Hay I was just looking at the Model War Ship forum going through the Fans of Gato Sub section.
Since I see you have posted in the thread you might want to correct Mario of IBS.
He just told everyone that the covers over the Sea Chests where the FV flood hole covers.
Not even close.
The sea chest's are for the water intakes used for water cooling machinery, not part of the ballast system.
Also the abbreviations might be of help to the folks over there since they asked the difference between FA and FV.
![](http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y267/Division6/Submarines/abbreviations.gif)
FA is the free flood and FV is the fuel tanks that are used as flood tanks once the fuel had been used.
These have valves that need to to be opened manually.
Full description Including illustrations on how this works can be found in the
Trim and Drain section of the Fleet Type Sub Manual found here.
http://www.maritime.org/fleetsub/trim/index.htmEric...