OKB Grigorov is a Bulgarian company that has been producing resin accessories and after-market bits for several years. My first experience with them was several years ago when I was searching for some embellishments for a 1/72-scale Merkava. I must admit that that was the last experience I had with OKB Grigorov. That was a mistake on my part, and this kit is how I fixed it.

As a member of the Reviewers Corps for IPMS/USA, we have access to several kits and modeling accessories that one might not otherwise have, and best of all, these accessories and/or kits are free if you conduct the review. Anyway, when several kits became available to the Reviewers Corps, I noticed the offerings from OKB Grigorov and thought, why not? Time to see what 'these guys' are up to, and I am delighted to inform you that OKB Grigorov has been up to quite a lot. All of it to a modelers favor. I will skip a full-blown review of their product line and simply suggest that you visit their website.

The item that I selected was a 1/350 scale Rubis-class (Ruby-class) submarine. The 3D printed kit comes in six dark gray resin pieces, and one of those parts is the display stand. The others include a full hull, conning tower, dive planes and a propulsion screw. The screw and dive planes are the only bits that need to be separated from their printing supports. The other parts come ready for assembly. In fact, the print base around the screw might be used as an addition to the display base. What a nice idea.

With so few parts, assembly was a breeze and the model was ready for painting in a matter of moments. Well, maybe not moments, but if it takes you all day, you are just doing it wrong.

The Rubis-class was a French design and represents one of their nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSN) from the late 80s / early 90s. The kit does not come with assembly instructions, but assembly is pretty intuitive with mounting holes (dive planes, screw) pre-drilled for easy assembly.

There are few images online of this submarine, but it seems to be painted in an overall dark gray (almost black). I primed the model black from a rattle can. After priming the model, I noticed some very subtle details on the hull. They may be left over from the printing process, but it has the effect of giving the hull a stressed skin look. Happy accident!

I highlighted some of those details with pastels for illustration purposes. As an aside, it might be possible to finish the model by using that method. As you can see, I went in a different direction.

Not that much to say about the color scheme I chose, at least to anyone that has seen “Operation Petticoat”. That was a 1959 film starring Cary Grant and Tony Curtiss. No markings or decals are provided with the kit. Those could probably be scrounged from your spares box without too much effort. I did add a few extra bits to the conning tower/sail to represent antennas and such.

This Rubis-class submarine model from OKB Grigorov was a 'fast', easy build that I highly recommend. Do not let the lack of markings or assembly instructions put you off as this is a first-rate, resin submarine model. Sourcing the decals/markings is not all that difficult, and besides, most French Navy submarines are rather devoid of markings. Should your tastes lean more toward more modern vessels, OKB Grigorov does offer a final configuration (Améthyste rebuild) version of the Rubis-class submarine, item# N350047.

My thanks to OKB Grigorov and IPMS/USA for the review copy!