My favorite experience was with a Renwal "Visible Polaris Submarine"...
USS Andrew Jackson I think...anyway, the whole side of the sub folded down so you could see all the equipment and bulkheads and machinery inside. Upon reaching teenager-hood and finally obtaining a B-B gun (YESSSS!
), I decided to commit the sub to a sacrifical sea battle, and thus an honorable burial at sea. I carefully sealed all the compartments closed and then glued the side of the hull shut. I also strung some fishing weights under the hull so it would float upright. Then with great anticipation, me and my little brother David headed for the town pond!
We tossed the sub into the pond on the upwind side and hiked around to the downwind side of the pond to wait for it to drift across...into range of our mighty cannon! Even though the sub was still way out of range, we took turns firing..."lobbing" shots in the direction of the sub, like a Confederate fort raining shot down upon the Union ironclads trying to force their entrance into Charleston Harbor. Slowly the sub drifted our way, and every now and then one of us would get a lucky shot and hit the sub...but that stout hull resisted the plunging B-B fire, the shots richocheting harmlessly off it's flanks into the water...drat! Still we fired on, enjoying watching the arcing trajectory of each shot, gauging the wind and sea, trying with all our might to penetrate the ship's fearsome armor.
There we sat on shore that beautiful summer day...the wind alternately drifting the sub our way...then pulling it back out of reach. Relentlessly we kept up our withering rifle assault, though mostly to no avail. Brilliantly--we thought--we re-oiled rifle's pump mechanism, hoping for more air power from the lever action, trying to obtain the slightest bit more range and power behind each shot. Finally...Ah HAH!...take that you plundering enemy!...A SOLID HIT!!
Now our shots were becoming more accurate and hitting the sub more often. And finally, every now and then a small hole would appear in the topside plastic...or a piece of periscope or superstructure would flick away from the model as we hammered away at it. DINK...A HIT!...splash, splash...DINK!...another HIT, then splish, sploosh...yet
more confounding misses! CURSES!!
On and on it went, with Dave and I pouring shot into the infernal enemy craft. This was the heroic stuff of young boys' dreams...us brothers-in-arms, battling away with all our shooting skills, keeping the plucky enemy craft at bay. And the dastardly submarine, maneuvering through the wind's swells, testing the approach to our shore, probing our defenses...it was a monumental battle to the death!
Who would win? Who would run out of ammo first?!! Who could even remember that this was
just a model?!!!
After what seemed like hours (though probably less than one), both of us were getting a little more than frustrated with the never-ending battle and the flukey winds that kept the sub from coming in close enough so that we could accurately hammer some B-B shot into it. And I was starting to wish I hadn't sealed up all those compartments so well that the darn thing refused to sink, no matter how many times or in how many places we hit it. But then, after a particularly vicious series of waterline hits, she started to take a list...HURRAH! We were getting the upper hand!
With renewed vigor, we
REMEMBERED PEARL HARBOR! and started drilling into the wounded warrior
through the ever-widening shot holes in the hull. And as often happens in any great sea battle, Lady Luck finally chose one side over the other, and our
six minutes high over the unprotected enemy carriers at Midway began in ernest, with the wind pushing the sub into point blank range.
DINK...DINK...DINK...DINK...kerPLUNK!...with a splash the nosecone of the sub blew away and disappeared out of sight. Slowly the vessel nosed down...the sea flooding through the gaping wound, crushing in bulkheads as the relentless waves claimed one compartment after the next! The forward deck of the sub went under, the screw helplessly thrashing the air (no, really...
) and the stern tilted skyward. In a last defiant gesture, the stricken warrior bobbed tail high in the waves...slipping
AWAY from us, struggling valiantly for sea room as she made for open sea and freedom. Nooooooo!!
But it was not to be! My brother grabbed the B-B gun from me and boldly ran into the mud at the shore, leveling the snarling cannon directly at the sub's pointed tailcone and unleased shot after shot into it until the afterdeck, shaft and screw carried away! With the coup de grace thus savagely administered, and the final air hissing away from within the hull's confines, the gallant combatant slowly slipped beneath the waves...hull groaning into the abyss, and with her sinking, passing as well into the hallowed annals of nautical model history!
A quiet descended upon the embattled pond shore and as the waves of fury stilled within us, the summer's peace softly returned. All of a sudden you could hear the gentle wind rustling through the trees again, and the humming of the insects. And it felt wonderful to feel the July sun's warmth upon our faces, honored to have engaged and vanquished such a gallant foe....a fitting end to a favored model. We looked at each other a little sadly, sorry to have finished our epic battle and somewhat empty now that it was over and the experience would not be repeated now that the sub was lost forever to Davy Jones Locker.
But WAIT!....lost forever??! Heck no, I thought! I have a little brother here beside me!!
"David...trade you my Ernie Banks baseball card if you'll go in after the sub!!"
So
of course you know how things like that work out!
And for years afterwards...a stout and valiant warrior of a great and terrible sea battle graced our room's bookshelves, reminding us both of that fabulous summer day when my brother David and I stood toe-to-toe with (modeling) history, and emerged VICTORIOUS!
--Tom
arrrrggggh!
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for being good delinquents!!
)from a can when it was lying on the ground. This was not a good idea as the petrol in the can ignited causing me to drop it. In the folowing inferno I kicked the can, spilling petrol all up the doors of the barn next to my house. I took one look at what I had done and did what anyone would do, I hid under my bed. The fire service and police arrived , but fortunately my big cousin had managed to put the fire out with the garden hose.Ahh the memories..... 
