North Carolina class battleship

emperor_andreas wrote:

Great photos, Ollie...I hope to make the trip to Mobile, AL some time this year and see U.S.S. Alabama down there.

nighthunter wrote:

Washington should be the Battleship of this class that should have become a Museum, only US Battleship to sink another battleship. But no, the North Carolina gets saved and the WA get's scrapped... such bullshit.

Several USN ships that should've been preserved were either scrapped or used as targets. Washington would've been a prime candidate for preservation in my book if for no other reason than her performance on 15 November 1942. Others that more than met the criteria to still be here today are:

1) U.S.S. Enterprise (I think this goes without saying.)
2) U.S.S. Saratoga (Be sweet to be able to visit her today without having to take up scuba diving.)
3) U.S.S. Nevada (She would've been a nice centerpiece to a Pearl Harbor Memorial alongside Arizona and possibly Missouri.
4) U.S.S. San Francisco (One of the survivors of the "Bar Room Brawl" of 13 November 1942. That and I've always thought she was a beautiful ship.)
5) U.S.S. England (Her anti-submarine record will probably never be broken.)

USS Pennsylvania as well. And the Nevada, because of her captain's attempt to break out of the harbor.

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Nice to see Colo in action again and nice to see this class coming together on WW. I've always thought these were the better looking of the interwar US battleships.

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Great to see her drawn! I'm out of adjectives.

Further camouflage fixes... seems no camouflage design sheet really agrees with reality...

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Next, the 1945 fit of the ship:

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Note removal of most of the 20mm Oerlikons, addition of SR radar on the mainmast, SCR-720 radar forward of the first funnel (originally a night-fighter radar, fitted to some ships to remove the "blind spot" directly over head), and Measure 22 camouflage (which became the standard for USN shore bombardment ships after Jap aviation ceased to be a Thing after the Battle of the Philippine Sea). New Navy Blue (5-N) color taken from the (excellent) Wikipedia article on USN ship camouflage.

Re: the use of a gradient on the smoke-stained mainmast... I figure with the way most of you butcher the style, I can break from it every once in a while myself...

That mast, a bit kosher...but cool!

It is a good thing you approve of the Wikipedia USN color pallet, I use it myself

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MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Probably the most difficult version yet:

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BB-55 after the November 1943 refit at Pearl Harbor. Note Mark 4 fire control radars on the Mark 37 directors (especially the aft director with the large supports required to hoist the radar high enough so as not to interfere with the Mk.38 main battery director's spotting glass). Also interesting is the Mark 3 Mod 2 fire control radar mounted to the front of the tower - this radar was previously attached to the forward Mk.38 main battery director as a ranging radar before it was replaced by a Mk.8 Mod.0 radar in mid-1943.

Note also the "SK" bedspring radar replacing the CXAM-1 on the pole mast, as well as the SG radars on both the fore and mainmasts. There are some AA fit differences; see if you can spot them.

Particularly striking is the "sloppy" Measure 32/18D "first pattern" camouflage, applied by the crew while at sea (hence why it's not sharp and defined like the 2nd pattern Measure 32/18D painted by the Puget Sound naval yard workers in September of 1944).

I am working "backwards" which has been especially difficult, but hope to have more of the early variants completed soon. This iteration of the ship was particularly difficult because there are only a few grainy photos of it in this fit; most of the large plans I have show either the Puget Sound Sept 1944 refit, or the 1942 fit as the ship fought in the Solomons.

edit: During today's research, stumbled across this: http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... eport.html

Unrelated but an interesting read.

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