life raft colors USS San Francisco

The color is the same as all the other canvas stuff like gun and boat covers. Different type of paint but it's close to deck blue.

Thanks !

Right now in injection plastic, there are two US WWII cruiser kits in 1/350: USS San Francisco and USS Indianapolis. Both are under $150, with the basic Academy Indy being in the $50 range.

Hi stikpusher,

I have both of those kits and am pleased with them. What I'd like to lay my hands on would be some of the late WW II classes like the Baltimores etc. I have several in 1/700 but there doesn't appear to be any in 1/350.

Thanks

Jackjack's question got me thinking.  Did the U.S. Build any heavy cruisers during the war other than the Baltimore class?  I can't think of any.

Jack jack, if you have the money, you may want to look into resin kits, but I do not know what's out there... Of course, you will be looking a lot closer to that $150 price tag. Only the Japanese cruisers are well represented in 1/350 plastic kits. US, RN, DKM, & Italian, all only have one or two in 1/350 plastic WWII cruisers.

JT, I think that the Baltimore Class was it for wartime USN heavy cruiser shipbuilding. I think that there were  some other designs, but they saw service post war. I am not well read at all on the subject.

I did a little digging at Navsource.  It seems that several ships of the Des Moines class (similar to the Baltimore class, but with one stack) were laid down before the end of the war, but none was commissioned.

jtilley

Jackjack's question got me thinking.  Did the U.S. Build any heavy cruisers during the war other than the Baltimore class?  I can't think of any.

CA 122 Oregon City, CA 123 Albany, CA 124 Rochester.

All launched before VJ Day but not commissioned until 1946.

i think that the Astoria/ New Orleans class really are my most revered (yes that's my term) ships in WW2.

All seven could easily be built from the one kit.

TheSan Francisco second most decorated ship on the USN in that conflict.

After Pearl Harbor they were the gun line for the next year. Astoria, Quincy and Vincennes all sunk on one battle against a much superior force. Minneapolis, San Francisco, New Orleans all heavily damaged in the same campaign. But we held Guadalcanal and that was the turning point in the war.

The only thing superior about the Japanese force at Savo island was their leadership and tactical proficiency in night fighting. Oh yes, and their torpedoes. But the Allies had one more heavy cruiser and 14 more destroyers in their forces in the area. Hardly inferior by any yardstick numericly.  In theory the radar equipment on some of the Allied warships should have been an adavantage for night fighitng as well. Yes Guadalcanal was the turning point in the Pacific War. Midway levelled the playing field again as far as carrier strength went, and allowed the US to take the offensive at Guadalcanal. But that campaign is where the IJN and IJNAF would see thier early war strength advantages worn away, never to be regained.

They had something because they beat the crud out of us. Carriers and Bb had been withdrawn to avoid land based bombers.

Those CAs and their Aussie counterparts really made a stand.

Oh yes, any way you cut it, Savo Island was a Japanese trouncing of the Allied fleet there. US battleships would not play any role aside from carrier support until November when they made the do or die stand in November. After the US Pacific Fleet heavy cruiser force was pretty much gone. Either sunk or or damaged and under reapair. The Guadalcanal and ensuing Solomons Campaigns were a school of hard knocks for the USN in night time surface actions. But the lessons were well learned and paid back in spades by the end of 1943.

Going back the original subject of this thread, I was under the impression that life rafts routinely got painted along with the ship's topsides, in whatever color the adjacent superstructure was.  Seems like I've seen quite a few photos of dazzle schemes that go right over the rafts, guns, and everything else.  Am I incorrect on that point?

I imagine there were plenty of inconsistencies, but here are a few examples:

This from shipcamouflage.com

IIRC, the Trumpeter USS San Francisco kits cover her in two paint schemes: 1942 Measure 11 and 1944 Measure 33/13D

for measure 11

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/measure_11.htm

for measure 33/13D

http://www.shipcamouflage.com/measure_33.htm

In the case of the CA 38 in 1942 it's all academic because the whole ship is pretty much dark blue.

when built mine and did a little research on the subject ( a little) the point seemed to be that there was paint for metal and paint for canvas in the locker.

the canvas type was deck color as it got used a lot for stuff which had a cover dragged over it, like boat covers.

the above is no doubt the worst kind of misinformation, but it made sense to me at the time.

Granted the era I am talking about is the mid 60s not WWII but this may be a clue to Navy thinking. On my ship the life rafts were painted the same color as the vertical surfaces - haze gray. As I remember the canvas for the hatch covers and gun covers it was a dark charcoal gray. I don't remember anyone painting it.

Amphib