by Kieran Griffith
1/144 USS Iowa SSN-32 (Cancelled in 1992) (Trumpeter)
The USS Iowa is made from the splendid Trumpeter 1/144th scale Seawolf nuclear attack submarine kit with the 1/144th scale Seawolf decal sheet from Yankee Modelworks. I am wondering who actually buys the 1/350th scale resin Seawolf Kit from Yankee Modelworks considering that their both equally good kits but the Yankee Modelworks kit is twice as expensive but 2.4 times smaller?
Seawolf class nuclear attack submarines were projected to be the most expensive ever built, with a total program cost for 12 submarines estimated in 1991 at $33.6 billion in current dollars. As many as 29 submarines were planned with four of the first twelve submarines been given the name of retiring Iowa class battleships. The Navy's plans for Seawolf would have resulted in spending 25 percent of the Navy's shipbuilding budget on a ship that was designed for threats that vanished with the end of the Cold War. In the 1992 State of the Union address, President Bush [and Defense Secretary Dick Cheney] proposed the rescission of $2,765,900,000 previously appropriated for the procurement of the second and third Seawolfs. Two Seawolf Class submarines were authorized by Congress, which in 1995 agreed to terminate the program at three boats.
