USS Ethan Allen SSBN-608 
by Maarten Schönfeld 
IMAG1591

1/350 USS Ethan Allen SSBN-608 ( MikroMir modified)

MikroMir issued a very good model of USS Lafayette in mid 2015. When building this kit, I realized that the preceding George Washington class had much smaller missile tubes than the Lafayette. This brought me to the question: possibly the intermediate Ethan Allen class was in fact a mix: the dedicated hull shape of the later Lafayette, but with the missile tube section of the preceding Washington class?
 
At least some math showed that the given length for the Ethan Allen was almost spot on in agreement with this theory. I have no confirmation found that this was really the case, and in a discussion on the Forum there was an expert opinion that all '41 for freedom' SSBN subs were equipped with the same tubes. Of course, documentation on these boats is still very much surrounded by secrecy.
 
Nevertheless, I thought it nice to show here my conjecture result of the Ethan Allan, created by modifying the MikroMir kit by taking out a 13mm hull section, and grafting on a new deck over the missile tubes showing the smaller hatches. I also added a different propeller (screw) of my own, which seems a somewhat better rendering of the screws in common use on the Cold War SSBN and SSNs, up to the Los Angeles and Ohio classes. These props (in resin) are available for who is interested.

Maarten Schönfeld


Gallery updated 8/10/2016

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