Airfix 1/350 Trafalgar-class SSN in-box review

Received two of these from Airfix.com, who can be relied on, within the UK at least, for fast and economical shipping) yesterday . Here are some initial thoughts:

Airfix 1/350 Trafalgar-class SSN in-box review

Background

Built between 1977 and 1986, the seven Trafalgar-class submarines represent the Royal Navy’s equivalent to the USN’s Improved Los Angeles boats. Significantly smaller, they are also said to be noticeably quieter, not least because they are all now fitted with a pump-jet type propulsor rather than a conventional screw.

Armed with a mix of up to 30 Spearfish torpedos, mines, Harpoon and Tomahawk missiles, the Trafalgars are unusual in having five torpedo tubes. This, however, permits the torpedo room to retain its traditional forward position, while not interfering with the effectiveness of the bow sonar arrays.

In anticipation of the commissioning of HMS Astute, the first boat in the Royal Navy’s new class of advanced SSNs, HMS Trafalgar was decommissioned in 2008. Astute, however, despite having been launched more than three years ago, is still undergoing trials, and has yet to be accepted into the Royal Navy.

Contents

This is the first ever Airfix submarine kit (unless you count the promotional model of Gerry Anderson’s Stingray, briefly produced for Lyons Maid ice cream in the mid-1960s, and now commanding fabulous prices on eBay). As is the norm  with submarine kits, there are relatively few parts, only 41, presented on two light grey sprues. Mould quality is good, with no flash, visible ejector-pin or sink marks, and only a few mould separation seams to clean up. Detail is recessed, and quite subtle – not up to the standards of Dragon, Tamiya – or Revell Europe for that matter – but better than recent Airfix 1/72 kits, and comparable to that of the new Airfix 1/48 Bf.109E.

Good-quality sprue shots have been posted on Britmodeler. Since these are at least as good as anything I could do, I’ll simply acknowledge my respect, and refer you to them:

http://www.britmodeller.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=51822&pid=547533&st=0&#entry547533

The box also contains decals for all seven boats (differing only on the name plates fitted to the sail when the boat is tied up alongside in harbour, and names of each boat, nicely printed in silver, to go on the stand), which appear printed to Airfix’s current high standard – though still no Cartograf logo. Instructions follow Airfix’s standard format, with separate colour profiles, with colour call-outs given as Humbrol paint numbers and their generic names.

The box art looks like a Photoshopped photograph of an actual Trafalgar-class boat, sailing along the Scottish coastline, near the British nuclear submarine base at Faslane, near Glasgow,  and provides an effective reference for one of the boats’ most characteristic feature, but one which is difficult to reproduce effectively in small scales – the way in which they acquire an irregular appearance as, between refits, they lose some of the sound-absorbing tiles with which they are coated.

There’s also a little leaflet inviting you to join the Airfix Club…

Comments

The hull comes in three pieces, a one-piece upper half, and two halves for the lower. While this undoubtedly makes moulding easier, it also provides a long seam which will need cleaning up without distorting the hull cross-section, a task which may prove difficult for some members of Airfix’s target market. When on the surface, Trafalgar-class boats sit quite high, but the seam between the upper and lower halves is still below the typical waterline. Moreover, the seam rises towards the bow, and there’s a small ridge all along the bottom of the upper hull, to aid location of the lower hull parts. In other words, while, with a little effort, it would be possible to produce a waterline model, the kit does not appear to have been specifically designed for this.

If you decide to go for a full-hull model, putting some kind of ballast in the hull to add stability might be an idea. Talking of ballast, I remember, as a kid, ballasting a Revell Skipjack so that when I played with it in the bath, it had neutral buoyancy, and could be made to sit still underwater. As the bath water cooled, it gradually rose to the surface…

The rest of the kit involves assembling the stand, fins, diving planes, propellers, the sail and various snorkels, periscopes and other sensors. It all looks pretty uneventful. If you had a mind, you could get the bow and stern hydroplanes – but not the rudder – the propeller and the propulsor blades to move.

At least until her first refit, Trafalgar had a conventional seven-bladed screw. The other boats in the class were fitted with propulsors while under construction. If Trafalgar’s propeller was similar in design and function to that fitted to other modern submarines, then some careful sanding will be needed to give the blades a smoother, more subtle, curve. For the propulsor blades, some careful painting should suffice.

The instructions point out that the forward hydroplanes are optional, with the locating holes flashed over. They would normally only be deployed when the boat is changing depth. The sail has two alternative tops – one with holes for the bridge and periscopes, one, for use when depicting the boat submerged below periscope depth, without. A flagstaff and jackstaff are also provided, but they look a bit thick, and are probably best replaced with lengths of plastic rod. They are, in any event, not rigged when the boat is underway, even on the surface. A White Ensign is sometimes flown from a periscope instead.

Painting and finish options

Any colour you like so long as it’s Matt Black Humbrol 33? Well yes, according to the colour profiles, and in fairness, for the target market, especially those using gift set acrylics, that’s probably close enough.

 However, examination of colour photographs of the boats, and even more so eyeballing them in person, which I, living near Portland harbour, visited by these boats quite frequently, have been able to do several times, shows that it ain’t necessarily so. Sometimes the sail looks grey, at least in part. When HMS Torbay emerged from her most recent refit, she appeared to be painted in a very dark semigloss blue. All boats have non-slip surfaces on their upper casing, very dark grey (darker than RLM66), certainly not black. A good source of images is the Royal Navy’s own website:

http://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/operations-and-support/submarine-service/fleet-submarines-ssn/trafalgar-class/

And then there’s the rather natty camouflage that Trenchant wore a few years ago:

http://bcliffe.com/subs/Trenchant.html

before you even start thinking about how you’re going to represent all those missing tiles. Maybe one way of doing this would be with decals, like Cutting Edge did for Monogram and Revell’s 1/72 Space Shuttle Orbiters some years ago. Can you hear me, nice Mr. Grant?

All in all, there’s plenty of scope for interpretation, and the exercise of modelling and finishing skills, especially with seven boats in the class and an inexpensive price tag. You could build a whole squadron, each one different.

Inspection of photographs also casts doubt on most of the detail colour call-outs ( the jackstaff, for example, is white, not brass), but they nevertheless probably serve their primary purpose.

Conclusions

This is a pretty good kit. It appears accurate, is simple to assemble, but has enough issues and features to make the experience interesting for the more experienced modeller. It’s also inexpensive, which should boost sales in seaside gift shops considerably. Airfix have resisted the temptation to depict the worn and missing tile look, which would have been so easy to over-do in 1/350 (if you doubt this, check out the hull surface detail on Revell Europe’s 1/350 Type VIIC U-boat some time). I could easily be buying eight of them. After all, what’s not to like?

Happy Independence Day to my friends in the New World Colonies,

Cheers,

Chris.