Zvezda 1/350 K-19 ‘Hotel I' Nuclear Submarine
By Chris Banyai-Riepl
History
As one of the three initial nuclear submarines designed and built by the Russians, the Project 658 boat shared many similarities with the nuclear Project 627 “November” and diesel electric Project 629 “Golf” submarines. Designed as a ballistic missile submarine, the Project 658 combined much of the Project 627 hull with the three-shot missile sail from the Project 629. Designed to carry the R-13 missile and the D-2 launch system, the Project 658 boat had to surface in order to fire its missiles, but could fire while underway and could fire all three missiles within twelve minutes.
Design began in 1956, and the keep of the first boat, the K-19, was laid down in late 1958. Launched a year later, the K-19 was fully commissioned in the Soviet Navy on April 30, 1961. Seven more were built, with the last one being launched in November of 1960. Modifications starting in 1958 resulted in the introduction of the D-4 launch system, which allowed for underwater launching of the missiles. Identified as Project 658M, the first one was completed in 1963, and by 1967, all of the original 658 boats had been updated. A further modification to the K-145 began in 1969 to test the R-29 missile, which saw that boat lengthened. This test was restricted to this one boat, though, and the rest of the fleet remained at 658M standards.
The K-19 itself gained quite a bit of notoriety during its life, beginning with its October 1959 christening, where the ceremonial champagne bottle did not break. A few months later, damage to a control rod in the reactor resulted in extensive repairs to that system, including a full dismantling. Following the reassembly of the reactor, the K-19 started sea trials in late summer 1960, where the rubber coating on the hull was stripped off after a full-power underwater run. During those same sea trials, a max depth test down to 300 meters resulted in extensive water leaks, forcing an emergency blow. In autumn 1960, improper disposal of waste onboard jammed the waste system and flooded one compartment.
Finally, on 12 November 1960, the K-19 was commissioned to the Soviet Navy, and the following month underwent its first operational sortie. On that trip, a loss of coolant accident damaged the main circulation pump. A team from the shipyard met the K-19 at sea and repaired the pump in a week. Seven months later, the famous nuclear accident happened, where a loss of coolant and no backup systems resulted in the reactor running uncontrolled. Members of the crew had to go into the heavily irradiated compartment to fix a new cooling system. All seven who had done the work died within a week, and twenty more died over the next few years. After being towed home, the boat contaminated its surrounding environment and the workers trying to fix it. Eventually, the boat was repaired and sent back to patrol, having earned the nickname Hiroshima.
Bad luck continued to follow the K-19, and in November 1969, the boat collided with the USS Gato while operating in the Barents Sea. The K-19 was saved by an emergency blow that brought it to the surface, and it limped back home for repairs. Once again at sea, on February 24, 1972, a fire broke out on the K-19 while operating at depth. Twenty-eight sailors died in that fire, and once again the K-19 had to be towed home. Damage to the ship resulted in a dozen men being trapped in the aft torpedo room, where they remained for the duration of the twenty-four day journey back home. Once again repaired, the K-19 returned to sea and was finally decommissioned in 1991. Destined for scrapping, in 2006 the K-19 was purchased by Vladimir Romanov, who had once served on the boat, with the hopes of converting it into a Moscow meeting place.
The Kit
Zvezda's kit of the K-19 comes molded in submarine black (a color I really do not like for model kits), with the parts contained on a single sprue. Two clear blue stands are also provided, and a small decal sheet provides the various details and hull markings. On first glance, this looks to be a very simple kit to build.
Assembly starts with the hull, and this is fairly straightforward. For those who will use the two stands, you will need to open up the holes in the bottom of the hull to accept those. Personally, I prefer a single stand, and so I will probably cut one out from scrap styrene and cobble a cradle-type stand together. The hull is split into right and left halves, with the flat upper deck provided in two separate pieces. A similar assembly is found in the Zvezda/Flagman K-3 November submarine, and with some careful test fitting it should present no problems in assembly.
The other details for the main hull include the rear fins, fore and aft dive planes, and propellers. These parts are identical to those found on the November submarine, and in fact they are the same parts found in the Zvezda kit of that boat. The rear fins are split in upper and lower halves, and will likely require the most fiddling and adjusting to get a good fit. On the hull itself, there are several bumps caused by the ejector marks on the inside that will need to be smoothed out as well, but nothing a good sanding can't fix.
Moving on to the sail, this is constructed from three main pieces, with the top piece including several holes for the various antennae and periscopes. Not mentioned in the instructions are the railings that go around the sail. The kit pieces have the attachment points, but the railings will have to be scratched from thin round stock (stretched sprue, ideally). These railings should wrap around the front and rear of the sail, with breaks where the hatches are located.
For color and markings, this is pretty straightforward, with the hull painted in black above the waterline, and red below. White numerals are provided for the sides of the sail, with the remaining decals providing depth markers, sail windows, and hatch markings. Like those decals found in the November kit, this sheet includes decals for the sonar coverings, with a grid pattern present underneath the silver decal. This will look quite realistic and does a great job of capturing that effect.
Accuracy
Ahh, the dreaded accuracy check. Checking the accuracy of submarines is challenging at best, and even more so when one attempts to check Soviet submarine accuracy. Still, there are quite a few photos of these boats out there, and a few good drawings as well. After scouring the available references I can say that, for the most part, this is a fairly accurate representation of the Hotel-I submarine. There are two main areas of contention, though: the tail end of the hull, and the hull forward of the sail.
Starting with the easier fix, the tail end of the hull needs to be extended about 3/8”. This is easily done by cutting the tail off at the rudder line and adding in a plug. That would keep all the scribed detail in the tail end of the fin, while extending the hull and rudder the proper length. Everything forward of the rudder line is correct, so some careful shaping of the plug to match the contours and this modification is done.
The forward hull is a bit more challenging, as there are several areas that could be corrected here. The first is the bow. The kit has this as a constant rounded front, while the actual submarine has a knife edge where the torpedo doors are. Some careful work with a file will take care of this with minimal effort. The second area that needs a change is with the separate upper sonar dome piece. This appears to be too small in the kit. Some study of the available photographs and a bit of work with some plastic card can remedy this.
The major problem, though, lies with the angle of the upper hull forward of the sail. The kit has the entire upper deck flat from stem to stern, but the actual submarine has the forward deck sloping upwards from the sail. The cutaway drawing from the submarine's manufacturer, Rubin captures this quite well. In fact, that drawing is the most accurate I have found, and could be used to make all of the modifications to this kit. Were I to do this correction (and I'm not sure if I will or not), I would probably cut the hull forward of the sail straight down to the scribed waterline, then forward. Insert a shim to get the upper deck at the proper angle, then fill and sand until the hull looks right. What I do not know is how the flood vents are arranged; if they remain in line with the aft ones or if they slope up with the deck line. As this is a rather major modification, it might just fall into the “I can live with it” category.
Conclusion
This is a decent kit with a simple assembly that could be built straight out of the box with good results. For the more fastidious, there are varying levels of modifications to improve the appearance, making it a great kit for any level of modeler. My thanks to Roll Models for the review copy.