Hi, folks!
My uncle served on the Seawolf early in his career in the USN. Sadly, he passed away recently, and his son would love to have a model of the Seawolf as a memorial to his late father. I’ve offered to build it for him, but all searches for an available kit have yielded no results.
Any ideas if there is or ever has been a kit of SSN-575 Seawolf?
Trumpeter just released the SS-21 Seawolf, but that’s a modern sub. The SSN-575 was the second nuclear sub ever built, after SSN-571 Nautilus.
I’ve been Modelling submarines for some time now and I’m pretty sure that the Seawolf was never kitted.
It’s also a difficult scratch build. The Boat looks similar to the Nautilus but it is really quite different in size and detail. There have been display models done for some Boats Associations and reunions. I have a display model of the USS Parche SSN 683 and I’m certain this Boat was never done in a kit form even though it’s the most decorated Submarine in the U.S. Navy’s History. I did a quick look and the Seawolf doesn’t appear to have one. I am a Member of U.S. Submarine Vets and I’ll check around. I do know an old Seawolf sailor. I’m curious did your Uncle die from Cancer? Many Seawolf Vets have died from Lymph Noid Cancer. I think I mis spelt that. The Seawolf originally had a Sodium Cooled Reactor which was a very dangerous system, Many Sailors could have gotten sick in later years because of that system???
Thanks for that information, Butch.
My uncle didn’t die of cancer; he finally succumbed to a heart problem he had had for a long time. We miss him, and it would be great to create this memorial for his son.
I believe Aurora issued a Seawolf back in the fifties; it may have shown up in a Monogram box later. Beware, though: it bore only a general resemblance to the real thing. It was released before the plans of the class were declassified - as a matter of fact, if I remember correctly, it appeared before the ship was launched, and was based almost entirely on speculation.
Revell issued its Nautilus at about the same time, and the Revell designers’ guesswork was even worse. Seems kind of odd that these historically important vessels haven’t attracted the manufacturers’ interest since.
The picture on the box looks reasonbly accurate, it looks like they got the shape of the bow right. It’ll probably be pretty tough to find any useful reference data on the Seawolf, given her history as a Special Projects boat. Lots of luck!
Beware of the picture on the box. As I recall it bears scarcely any resemblance to the contents. Aurora was guilty of such tactics more than once.
I’m pretty sure the kit is identical to the Aurora Nautilus - which was based on pure speculation before that boat was launched. Aurora’s guess about her overall proportions was better than Revell’s, but hardly good enough to qualify the kit as a legitimate scale model. I’m pretty sure the box in J-hulk’s post is from a considerably later reissue. The artist who painted the picture probably was looking at photos and/or drawings of the actual sub - not the kit.
