Battle of the Coral Sea Group Build 4 May, 2017 - 8 May, 2018

I know Enterprise had a mix of .50's, 1.1's and 20's for awhile before the .50's and 1.1's were replaced by more 20's and 40's after Midway and other refit/repair time during the Solomons.

Would stand to reason that Lady Lex would have pretty much the same fit.  And her 8 inchers were gone by then (removed in March at pearl).  According to Wiki, she mounted 12 5", 12 quad 1.1's, 22 20's, and at least 24 .50's at Coral Sea.

50 cals?

checkmateking02

To my knowledge, no one makes decals for painted bow waves, and I think it might be a little trying to do them up by hand some way.

Coming along nicely, Scott.  Are the 20mm's also multiple part assemblies?  I can see how that could be pretty fiddly.

 

Yup, two part assemblies, and the barrell assembly seemed too wide to fit into the platform, so each one had to be trimmed, test fitted, trimmed some more, and glued.    

To my knowledge, no one makes decals for painted bow waves, and I think it might be a little trying to do them up by hand some way.

Coming along nicely, Scott.  Are the 20mm's also multiple part assemblies?  I can see how that could be pretty fiddly.

I got a lot done last night.  The hangers and flight deck are installed.  I spent some time assembling all the 28mm and 5" guns.  Those were pesky little buggers to build in 1/700. The Akagi flight deck makes a great staging platform for all those guns. 

Thanks for the replies about the bow wave, I realy did not want to try to paint that.

GM, its coming along really nice.  I envy you working on 1/350.

That is really big, GM--and looking good!  Nice paintwork!

Sorry to include the rest of my life in these pic's, but it takes up the whole room.

GMorrison

One picture on Navsource dated 10/41 shows bow wave which would be M1/5. Next according to S and S she was M12, I would assume after 12/41. Then she was M21, from early April 42. Amazing to me that we would repaint a 900 foot long ship twice in six months.

That is looking really swell. I'll post some pictures, not quite that far along.

One picture on Navsource dated 10/41 shows bow wave which would be M1/5. Next according to S and S she was M12, I would assume after 12/41. Then she was M21, from early April 42. Amazing to me that we would repaint a 900 foot long ship twice in six months.

That is looking really swell. I'll post some pictures, not quite that far along.

Nice work, Scott.  Coming along very well!

I'd have to look it up, to see when they were and weren't there--but the bow waves were gone by the time of Coral Sea.  

Photo of the Lex here doesn't show any.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/020202.jpg

I had a good paint session this weekend.  I like how the colors turned out. I do have a question, there are photos showing a painted wave on the bow, was this actually on the ship?  And was it on at Coral Sea?

That is a big 'un, GM.  Looks sharp with the hull red painted.  Nice work!

USS Lexington, CV-2.

I've had a good shot at modeling time this weekend. I glued the top and bottom hull halves together and worked the seam just a little.

I removed the stabilizer fins from the hull, which were a single crude blob on each side. I replaced them with styrene strip in about as accurate  a pattern as I could working from a single side view drawing, and some knowledge of the usual design of those things.

I've roughly masked and painted the anti-fouling, allowing for a little overlap at the waterline.

This is probably the biggest ship I've modeled, at 1/350 it's a monster.

I am looking forward to start painting the Measure 21 soon.

Got some time on the workbench this weekend.  All the subassemblies are done. I put a coat of white primer to check for imperfections and gave the flightdeck a base coat of mahogony.

Thanks, stik!  A reference I put in "favorites."

I notice the center divebrakes were not painted red, something I'd read--but hadn't seen.

If ya need a good reference on an early War SBD, look at the Naval Aviation Museum's SBD-2, a veteran of Pearl Harbor, the Lae Salamaua raid, and Midway.

here is here history per the museum:

 "Rolling off the Douglas Aircraft Company assembly line in El Segundo, California, in December 1940, SBD-2 Dauntless (BuNo 2106) was delivered to bombing squadron VB-2 at Naval Air Station (NAS) San Diego, California, on the last day of 1940. On 10 March 1942, flown by Lt(jg) Mark T. Whittier with AR2C Forest G. Stanley as his gunner, the aircraft joined 103 other planes from USS Lexington (CV-2) and USS Yorktown (CV-5) in a raid against Japanese shipping at Lae and Salamaua in New Guinea. It was then transferred to Marine scout bombing squadron VMSB-241 on Midway Atoll, arriving there with eighteen other SBD-2s on 26 May 1942, on board the aircraft transport USS Kitty Hawk (APV-1). On the morning of 4 June 1942, with 1st Lt Daniel Iverson as pilot and PF1c Wallace Reid as rear gunner, the aircraft was one of sixteen SBD-2s of VMSB-241 launched to attack Japanese aircraft carriers to the west of Midway. After unsuccessfully attacking the carrier Hiryu, enemy fire holed the plane 219 times. It was one of only eight SBD-2s of VMSB-241 to return from the attack against the Japanese fleet. Returned to the US, it was repaired and eventually assigned to the Carrier Qualification Training Unit (CQTU) at NAS Glenview, Illinois. On the morning of 11 June 1943 Marine 2nd Lt Donald A. Douglas Jr. ditched the aircraft in the waters of Lake Michigan during an errant approach to the training carrier USS Sable (IX-81). Recovered in 1994, the aircraft underwent extensive restoration at the museum before being placed on public display in 2001. Elements of its original paint scheme when delivered to the fleet are still visible on its wings and tail surfaces."

and a link to the museum's webpage which has a virtual tour of the rstored cockpit- superb reference 

http://www.navalaviationmuseum.org/attractions/aircraft-exhibits/item/?item=sbd-2_dauntless

Your welcome Bob. Just an educated guess, but I would surmise that shoulder harnesses were added in the production line after feedback from pilots at war who had ditched and requested such an addition to reduce injuries. Midway saw numerous ditchings due to fuel exhaustion, certainly far more than had occurred in pre combat flight ops over a given period. 

Thanks Stik-based on the photos you posted, I have to agree with you.

Again, thanks

A better shot from the same photo essay

I would say no shoulder harness, lap belts only. Shoulder harnesses were not added until later in the SBD production. I found this photo of a SBD at Midway dated November 1942, and no shoulder harness is visible.

Checkmate & Modelcrazy-thanks for your input.  I did find a Coral Sea SBD-3 build on Cyberhobby and the Accurate Miniatures kit had the shoulder harness-I was wrong on my original question.  Found a couple of other resources that I'll look thru later but I'm leaning on going with the shoulder harness and ordering the Ultracast seats.

Hoping to get started on both the SBD & Wildcat for Midway in June after some work/home projects are complete-however, I always enjoy seeing everyone's builds and hopefully learning from them.

It's hard to find pictures of a Dauntless cockpit in action but any picture of one in a museum or present will most likely have them.
I found this picture which may answer the question if you zoom in on the pilot.

I can't answer definitively, maybe someone else can.

But as a general principle, if the information is conflicting, you can probably go either way.  If you can find a photo of a specific example--with or without--you could go from there.

Been following along-some nice builds going on-especially like the Kate-very nice work Steve.

Question for the group-did the SBD-3's have lap belts only or lap & shoulder belts?  The Accurate Miniature instructios call for lap only but I'm finding conflicting information in my searches.

Tbanks

Looking good Scott.