X1
Royal Navy Submarine Cruiser.
A Scratch Build by Steve Brown.
The world’s largest, most heavily armed, and deepest diving submersible of the day, HMS X1 was a controversial project conceived behind the backs of the politicians, and would remain an unwanted step-child. In 1922, as British diplomats at the Washington naval conference were trying to outlaw the use of submarines as commerce raiders, the British Admiralty was designing and building the world’s most powerful corsair submarine, to take on and destroy, single-handed, entire convoys of merchant ships.
Her career was full of politics starting with the spy drama of her launch, the treason trial of a leading submarine commander and her politically motivated demise. She fell foul of the ‘black propaganda’ aimed at persuading foreign naval powers that the cruiser submarine did not work, that due to her size she could not crash dive in under 2.5 minutes and that she was a terrible sea going vessel. None of this was true, she could crash dive in under 30 seconds and proved to be a very good sea boat, the only thing letting her down being her diesel engines proving to be unreliable. Armed with four 5.2 inch quick fire guns set in two twin gun turrets fore and aft, giving a good rate of firepower per broadside, she also had six 21 inch torpedo tubes as secondary weapons.
She was 363ft 6in (110.79m) long over all with a maximum beam of 29ft 10in (9.09m), and mean Normal load draft of 15ft 9in (4.80m). She displaced 3600 tons under normal load conditions and could carry a maximum of 452 tons of fuel oil to give a range of 16,200 miles at 10 knots surfaced. Her maximum achieved speed was 19 knots- an incredible speed for a submarine of the period.The model is built to 1/48 scale and is 7ft 6in long and only 7.5in wide and deep! She will be powered by two 12v Bosch car heater motors. The central box is for the batteries and motors including all associated radio equipment, she is a surface runner only.
For the full build log, click on the button below:
For the full build log, click on the button below:
