Tamiya U.S.S. New Jersey

In that case you just build the USS Missouri kit. This is how they looked in WW2. Just use the NJ decals.

THANK YOU!!!

I didn't think it would be that easy!

Yippie!

Yepper, it's that easy. Sister ships afterall.

OH and let me be the first to welcome you to the asylum.

This is a nice idea. It can be that simple if you want it to be - but there are some options if you want to pursue them.

I'm looking at the photos and text in Robert Sumrall's Iowa class Battleships: Their Design, Weapons and Equipment (a terrific book for model-building purposes, by the way). The photos therein make it clear that the New Jersey, as built, was visibly different from her sisters in one rather prominent way: the front of her bridge structure was round, rather than square. She operated in her original configuration from her commissioning until May, 1945, when she underwent a refit at Puget Sound. She went back into service in July of that year with a bridge that looked like those of her sisterships.

So the parts in the Tamiya kits (the excellent 1/350 one and the new, beautiful 1/700 version) are right for the New Jersey as she looked when she attended the surrender ceremony at Tokyo Bay, but she looked a little different at Leyte Gulf. The curved bridge structure would make an interesting small conversion project.

A slightly more elaborate one would be to do the Iowa as she was built. She came out of the yard with an open bridge - scarcely any of the big, oblong windows that are so characteristic of the class. She also got modified late in the war, by the end of which the four ships were almost identical except in terms of their color schemes. The bridge components in the 1/700 kit are on their own sprue; I wonder if Tamiya is contemplating an early Iowa or New Jersey.

I notice Gold Medal Models has just revised its 1/700 photo-etched parts set for American battleships (a set that, in my view, was already superb). It contains parts for the Arizona and Pennsylvania, as well as all the fast battleship classes of World War II. Mr. Perry, the brains behind the operation, says on his website that he revised the sheet quite recently to make the railings match the new Tamiya kit exactly (along with a few other minor improvements). The parts on that sheet include a bunch of window frames, which could be used to do any of the bridge configurations. Gold Medal also makes several photo-etched sets that are applicable to the 1/350 kits.

These PE sets are great if you like that sort of thing, but for heaven's sake don't feel like you're under any obligation to use them. The components of the catapults and radar screens are pretty daunting - at least to me. You can build a mighty respectable New Jersey in late 1945 configuration right out of the box.

One of the many projects on my "to-be-done-when-I-get-around-to-it" list is a small 1/700 diorama organized around the new Tamiya Missouri and the really remarkable Dragon Arizona. The beginning and end of the Pacific naval war in one little plexiglas case. I have lots of ideas like that; maybe one of these days I'll actually put one of them into practice.

Good luck. It's a terrific hobby.

Toms modelworks have conversion sets for an early '43 NJ (TM3500) and late '43 (TC3502). This is for the 1/350 kit.
http://tomsmodelworks.com/conversionsets.asp

The New Jersey originally had an open bridge like the Iowa. The first captain had the enclosed bridge built during trials.

Tom's Modelworks and bigjimslade are right. I just took a more careful look at the Sumrall book, which sorts out the following details.

The New Jersey was commissioned on May 23, 1943 with the open bridge arrangement, which lasted through the first portion of her post-commissioning trials. The enclosed, round-fronted enclosure was added by October 13 of that year (the date on a couple of the photos in the book). She headed for the Pacific early in January, 1944. The round, enclosed bridge lasted through her first operational deployment, which included the Caroline, Marshall, and Marianas Islands campaigns, the Battle of Leyte Gulf, the December, 1944 typhoon, and the pre-invasion bombardment of Okinawa in March, 1945. She left the war zone on April 16, 1945, and headed for Puget Sound, where she underwent her refit in May and June (and got the Missouri-like square bridge front). She then returned to the Pacific, taking part in one more shore bombardment, at Wake Island, before the war ended.

My earlier post was in error in saying that the NJ was in attendance at the Tokyo Bay surrender ceremony. In fact she got to Tokyo Bay on September 16 - two weeks later. Sorry about that; my fault.

In addition to the question of the bridge configurations, there were changes in the anti-aircraft armament of all the Iowa-class battleships that might be of interest to model builders who are really picky about such things. Sumrall's book (which I trust pretty thoroughly) says the Missouri and the New Jersey originally carried forty-nine 20mm single gun mounts apiece. He says there's some documentary evidence that each of them also had eight 20mm twin mounts as of April, 1945. Sumrall admits that the evidence on this point is murky, though; he hasn't found any photos to support it, and that date doesn't make much sense in terms of the ships' visits to dockyard facilities. Sumrall also says the Missouri's complement of single 20mm mounts had been reduced to forty-three as of September, 1945. The Tamiya 1/700 kit (I don't know about the 1/350 one) has forty-nine single 20mm mounts and no twins. If I were building either the Missouri or the New Jersey in wartime configuration I'd leave that arrangement as-is.

Then, of course, there's the confusing question of radar screens, which matter to some modelers and not others. For those who do care about them, I strongly recommend the Gold Medal Models photo-etched set. In addition to amazing reproductions of all the relevant radar screens, it has a fine instruction sheet summarizing when the ships got the different sets. If you're interested, the Tamiya 1/700 kit has the round, SK-2 screen on the foremast, which is correct for the Missouri in 1945 but, according to GMM and the Sumrall book, not for the New Jersey until late 1945. Prior to that time the NJ carried the older, rectangular SK aerial. The good news is that, if you're using the the GMM parts set, the SK is easier to build. The framework on that SK-2 is pretty scary, at least to these 53-year-old eyeballs.

The bottom line remains what therriman said last week. If you build the Tamiya Missouri kit out of the box, with the "Measure 22 Graded" color scheme illustrated in the instructions, and change the hull numbers, you'll (probably) have an accurate model of the New Jersey - as she appeared in late 1945. If you want to represent her during her lengthy Pacific deployment in 1944, you'll need to modify the bridge front, change the radar screen on the forward superstructure, and paint her in the "Measure 21" color scheme (navy blue on all vertical surfaces, deck blue on all horizontal surfaces). Otherwise, if I'm reading the references right, the details in the kit are right for both ships in both periods.

Fascinating stuff. Welcome to the wonderful world of ship modeling. As you can see, it's populated by strange people who sometimes get obsessed with utter trivia and, in particularly obnoxious cases, spend their time during their summer vacations sitting at computers writing interminable forum posts. In most cases, fortunately, such people are relatively harmless.

jtilley, I resemble that remark!