Flagman

1/350 Soviet Nuclear Submarine "K-3"

Kit Number: 235007

Reviewed by  Kip Rudge, IPMS# 40597

MSRP: $31.95 Website: www.flagman-models.com Distributed by: www.dragonmodelsusa.com Soviet nuclear-powered submarines were probably feared as much by the sailors who manned them as they were by the Western powers they were designed to oppose. Since the advent of Soviet nuclear subs in 1958, several subs have sunk and dozens more have caused damage and death while at seas. Flagman – a relatively-new outfit from Russia – has kitted the first Soviet nuclear-powered sub, K3 – otherwise known as the November class of Soviet subs. The November class was designed to launch nuclear torpedoes into U.S. ports in the event of wartime. They were built from 1957 – 1963. At least three are known to have sunk, given that the Soviets were never the type to advertise when one of their "fish" didn’t make it home. This class was decommissioned between 1988 and 1992, but were still registering fatalities as late as 2003 when the K-159 was sunk in a storm while being towed to be stripped of its reactors. Despite all this, the November class was the first Soviet sub to navigate under the Polar icecap. In addition, the speed of the November class in tracking surface targets was directly responsible for the U.S. creating the Los Angeles class of fast attack boats. The Flagman kit offers one sprue with two sail options. Not being a sub-o-phile, it took me a while to figure out what went where. The kit reminded me a lot of an airplane kit in that there weren’t many parts. The detail of the molding is okay. In 1/350 scale, it’s really difficult to reconcile the width and depth of recessed panels lines, without imagining they would be huge troughs in 1:1 scale. But, on the whole, the detail appears to be there, if not very sharp. Reference for the November class is a little thin, so I made do with drawings culled from the internet – not always a safe thing to do. The kit scales out pretty close to the real deal – or at least the real measurements to be found on the web.

Construction is pretty standard with the hull going together first. After that construction moves to the deck, followed by the sail, rudders, screws and dive planes. The fit of the long hull (yeah there is a dirty joke in there somewhere) is not perfect. The bow is misaligned and requires a little putty and sanding. Sanding may result in obliterating some recessed torpedo tube detail. I don’t possess the requisite patience to re-scribe on a compound curve surface. Sanding is also required to flush the deck with hull sides and to mate the stern dive planes to the hull. The bow dive planes do not take glues such Tenax, Tamiya or Testors very well and fall off a lot – a whole lot. In fact they fell off again as I was painting and were left off altogether. I have no patience for recalcitrant dive planes either. Maybe I’ll use super glue next time. The sail is cast in two halves and traps a whole array of radar, periscope, radio and thingamabobs between the two halves. Some of these doodads are pretty tiny. There are different doohickeys for each sail option and unfortunately the instructions don’t give you a lot to go on. There is also a sonar dome that appears on later versions of the November class subs. The instructions aren’t clear and apparently assume the builder has some knowledge of the subject beyond Google searches. I added the sonar dome simply because it hides some hull alignment issues. Sharp-eyed tin can sailors will notice that I ended up with an early sail perched on top of a later production hull.

Paint options are either all black or black on top and red-brown on the bottom. When it came to the decals, Flagman would do well to revisit their decal maker and have them review their formula. While the decals appeared in register and very opaque, they literally dissolved when hit with decal relaxers such as Solvaset, Micro Sol or even Mr. Softer (and no decal ever says no to Mr. Softer). Apparently the Soviets liked windows in their early subs. This must be the case, because nothing else explains why they are represented by the largest decals on the sheet! Having to conform to compound curves on the nose and sonar dome, it quickly became apparent that softeners would be required to get them to hug the surface. I was never able to get the nose decals to snuggle down without multiple wrinkles and smoothing out the wrinkles with solvent became impossible without destroying the ultra-fragile decal. The biggest headaches I had were with the thin white waterline decals that go the length of the hull front to back. Being long and thin, placement took awhile especially since they needed to be straight. Again, once touched by softener, the line reacted violently by shrinking, twisting and becoming impossible to fix. If I were doing this kit again, I’d mask for the waterlines and paint ‘em. The decals were sealed and the kit given a wash of black oil paint and Turpenoid. Once the wash dried, a flat coat was applied and a very subtle dry brush was applied. If you’re a Cold War sub aficionado, this kit may be for you. Any build of this kit would benefit from planning and some better references. The decals are almost unusable and need to be replaced. They just could not be used for a contest-caliber finish. There are some killer photos of one of these subs tied to a dock rusting away -- a real test of your 1/350 weathering skills. Thanks to Dragon Models USA and Flagman for providing this sample.