Making the Alanger Project 971

[Chock]

Since there seems to be some interest in following people's modeling escapades, I thought I'd start a thread tracking how I get along with the Alanger 1:350 'Akula'.

This is one of those kits that can be hard to get hold of, as it is not supposed to be sold outside of Russia. I don't think that's because it's going to be giving secrets away, but more to do with distribution rights, even so, I eventually managed to track it down through Hannants online shop in the UK, although they did tell me a couple of times that it was going to be hard to get hold of, on one occasion phoning me to inform me that it had been discontinued and another time saying I could cancel the order if I wished, as it looked like it was going to be a no-show, nevertheless, it eventually showed up, but it did take nearly two months! Probably easier to track down a real one than that:rotfl:

There are one or two 'Akula' kits about, including several different resin ones at this scale, plus a number of smaller scale versions, as well as a very large one suitable for radio control, but the Alanger one seems to be fairly popular as it is not that expensive in comparison to many of the other choices. However, there's bad news as well as good on that score; this kit has quite a few inaccuracies and some of these are not merely minor cosmetic ones, so we'll see how I get on with sorting all that out.

First inspection reveals that it is actually quite crisply produced in greyish/black plastic, with some fairly sharp detailing, although much of that detailing is raised rather than inscibed, and there is no piercing of flood holes or grills, so that's a few things that will need sorting out straight away.



Building it straight from the box would not take long at all, since it is basically a case of sticking two hull halves together and adding the 'sticky out' bits, it's even not a bad colour without paint, so if you just wanted a reasonably close representation, it's not disastrously inaccurate. The instruction sheet reflects this simplicity, Being a folded black and white A3 paper with just six simple line drawings showing where stuff goes and resplendent with poorly translated English worthy of Babelfish, including such gems as: 'Avoid details approach into mouth and gullet, in case of - apply to medical help immediately' and 'Childern are to work with glue and paints with growths assistance only. Do not approach children younger than 3 and home animals to working place'

Building straight from the box would not result in a particularly pleasing model of course, although it would probably look reasonably okay. But to really look like the real thing is going to take a fair bit of work. Two glaring problems present themselves, these being the poor representation of the screw and the sail. Being one of the few parts on a sub that isn't black, a naff-looking screw will really stand out, so that's definitely got to change.



The problem with the sail, is that it is quite poorly done as far as profile is concerned, and the problem is compounded by the kit's optional inclusion of a smaller towed array housing of the type seen on the 'Gepard' improved variant, which would be at odds with the rest of the hull since that variant has a different sail cross section.



That said, if one is to attempt to correct the sail profile, then correcting it for either variant is a possibility, so that doesn't exclude the choice of making the 'Gepard' out of this kit as long as you don't mind a bit of 'cutting and shutting'. lastly, there seems to be an error with the hull's length behind the stern planes, so that will need extending a bit from the looks of things.



Clearly I'm going to need some decent reference. Fortunately, there is quite a bit available for the 'Akula', notably Wayne Frey's excellent book, 'Russian submarines: Guardians of the Motherland' (ISBN 0-7414-3447-4), and although the pictures in this book are perhaps not repro'd as well as they could be, it's still an invaluable source of info. On top of that, there are numerous pictures on the 'net of various 'Akula' models, as well as quite a few schematic drawings. I even found a picture of one boat being constructed; these are the sort of pictures you probably could have got a million bucks for twenty-five years ago!

To be continued...

Chock