Converting the MikroMir 1/350 USS Parche into the USS Richard B Russell
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
Overview
The Sturgeon-class submarine had a very long life in the US Navy, first as an attack submarine and later as an intelligence gathering submarine. The Sturgeon-class submarine started out as a lengthened and improved Permit-class submarine that was then in turn lengthened again for additional electronic equipment, creating short-hull and long-hull versions of the Sturgeon family of submarines. The USS Richard B Russell, SSN-687, was one of these long-hull Sturgeons, commissioned in 1975. In 1977, a bustle was added to the sail that initially held a tethered communications antenna buoy, but was later modified to contain special mission equipment, most likely diver’s gas for deep sea covert operations.
In 1982, the Richard B Russell moved from the East Coast to the West Coast and underwent a major overhaul, with the intent of becoming a special projects boat. This resulted in the addition of a deep submergence rescue vehicle (DSRV) simulator on the rear hull, which was actually a dive chamber used for underwater covert deployment of divers for all sorts of missions. A similar ‘simulator’ was used on the USS Parche and other submarines.
The Richard B Russell was decommissioned in 1994, ending a long and storied history, much of which still cannot be told. Stored at Bremerton, Washington, the boat finally underwent scrapping in 2001 as part of the Nuclear-Powered Ship and Submarine Recycling Program, a process that took about 15 months.
The Starting Kit
To build the Richard B Russell in 1/350, the first step is to get a long-hull Sturgeon. Luckily, MikroMir has come out with just that in their multiple Sturgeon-class submarine kits. The USS Parche release also includes the bustle and DSRV, as well as the lower hull fairing that held the large skids for sea floor operations, so it was a logical choice to convert into the Richard B Russell. The kit includes photoetch for details, including the screw, but 3D printed options are out there, so I grabbed some excellent examples from Mulsanne’s Model Corner and tossed everything on the workbench.
Making the Russell
The build starts out easy enough, with gluing the hull together. It’s split into upper and lower sections, so after sanding the seam down flush, the first real challenge shows up: the towed array tubing. This starts out as a fairing that runs along the top of the hull before extending out and ending over the left side vertical side fin. In this kit, that extended tube piece is built up from three pieces, the last piece including the side vertical fin. Trying to get those three pieces lined up right just felt like an exercise in frustration, so instead I went the easier route and replaced the three pieces with a single piece of plastic rod.
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The fun doesn’t stop there, though, as the fairing on the hull should be far more faired in. To get this done evenly I laid down a couple pieces of thin strip tape to get an even line top and bottom, then put down wider tape next to that. Pulling up the thin strips revealed a nice, clean spacing for the fairing, so I applied some Tamiya filler and sanded it smooth. Once I removed the other tape, I was left with a nice clean edge to the fairing and although a small change, it’s one that makes a big difference. With some additional strip styrene braces added between the tube and hull, and that modification is done.
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The next modification up is with the sail, which needs some pretty big changes. The USS Parche kit has one mistake in it, due to MikroMir trying to get the maximum out of their tooling. Since they did the extended hull Parche, which also had the under-hull fairing for skids, so using that same sprue for the early Parche made sense. However, the sail had the dive planes relocated on the extended hull version, moving them to the top of the sail. The earlier Parche, and the Richard B Russell as well, had those dive planes located mid-sail, so I shaved the fairing off and scratched a new one in the right location.
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The other change needed on the sail is with the bustle. In the kit, this is both too tall and too short, so there’s a lot of cutting needed on this piece. The excess height makes sense if MikroMir was looking at its height in relation to the dive planes, but they were looking at the wrong dive plane location. This was easy to fix, just removing a large chunk off the bottom. The extension was a bit more challenging, but I did this with some stacked styrene strip of the correct width to create a plug. After some sanding (okay, a lot of sanding), the sail assembly was finished.
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The next detail getting some changes is the DSRV simulator. This has some thick fins to it, so that was an easy update to do. The old fins were cut off and notches cut in the DSRV hull. Two pieces of thin styrene stock were notched, then interlocked and slid into the notches in the DSRV hull. Those were then trimmed down and the ring surround was added, resulting in a much more scale appearance. The struts all need some additional trimming and adjusting, as there are several of those as separate pieces and no clear locating marks. Some careful sanding and filing and a bit of filling takes care of that.
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Painting is the next step, and for this I decided to go for a more weathered look overall on the hull, so I started out with painting with the hull red. On the base red I went back with a few different shades of red in patches and streaks. Once that was done, the bottom was masked off and the upper hull got similar treatment, but with dark grays instead of hull red. The sonar dome was painted black, then the real masking could begin.
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The Richard B Russell had some unique markings on it, with a white line running down the top of the hull behind the sail, white leading edges of the dive planes, a white top to the bustle and sail, and white edges of the sail. The sail needed a lot of masking, but at least the hull markings were simple, and once applied the sub was definitely looking unique. With the DSRV painted black, the next step was to add the decals, which like most submarines, are few. Some hatch markings, hull displacement markings, and text on the DSRV, all in white, and the decaling is done. A flat coat, some brass paint on the 3D printed screw, and this sub is done.
Conclusion
This was a fun one to build up, from the research on the Richard B Russell to the modifications done to the interesting paint scheme. The MikroMir kit is a classic short run kit, with some challenges but worth the effort to have an interesting sub on the shelf.