Kit# X102 - $295.00 Great for any desk or shelf  19 1/2" long.

The Gato Class Fleet Type submarine was the class of submarine being produced by shipyards for the United States Navy when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941...plunging the United States into the Second World War as an active participant.

On the design front, a major submarine advance was in the making. By the time the Gato Class was designed, the simplification and weight-saving programs mounted by the Bureau of Ships and the Portsmouth Navy Yard had built up a substantial margin of surplus available tonnage for use in future submarine construction. This had to be offset by the addition of scarce and expensive lead ballast...that was used to keep the displacement of the boats unchanged but contributed nothing but dead weight to the submarines. To designers, the ideal solution to this problem was to convert the lead weight into steel...where it would do the most good by providing a heavier and deeper-diving pressure hull. At the same time the structural experts in the Bureau of Ships were considering changing the basic material for submarine hulls from the familiar mild steel to the stronger high tensile steel (HTS). Late in 1941, the two leading submarine design officers got together to assess the situation. Calculations demonstrated that the hull plating could be increased from the approximately 9/16-inch (27.5 pounds per square foot) material used in the Gato Class, and preceding classes, to 35-pound plate about 7/8-inch thick. This would make the hull capable of withstanding submergence to 925 feet without collapsing, assuming the use of the new HTS. Even if mild steel had to be used, in case a shortage of the other should develop, the collapse depth could still be increased to 650 feet. The extra strength would be of great advantage to submarines in a combat situation, but in order to be safe, the designers proposed that the operating depth be set officially at 450 feet.