Why always Arizona?

kustommodeler1

Here's an interesting question......

Why is it that everybody and their brother's uncle's 90-some cousins (including me) do the Arizona all the time?

 

Name recognition.

Ask the great unwashed to name a US battleship and 9 out of 10 will say Arizona or Missouri.

Ask that same great unwashed to name a German battleship.  Those that can will say Bismarck.

The same with the Yamato.

The Brits, being a seafaring nation,  may remember the KGV,  POW,  Nelson (for sure), and they'll call the Hood a battleship.

Mainline model manufacturers have historically made their ship models for the great unwashed.   Only recently have discerning modelers been heard in their subject selection

I can think of 1,177 reasons.

Dragon has a 1/350 Pennsylvania in 1944 fit announced as an upcoming kit

http://www.cybermodeler.com/special/2010_naval_manuf.shtml

As far as why Arizona? Well she is a sentimental rally point of Pearl Harbor. But if one looked from a contribution importance in war standpoint, I think any one of the sunk and salvaged to fight again battleships made more. Nevada, California, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, are all long overdue in styrene mainstream kits as well.

So your question is really just a matter of waiting for a release date.

Same with carriers....all you ever hear is, "Zuiho"...

stikpusher

Dragon has a 1/350 Pennsylvania in 1944 fit announced as an upcoming kit

http://www.cybermodeler.com/special/2010_naval_manuf.shtml

As far as why Arizona? Well she is a sentimental rally point of Pearl Harbor. But if one looked from a contribution importance in war standpoint, I think any one of the sunk and salvaged to fight again battleships made more. Nevada, California, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, are all long overdue in styrene mainstream kits as well.

So your question is really just a matter of waiting for a release date.

Amen brother. I would love to see the Maryland or the others in affordable 1/350. Please?

mfsob

I can think of 1,177 reasons.

That I grant you sir. I will not forget them either.

Isn't it ironic though, that the first picture of Pennsy I showed in my first post (leading Colorado) is one of the most famous naval pictues of all WWII?

It is also true that more times than not, when a silhouette of a ship is shown, such as Classic Warships publications logo, it is unmistakeably the Pennsylvania.

stikpusher, I hope that dream comes though from Dragon on the 1:350 kit of her!

And yes, I would also love to see a post- 1944 rebuild of West Virginia, or California as well!

Others have cited reasons why so many choose the Arizona, so I can't add.  But I will say that I'm a big fan of the Keystone Battlewagon, ever since I first built the Revell 1/720 kit as a kid and learned about my home state's namesake.

Nothing's stopping any of us from finishing an Arizona as the Pennsylvania, of course.  I've picked up Hobby Boss' 1/700 Arizona, which I will finish as the Pennsy, but as she appeared in around 1935.  Her look after the wartime refit doesn't really do anything for me.

That conversion doesn't require too much, mostly adding the taller conning tower the Pennsylvania had, as fleet flagship, and the walkway around it, plus the different yardarms she had at that time.

Of course, for admirers of her in her late-war configuration, you're right, Dragon has that coming out soon.  But I'm much more impressed by the guy who kit-bashed an Arizona into the 1944 Pennsy, featured a couple of years ago in Fine Scale Modeler.  An excellent effort and result!

Regards,

Brad

stikpusher

Nevada, California, Maryland, West Virginia, and Tennessee, are all long overdue in styrene mainstream kits as well.

Don't forget about the Oklahoma.  I haven't seen a decent sized kit of her, and she has the special gun arrangement of 3 guns in lower turret, 2 in the upper.

Course I'm still waiting for a plastic kit in 1/350 of the Texas.

Of course you make the Oklahoma out of the Nevada

Aside from many of the reasons listed above,the Arizona was just different from other US battleships.Revell had it in two scales and Lindberg produced another.

Arizona was not really a stand out ship, sentimentality mentioned above aside. She had 14" guns in triple turrets, nothing special there compared to her sister fleet. The tripod masts had replaced her earlier cage masts, similar to half th other prewar battlewagons of the time. She was not as sleek as the 16" battleships with their clipper bows and twin slim funnels. And had she not been a total loss from one well placed bomb, and instead sunk by multiple torpedoes, I dare say she would have had the more mundane reputation of the rest of the battle line of that day.

Having made the dragon 700 scale Pen  I dread the amount of work needed on the new 350 scale offering unless theres major changes.  The masts are wrong. the radars are wrong. Fire control of aa is wrong. Main mast and its decks are wrong shape. Legs should go through not , around the mid deck. Supports for the first bridge deck completely missing. Upper bridge decks wrong shape at rear. radar assembleys on main mast completely wrong for any fit of the Pen.  Distinctive blast bags missing. Front of the ram bow is wrong shape. Rear gun towers wrong height and missing catwalks to them. I could go on.

Even the box art is wrong. the Pen never shelled Iwo Jima, it wasnt there then. lol.

Hi Silent. The Dragon team is working on improving accuracy on the 350th kit. I can't garantee that everything will be fixed, but I'd like to aim for that.

In regards to "why," you can find the answer with a simple question.

Go up to anyone and ask them if they've heard of battleship Arizona.

Then ask them if they've heard of Battleship Pennsylvania.

i agree and i've got both in 700.  it's a beauty of a ship either era you build it in. 

Hmmm ... all I ever hear is Akagi, Kaga, Soryu, Hiryu, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Ryujo, and Shoho.

I'd just be happy to settle for a half decent 1/350 Arizona kit myself and not the current one that's out there...Tamiya, Trumpteer, how's about you guys doing one?  

"Why always Arizona".........(which was a defining moment is U.S. History, in many ways much like the "Maine".)

Why Always:  WW II,.... Fletcher class destroyers,.... Pretty much nothing, relatively speaking, from the sixties, and seventies?

Why not something else?

Well that is about to change. At least in 700 scale. Dragon has the USS Long Beach CGN-9 and USS Virginia, CGN- 38 announced for release. And Revell is reissuing their old 1/460 CGN- 9 Long Beach and Monogram's 1/500 USS Chicago CG-11. Hopefully they will reissue the Halsey as well one day soon. 60's and 70s carriers are at least represented by a few kits of Enterprise and Nimitz in various scales and fittings. And a few RN ships out there from Airfix or FN from Heller.

The Monogram USS Chicago CG-11 (they also had Columbus CG-12, which I served in), will need a lot of detailing, as there isn't much there, and some of it is wrong. When I built Columbus, I had to add the forward AN/SPS-30 radar transmitter room, aft of the antenna pedestal, on the 0-14 level ( a large omission ), and lots of antennae, HF, and UHF/VHF. I also rebuilt the after SPS-30 antenna support structure. She's a Baltimore class hull, which can be used to build USS Wright CC-2 (originally a light carrier, the flight deck became an antenna farm). Lots of scratchbuilding from the main deck, up. Some day, I'll have to go back and rebuild the Talos launchers, the Talos missiles, and the boat storage racks, P/S aft main deck. There's some issues with the boat cranes aft.

Those old Monogram ship models were originally Aurora kits. Monogram took over the molds after the demise of Aurora. The Chicago, Halsey, Enterprise, German U boat, Skipjack, etc., all Aurora.

I don't recall the "modern" missile ships such as Chicago/Albany, Halsey/Leahy, and Ramsey/Brooke ever being boxed by Aurora. I do recall all the others being Aurora kits except those. Those all had the "operating" features, missile launchers that traversed in concert with their fire control radar, that Aurora never used on their kits.

I'm still waiting for a kit of the yard tug USS Hoga, I'd like to see one around 1/144 scale. They are not very glamorus but without the hard working tugs pulling ships free from those sinking, fighting fires and helping to keep the channel open Dec 7th could have been much worse for the Navy. 

mfsob

I can think of 1,177 reasons.

Bears repeating.