 

Here's a little something for your shop buddies.

A copy of the Officail Navy Mascot card, just add picture and fill out the info.

 Here's the original so you know what goes where.

Eric... 

I think I IDed that diveplane picture.

Looks like it's the Cavalla from her recent fixing up.

They replaced the decking and worked on the hull.

Eric...

So I was looking at the model and the picture Rokket posted and here are my thoughts.

To actually make it look correct in there part of the model structure will have to be removed inside on the top area cutting the top flat part back to the side mounting pins at least, than the pressure hull will need to be extended forward for the mechanism framing and gears to sit on.

Even if you are not going to add the inside gearing that area is still visible inside when the planes are down so you will need something in there if for nothing else than to extend the preasure hull.

Shouldn't be to difficult to do with a bit of cutting and some sheet plastic.

Eric... 

Found a pic from the Batfish.

Sadly the guy's replacing the deck take lousy pictures, they could have fully documented all the piping and fixtures under the deck.

Eric...