USS Massachuetts

To my knowledge the only plastic kit with the name Massachusetts on it is the old Revell 1/720 one. It's pretty crude - though a recent issue of FSM carried an excellent article on how to bring it up to modern standards.

The Massachusetts is one of the four South Dakota class battleships. Hasegawa makes 1/700 kits that represent two of them, the South Dakota and Alabama. Converting either of those into the Massachusetts would be fairly straightforward. Those two kits are showing their age now; in terms of detail they aren't up to current standards. If you want to improve them, though, there are some fairly convenient ways to do it - if you don't mind spending some money.

One approach would be to buy a Tamiya 1/700 Missouri, which IS state-of- the-art. The Missouri is an Iowa-class battleship and much different from the Massachusetts in size and appearance, but in those days the Navy equipped most of its ships with standardized weapons. Such parts as the 5", 40mm, and 20mm gun mounts, the aircraft, the ship's boats, and the anchors could be lifted from the Tamiya kit to the Hasegawa one - and would greatly improve the latter's appearance. Gold Medal Models makes a superb set of photo-etched metal detail parts that covers all the 1/700 American battleship kits available. It includes really amazing representations of such things as radar screens, guard rails, cranes, and catapults.

I'm pretty sure there's at least one resin South Dakota-class battleship kit on the larger scale of 1/350. Those kits are quite expensive, time-consuming, and demanding; building a 1/350 resin battleship would be quite a project for an experienced modeler. A good reference source for what's available is the Steel Navy website: www.steelnavy.com .

There are quite a few good reference books on American battleships of the period. A good start would be the second volume of Squadron's U.S. Battleships In Action. It contains lots of well-chosen photographs, and covers such things as color schemes in pretty good detail. For a more in-depth discussion of the class's design, the best is probably Norman Friedman's U.S. Battleships: A Design History.

For a good, brief history of the ship, and a selection of relevant books, try her own website: www.battleshipcove.org .

Hope this helps a little. Good luck.

I seem to recall that the South Dakota only had 8- 5" turrets instead of the usual 10 to provide more accommodation room for flag staff. She was supposed to act as a flagship although I believe this was seldom the case.

Tiger_Queen
Here is a link to her home port http://www.battleshipcove.org/orderform.html
Not much to chose from but it might help.

Jim

Mako88sb is right about the missing 5" gun mounts of the South Dakota. If I'm not mistaken, though, the Hasegawa kit has the parts for the mounts in it and instructs the modeler to leave them off. The Hasegawa South Dakota and Alabama kits seem to be pretty scarce at the moment. If I were trying to build a Massachusetts and I found either of those two kits in a hobby shop, I'd snap it up.

The site runkel mentioned is the same one I did - but my link, due to the ineptitude of my stupid fingers, had a typo in it that rendered it useless. Sorrry about that; I've fixed it.

Good luck.

Tiger_Queen

I found this on ebay, Alambama, Massachusetts and Blucher $9.99 and no bids with 11 hrs to go. All Revell 1/720.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5972380756&rd=1&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&rd=1

QUOTE: Originally posted by Tiger_Queen Does anybody know where I can get a model and book on this ship, STAT.[

Well, what scale do you want to build it and how much to do want to spend??

Pacific Front Hobbies (www.pacificfront.com) has the 1/700 Hasegawa Alabama (sister to the Mamie) listed in their on-line catalog for $16.00. The South Dakota has only 8 5 inch gun turrets - she was configured differently to be a flagship, so the mounts weren't just left off, the layout is different. You can dress this up with resin turrets and brass gun barrels from Clipper Models (available from Hobby Link Japan at www.hlj.com) and photo-etch from Gold Medal Models.

Trident lists the kit as "sold out". I've seen it in my local (NJ/USA) hobby store, so they are still available.

I'd stay away from the Revell kit - it's toy like. Unless you want to upgrade it like someone did recently in FSM.

If you want to do 1/350 scale, the only game currently is the Yankee ModelWorks (www.yankeemodelworks.com) resin kit. I have the YMW SoDak - they are beautifully cast kits, but they cost almost $400. I think John just lowered the prices on these, however. Pacific Front and Trident should have these available, or you can order directly from YMW.

For reference material, Oxford Museum Press (http://www.oxfordmuseumpress.com/) just came out with a nice book on the Massachussets - it runs about $15.00 to $20.00, depending on where you find it. Your local retailer should be able to get it for you, if you can't find it on-line.

What is the mid-war US battleship that Trumpeter will be releasing soon in 1/350th? Sorry, don't recall which it is.

The North Carolina. Sounds like it's trumpeters best ship kit to date. I wonder if they are contemplating the South Dakota class in the future?

I have built the Tamiya 1/700 Battleship Alabama and it is a very good kit. The only change I would recomend is getting aftermarket 20mm Okorilons (sp). The parts fit together well and it looks good when its finished. The Revell 1/720 kit does not look near as good and requires aftermarket parts to look good.

QUOTE: Originally posted by mako88sb The North Carolina. Sounds like it's trumpeters best ship kit to date. I wonder if they are contemplating the South Dakota class in the future?

Rumor has it they are going to do both a SoDak and an Alabama

Anyone know which issue of FSM has the Revell Massachusetts update article?  I have the old kit in 1/720, and after tracking down the paints, I'm almost ready to start this.  If I had the issue date, I could really get to it.

Thanks!

Here's what I did. You'll love this one, please read through

 

I bought Dragon's 1/700 Pennsylvania 1944 kit. It has 640 parts in it. Dragon's approach to this kit was load it full of parts mixed from thier Arizona kit, as well as Boo-Koos from 1/700 Essex class carrier kits. End result- about 400 of those parts wont be used to complete the Pennsy.

 

I bought Hasegawa's 1/700 South Dakota kit, and sudied the secondary armament, and radar arrays as well. I counted the 20mm that would be required for both the Pennsylvania and South Dakota. As wee all know, Hasegawa's 20s are a little less than perfect, so they need replaced.

 

Dragon's Pensylvania kit has much better representations of them, as well as 40mm Bofors.  BUNCHES OF THEM! In fact I counted enough included in the kit to cover BOTH the Pennsylvania AND the South Dakota with 3 of the 20s left over. Dragon's Pennsylvania also has 8 5" 38cal turrets included, but only enough barrels for 4 of them. No big deal. Barrels are easy, so I just used the SD's barrels. Had to shorten them a bit though. Hasegawa's kit barrels are too long.

Dragon's Pennsy kit has 4 complete sets of radar antennas in plastic, so I was able to use some to get her a better SK too. I also upgraded the radar suite on my old Hasagawa Yorktown CV-10 kit as well during a minor resto.

 

And Dragon's Pennsy is the kit that just keeps on giving. It includes quite a few of the Arizona kit's parts that wont be used in building the 1944 Pennsy, so I was able to pull yet more parts from the extras to let me build a better Hobby Boss 1/700 Arizona. all the 5 inchers, foremast yardarms, boats, and a couple of others.

 

Best of all, I did not use one single part needed to Complete Pennsylvania!!

 

Thanks for listening. Oh, I mean you can wake up now.

Ah....in 1/350 Trumpeter has released a Massachusetts. It is in immediate post war rig but they also do the Alabama so maybe that would make a better kit for the war fit.

Trumpeter's website now shows a 1/700 South Dakota:  http://www.trumpeter-china.com/war513/products/en_list.asp?classid=21&Nclassid=46 .  It's listed in the "warships" section of the site - not as a "new release."  (Quite a few of the kits that are listed as "new releases" are already on the market.) 

Trumpeter is notorious for inconsistency in its release schedule; heaven only knows when this 1/700 South Dakota will actually be available.  Or when (or if) it will be followed by an Indiana, Massachusetts, and/or Alabama.  But my strong suspicion is that it will be a great deal more sophisticated than either the Revell or Hasegawa version. 

If it does appear, all the last-generation American battleships will be covered by good, up-to-date, 1/700 styrene kits.  The new Tamiya Iowa-class kits are superb, and I was delighted to find out that the Trumpeter 1/700 North Carolina and Washington are just about as good.  The NC is, I think, going to be my next model.  (Just about every ship modeler in my neck of the woods feel like he/she has to build a model of that great ship eventually.  Hint:  if you want to represent her in late war configuration, buy the Trumpeter North Carolina kit.  If you want to represent the NC early in the war, you'll save yourself a lot of trouble if you start with the Washington kit.)

Here are two books on the USS MASSACHUSETTS that I have, probably available from Amazon or the BB-59 website. The Shoker Technical Reference #2 has many black and white pictures of the ship whereas the Turner book is more concerned with the crew's experiences aboard. I would reccomend both.