Quote:
Originally Posted by JesterV2
Hey guys!, i'm having a hard choosing what submarine to make.
i have a couple in mind but i cant choose!
-USS Nautilus
-HMS Amphion (very difficult to find ship plans for)
-Dolfijn Class Submarine (VERY interesting triple hull design)
Pop some suggestions!
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Hey, with what you're looking at, you seem to be concentrating on post-war / 1950s era stuff, and in that vein I can think of no more cleaner, squared off design than the Skate class (with the Nautilus a close second then followed by the Tangs and Darter).
I'd also consider myself a fan of the Seawolf SSN-575 design with the big V-bow. Not sure what they were thinking there (V-Bow for surface handling on a nuclear boat that is basically only going to surface to tie up) but it was an interesting look.
I already mentioned to you the idea of the earlier GUPPY Is circa 1947, but another, much more hypothetical direction is the "Ultimate fleet boat" that was in one of the USN design dream books. It was basically a Tench with additional torpedo tubes (I think either 8 front and back or 8 front six back) and 6 small side-launching external tubes in the conning tower for Cuties. As it was this was buried when the rest of the submarine program was cancelled in 44-45 as it was deemed unnecessary (there were well on their way to winning the war without needing to design and build such boats).
Another thing I've always thought was missing from this game, despite their marginal contribution to the war, some of the pre-war USN submarines like the Cachalote and Dolphin classes or even the big, slow and ugly (but probably interesting to sculpt in 3D) Barracudas. My interest here is how difficult they might be to patrol with, could make for some fun and challenging game-play.
As far as your three considerations, Dolfijn could be really interesting with its triangular layout. As for Amphion, were you thinking the post-war streamlined (which also has some similarities to what they did with some of the S and T boats post-war) or the wartime one that has the dagger bow and the AA turret built into the conning tower like the XXI boats?
One last thing, another post-war design that I've always found interesting is the small Barracuda class of SSK subs. They look very fleet-boat-esque (aside from the huge sonar dome on the front) but in an S-class sized package. Interesting austere design that was made to investigate the possibility of mass-producing cheap and simple submarines in-case of wartime (a submarine version of the Flower class Corvette). Ultimately they proved to be a dead end, too small, too slow, not really good at anything more than listening and lying in wait, they were mostly used for ASW training in the 50s and 60s.
Anyways sorry for going on at length, please don't think that I expect you to create any of these, just wanted to throw it all out there as food for thought.