¹⁄700

Soviet Dekabrist Class Submarine, D2

"MSW crew-mate Peter Fulgoney (Peterf) shares another of his artistic photo presentations of his build for our "Divine Waterline" Campaign, Soviet Dekabrist Class Submarine,Narodovolets (D-2), in an icy vignette "On Display" Feature!"



The 'Dekabrist'-class were the first class of submarines built for the Soviet Navy after the October Revolution. They were authorized in the Soviet Naval Shipbuilding Program of 1926.

Operational-tactical requirements and design concepts were formulated in 1923. In 1925 A Soviet naval mission obtained blueprints for the Balilla class submarine from the Italians and used concepts from that design together with Soviet ideas. The boats were constructed by the Ordzhonikidze Shipyard and the principal designer was B.M. Malinin. The first boat in the class was laid down on March 5, 1927; launched on November 3, 1928, and commissioned on November 18, 1930. This first boat, the Dekabrist, was later designated D-1, September 15, 1934.[1]

The class was of a double–hull design with 7 compartments and constructed using riveting. These boats were of Soviet design and had numerous technical shortcomings and construction defects. The most serious problems were their slow diving time and poor stability during diving.

In May 1933, the Dekabrist was shifted to the Northern Fleet via the White Sea-Baltic Canal. She remained in service until 1940. She showed high seaworthiness in polar circumstances. The boat was lost with entire crew in a diving accident on November 13, 1940 in Molotovskiy Bay.



Peter states:
"I built the D2, Combrig Russian 1:700 scale resin submarine about 4 years ago, and it looked all right. My display at the time was to mount the boat on thin wire, and take pictures with colored filters to make it look as if it was under water. As a full hull kit this worked well, and I had decided to use full hull because it was such a small kit, but quite 3 dimensional without being ugly."

"The presentation idea meant that the boat sat on its side in the display cabinet as if discarded or waiting to be completed and so when the “waterline” campaign came around I decided to use this kit as a springboard for some research and development."

"This time, and because of the full hull, I decided to submerge the build in PVA glue, and see what happened. I knew this would be a build up of many layers but what I did find was that the painted resin rejected the glue surround. After some persistence with the task, I decide to fill the gaps with superglue, and weight the kit into position while it set. This worked. I was then able to finish off the PVA layers, and add some MIG clear acrylic, and snow sparkles (see campaign blog for all specifications) to add some more texture."

"Originally I had hoped to add some color to the PVA but the icy look that the PVA on clear glass was too good to dismiss – try it for yourself!"