Trafalgar Class Submarine

[Mike]

Trafalgar Class Submarine

1:350 Airfix

 

The Trafalgar class, or T Class as it is often known is Great Britain's Nuclear Powered Attack Subs, which are sadly coming to the end of their working lives due to their constant stress/unstress cycle when submerging and surfacing.  Drawdown of the fleet is being done slowly, and at this time Trafalgar is being scrapped, and HMS Turbulent is soon to follow in 2011.

 

You can find a bit more out about this interesting and important sub on Wikipedia simply by searching "Trafalgar Class Submarine", so I won't reproduce it here.

 

The kit arrives in the usual red box, with a fetching photo of one of the class on the front, showing off the patchwork of anechoic tiles that are applied to the outer hull to absorb sonar and radar emissions and make the boat harder to track by the enemy.

 

Inside are two sprues of light grey styrene, and instruction booklet, full color painting guide, and a small set of decals that gives you name plate decals for every boat in the fleet in a rather striking silver.

 

From the box you can model every one of the class, but you should do your research carefully, as various lumps and bumps were applied depending on the mission each boat did during its career.  There is also the option of a traditional screw or propulsor, again, depending on which boat you are modelling - HMS Trafalgar was first to class and was the only one commissioned with a screw.

 

The parts count is low at 41 parts, as subs are simple models by definition.  The main components are on the larger sprue, and consist of a one piece upper hull for the waterline modeller,although more work is required to bring the kit to the correct draft as she needs to sit lower in the water and a two piece lower hull if you wish to model the full hull on the provided stand.

 

The sail, fins, various antennae and masts are on the smaller sprue, together with the alternative parts for the screw/propulsor, and the large stand.  The separate top of the sail gives you a choice of portraying the crew station, the conning tower if you like, open and if you're a brave modeller, you could add a few crew figures to give your model a better sense of scale.

 

The parts are nicely moulded, construction should be straightforward, and there are no real caveats to the build, other than the painting of the outer hull, which Airfix would have you complete in matt black.  Whilst this is the "stock" color of the tiles, the majority of them turn to various shades of dark grey pretty quickly, depending on the water conditions of their deployments, and just like the Space Shuttle, tiles occasionally fall off during operations, and these areas can usually be seen as rust colored patches.

 

Overall, the painting of the model would probably take you a lot longer than the build, and making an accurate impression of the paintwork would tax your masking skills, and probably your patience!  I understand from Rowan at Pheon Models that they are currently looking into the possibility of releasing a decal sheet to help in this regard, but please don't hold your breath, as it may not in the end be feasible.

 

The decal sheet is small due to the nature of the model, but includes name plates, depth indicators and red markings, plus a decal to portray the front sensor array.  Markings are provided for the full class, which includes:

• HMS Trafalgar (Jolley Boat, first to class, beta testing on a large scale)
  
• HMS Trenchant
  
• HMS Turbulent
  
• HMS Torbay
  
• HMS Talent
  
• HMS Tireless
  
• HMS Triumph
  

Those of you with a penchant for the unusual could always try to replicate the experimental Mediterranean disruptive scheme that HMS Trenchant wore in 1999, which consisted of blocky patches of medium grey, light grey, sky blue and black applied over the upper surfaces, somewhat akin to the Berlin Brigade pattern on the old Chieftain tank.

 

The scheme was removed after trials however, as it was deemed to be ineffective at hiding the subs in the relatively shallow waters of the Med, so Trenchant was taken back to her original scheme, and no other boats wore it.

 

Conclusion

As Airfix's first foray into submarine kits, it's a good start, and it's also nice to see that they have recognised that a lot of ship modellers like 1:350 scale.  It is a simple kit to build, and the modeller can spend as much or as little time getting the hull color right, and still end up with an effective looking model.

 

You can see an excellent build by the lovely Dan Daddow (Dads203) here on the forums.

 

Review sample courtesy of

[Dads203]

Nice review Mike and a great little kit for under a tenner

[Shar2]

Agree with Dan. It's a great little kit, I'm still building my first one and already have two more in the stash.

[Mike]

Yep... I think I'll be building this one too soon. I seem to be having a bit of a flirt with the sea at the moment, don't I?

[Dads203]

Yep... I think I'll be building this one too soon. I seem to be having a bit of a flirt with the sea at the moment, don't I?

I wonder why?

[Mike]

I wonder why?

I'm sure I have no clue