Hello gentlemen, I recently finished an excellent book- Guadalcanal: The Definitive Account of the Landmark Battle by Richard B. Frank. It covers all aspects of the campaign to include the naval, air and ground battles. It has a great account of the Battle of Savo Island which got me interested in building all three of the US Cruisers that were sunk. During the surpise night engagement the night of August 8-9, 1942 the Japanese gave us a good whalloping and we lost 4 Heavy Cruisers (1 Australian). I'm starting with the Trumpeter 1/700 USS Astoria CA-34. Talk about taking a beating, the Astoria suffered a massive pounding from the Japanese and finally succumbed to internal fires and sank mid day on the 9th.
Work has begun on the turrets. For those who have this kit in the stash... be careful and pay attention to the sprue letters and part numbers to avoid doing what I did. I was watching the Raiders/Niners game last Sunday and wasn't paying close attention to the sprues, clipped off 3 turrets and 9 gun barrels and got to work.
As I was cleaning up the parts, I figured out almost right away that I had accidentally clipped off turret part C7 when I should have been using B3. Whew... disaster averted.
The Raiders were ahead and I was enjoying the game as I attached all the barrels to the turrets... only to realize that I had accidentally attached 3 incorrect barrels (parts C12) which are for use with the other turret design. Fortunately I was able to remove the 3 barrels (I had used 1 of the incorrect barrels on each turret) and was able to attach the correct barrels with no harm done to the parts.
Needless to say, the Raiders lost and I learned another valuable lesson... DOUBLE CHECK THE PART NUMBERS before removing the parts.
