Did I imagine this??

You didn't imagine it. The Revell Treasury-class cutter originally came out in 1957, with the name Campbell. (My source is the bible on Revell, Thomas Graham's Remembering Revell Model Kits. Hey! I think I've finally figured out how to use the italic font on this site!) It represented the ship in her then-current configuration, with a single enclosed 5" gun mount on the foredeck and depth charge gear on the stern. (The original armament of the Treasury class was two open 5" mounts on the foredeck and gear to carry a seaplane aft.)

According to Mr. Graham the kit was reissued twice: as the Campbell again in 1968, and as the Taney (original name: Roger B. Taney) in 1972. He doesn't mention (because the book's coverage stops with 1980) that the kit was also one of the Revell/Monogram "Special Subjects" reissues in the eighties; I picked one up, in the Taney box, then. I haven't built it - but I doubt if I could find it. I imagine you're right about the fit problems. This kit is a real classic from the "golden age" - with all that implies. I suspect one will turn up on E-bay. Mr. Graham estimates the value of the original issue at $40-$50, and the last reissue (other than the "Special Subjects" one, which he doesnt' mention) at $15-$20.

At about the same time (1957) Revell issued another Coast Guard vessel, the icebreaker Eastwind. It also got reissued several times - including a couple of reincarnations as its Navy sister ship, theBurton Island. If I remember correctly (as I frequently don't these days), the original issue included one of the real ship's more unusual features: a full-size propeller in the bow for breaking ice. That idea didn't work well; the broken chunks of ice repeatedly jammed it. The Coast Guard removed the bow propellers from the whole Wind class, and it disappeared from the reissues of the Revell kit. Since the kit also included a miniature helicopter (rather than the Curtiss Seagull that the original ship carried in its early years), it didn't accurately depict the Eastwind or any of her sisterships as they actually appeared.

Apparently that was a period - the only one - when Revell had a special interest in the Coast Guard. In the following year, 1958, the company brought out its famous Eagle kit, which we've dissected elsewhere in this forum.

Thanks jtilley. I was afraid I had imagined it. I want one for the Pearl Harbor GB starting later this year. The Taney was one of four Coast Guard ships there on the 7th.

The Taney in her 1941 configuration would make a nicee model. The Treasury class cutters were/are handsome and important ships that haven't gotten the attention they deserve. And to my eye they never looked better than they did early in WWII.

Doing one of them in that configuration on the basis of the old Revell kit would involve quite a bit of converting. At that time, if my memory is correct (as it may well not be), the Taney carried three 5" guns in open mounts - two forward and one aft, in a large tub where the seaplane originally had been stowed. I think she also had at least one 3" mount - on the superstructure forward of the bridge, one level above no. two 5" mount. At some point she got two more 3" mounts aft, in tubs on columns just aft of the superstructure. The outboard sections of those guntubs were collapsible, so she could pull close alongside other vessels or piers without damaging the tub plating. I don't know whether those mounts had been fitted by the time of Pearl Harbor or not.

As roadkill_275 probably knows already, this class of cutters wasn't designed primarily for combat, but for patrol duty on the Coast Guard's recently established "Ocean Stations." The ships were supposed to be on the lookout for crashed transatlantic or transpacific airliners. Most of the guns, and all the anti-submarine gear, were afterthoughts; it was largely a matter of luck that the cutters turned out to be effective convoy escorts.

A few years ago the Coast Guard Historian's Office commissioned a series of paintings of famous events in Coast Guard history. One of the paintings, by the distinguished aviation artist Keith Ferris, is entitled "Taney at Pearl Harbor." (Technically that's a slight misnomer. She was, as the painting correctly depicts, tied up at a pier on the waterfront of Honolulu, a few miles away from Pearl Harbor proper. But she got buzzed by, and shot at, several Japanese aircraft.) A visit to the Coast Guard website probably would yield a copy of the painting, which would be an excellent guide for a model. Both the CG Historian's Office and Mr. Ferris were extremely careful to get the details right.

Hope this helps a little - though I imagine roadkill_275 already knew most or all of it.

Just a short note on the Eastwind's bow propellor. I had that kit with the helicopter, there wasn't a propellor included in my kit, but it was mentioned in the instruction sheet.

FSM had an feature on the Taney long ago. . .
Us old CG types are being asked to help get her back together in her WWII config. . .
Oh no! back to the stripe issue again!

Don

Stripes on Cutters? Yes! I think when you guys redo the Taney as she appeared in WW Eye Eye, you should add not one, but (4) sets of stripes!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, good luck on her refit/rebuild. Along the same lines, only different, I was pretty impressed with the Old Salts a few years ago who brought the LST (I think) back from the Med to the good old US of A. Glad to see the work on her is moving along and glad to see they want to take care of Taney. Always nice to see our history maintained and not forgotten.

Question on the Taney kit for you guys. Other then the guns and items mentioned above, is the general size, shape and configuration of the major deck assemblies reasonably close? Kind of always wanted to build up one of these.

I walked by the Taney just a few months ago. She's in Baltimore's Inner Harbor and is open for tours.

There's a lot of great information on the web about her. I haven't taken the tour yet, but I'm sure I'll get to it soon.

She is a very handsome ship.

Regards,

The general outlines of the Revell Treasury-class kit are pretty good. It's a typical high-quality kit of the fifties: ok basic shapes, not much detail, and stuff molded-in that modern companies would leave off. For example, it has those awful cast-in, solid guardrails that were so typical of that period.

It's actually a pretty nice kit for its age, and a sound basis for a conversion. That class of cutters offers lots of options. One of them in prewar dress (white hull, buff-and-black funnel, buff masts, black gun mounts, and either a Curtiss Seagull or a Grumman Duck perched on the afterdeck) would be quite a sight. Or one could build it as an amphibious force command ship, with an extended superstructure and antennas and anti-aircraft guns sticking out all over the place. But to my notion those ships looked really pretty in their early war, convoy escort guise.

Check ebay again, this kit, in both the Taney and Cambell configurations comes up a lot but runs anywhere between $30 and $90.

One point emerges from this post, and from the astoundingly long recent exchange about the Eagle. There actually is a fair amount of interest in the U.S. Coast Guard out there. Yet there are only a tiny handful of kits representing Coast Guard vessels.

Trumpeter, are you listening?

AND
if they would put a 1/700 or 1/350 HH65 on the flight deck instead of the HH60 like some insist on doing, we could all be happy and sing their praises!!

Don

Jtilley, to be considered as "at" Pearl Harbor on Dec 7th, a ship had to be within twelve miles of the center of PH during either of the two waves. This has caused quite a bit of confusion because nobody knows the precise position of the USS Thresher (SS200). Her official logs put her at 21 miles at 8am. But some of her crew say they were closer.

Roadkill - Fair enough! A glance at a map establishes that, from the standpoint of the Japanese pilots, the Taney's position, though not actually within the bounds of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, was a few seconds' flying distance from Battleship Row.