Battleship Row in 1/350

Why I like the Forums- promotes mental exercise. I put up "the" aerial photo on my screen and set a scale based on a listed length of USS Arizona at 608 feet (wiki). Ignoring waterline vs. deck, this set the length of the line from the stern of USS Nevada to the stem of USS Maryland at about 2850 feet, ignoring USS Neosho beyond. The ships look to be less than 100' apart which really surprised me.

So 2850 feet at 1/350 is a little over 8 feet. The overall beam of two BBs moored side by side is a little over 200 feet, it would appear.

So your whole base, allowing for space around it, without USS Neosho, could be 10' x 2' I'd think. Like a decent little portable model railroad.

Ford Island looks to be about 300 feet to the west, on average, but a promontory comes out quite close to the bow of USS Tennesee.

Bill

ps1scw wrote:

Anyone ever attempt such a thing?  It would be awesome to see.

Aside from the model railroad size display area the biggest problem will be in finding all the ships in 1/350. Arizona is of course available in plastic but everything else will have to be in resin, not all of which is still in production. Yankee Modelworks can provide the Californias and Colorado class ships, with the modeler making the appropriate modifications but the Oklahoma/Nevada is going to be a bigger problem. I am assuming that you are not interested in Pennsylvania as it would not fit into the confines of the proposal. Commanders Iron Shipwright still lists as available both Oklahoma and Nevada in 1941 fit @ $325 each. Pennsylvania (if interested) is listed as OOP with the possibility of some still in stock. Free Time Hobbies lists the YMW California/Tennessee @$326 each and the West Virginia/Maryland class @ $319 (at least for W. Virginia, you will have to modify one for the Maryland).

You will need deep pockets to whip up this project! WS

bondoman wrote:

The ships look to be less than 100' apart which really surprised me.

Well, you need some room to go ahead and to go astern to "spring" out of a close mooring like that, even with tugs available.

Given that the lock dimension in Panama is 110', and BBs tended to be narrower than that, the spacing could be 120-130'--at least to my eye.

A person could probably get away with foreshortening the dio to only eight feet for 1/350, but it would be a squeeze.

The mind bender for me on the concept is the sheer number of yard craft an 8' dio would want (and just how many pots of acrylic gel medium . . . <g>)

Expensive, Large, but Beautiful, seeing the colored turrets next to one another would be wonderful.

Since you bring it up, and not to hijack the thread, but what were the colors? Arizona was red, correct?

To paraphrase ADM Kimmel's Fleet Order 1 USL-41 dated March 24, 1941, with amplifying items from others including Bob Hennemans PH Order of Battle site ...

1)  housekeeping ...

2)  Battleships and cruisers shall paint the tops of their forward turrets with the following colors for identification by their own aircraft.   When stripes are involved they shall be parallel to the axis of the guns

BATDIV1 - Red (solid)  [Nevada, Pennsylvania, Arizona]

BATDIV2 - White (solid) [Oklahoma, Tennessee, California]

BATDIV3 - Blue (solid) [N/A]

BATDIV4 - Black (solid) [Maryland, West Virginia]

BATDIV5 - Yellow (solid) [N/A]

CRUDIV2 - Yellow (double stripe)

CRUDIV3 - Red (double stripe)

CRUDIV4 - Blue (single stripe)

CRUDIV5 - Yellow (single stripe)

CRUDIV6 - Black (single stripe) [New Orleans, SanFrancisco]

CRUDIV7 - Green (single stripe)

CRUDIV8 - Black (single stripe)

CRUDIV9 - Green (double stripe) [Phoenix, Brooklyn, StLouis, Helena]

Detroit/Raleigh -- Blue (double stripe) [Raleigh was flagship of DESFLOT1, Detroit was flagship of DESFLOT2]

Richmond -- Red (double stripe)

Augusta/Omaha -- Red (single stripe)

3)  Battleships and cruisers shall paint the top of the after{most} turret to correspond with the section color of their embarked aircraft.  The colors are red, white, blue, black, green, and yellow for the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth sections.

 

Arizona was RED/RED/RED

 

Even better graphic from Tracy White - Researcher at Large website

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/S19-7/PearlHarborBatDivMarkings.html

 

Great info, thank you. 

You say that Adm Kimmel issued the order, were all the battleships listed on the link you provided due to homeport in Pearl or were they West Coast ships?

The ships I listed were present at Pearl on Dec 7.  Their division assignments were from the Bob Henneman Order of Battle site.   

There were others assigned to the divisions.   As noted in Tracy White's page, the Colorado was in BATDIV4 along with her class-mates Maryland and West Virginia.   However the Colorado was on the West Coast (Bremerton?) at the time.

Fabulous, thanks for taking the time. I'll file that away for a future project.

CapnMac82 wrote:

bondoman wrote: The ships look to be less than 100' apart which really surprised me. Well, you need some room to go ahead and to go astern to "spring" out of a close mooring like that, even with tugs available. Given that the lock dimension in Panama is 110', and BBs tended to be narrower than that, the spacing could be 120-130'--at least to my eye. A person could probably get away with foreshortening the dio to only eight feet for 1/350, but it would be a squeeze. The mind bender for me on the concept is the sheer number of yard craft an 8' dio would want (and just how many pots of acrylic gel medium . . . <g>)

Few U.S. BBs, including Iowa Class, exeeded 108' across the beam, because of the Canal locks you mentioned.  Apparently Tennessee and California were both modernized on the west coast and never had to traverse the Panama Canal after modernization.  They would have had to go around the horn, like modern carriers. 

Ship____________Overall Length____Extreme Beam

 

Nevada.......................583'...................95' 3"
Arizona.......................608'.................106' 2 ¾" (after modernization)
West Virginia................624'..................97' 6"
Tennessee...................624' 6".............114' (after modernization)
Oklahoma....................583'...................95' 3"
Maryland.....................624'..................108' (after modernization)
California.....................624' 6"..............114' (after modernization)
Pennsylvania*..............608'..................100'

Vestal†......................465' 9"................60' 1"

* In dry dock

† Repair ship alongside Arizona

I don't know why these italics won't turn off.

Source: American Battleships by Max R. Lerner, Pictorial Histories Publishing Co.

ISBN 1-57510-004-5

Seems more doable with the 700 scale.

I think you would have all of the options for that scale plus a smaller footprint.

Just a thought.

Mike

 

Plus I believe it's been discussed that the USS Vestal is available in that scale, which you are presumably going to want to include. Edit: I'm mistaken- it's 1/350. Sorry about that.

I'm about to start my second ship, which is another Revell 1/400 mostly OOB. The last one took me a couple of months off and on, so a project of this scale staggers me, but I say go for it. Take it one ship at a time though rather than buy all the stuff ahead, and if you get tired of it at some point you'll still have some nice models.

http://steelnavy.com/FordIslandRS.htm

bondoman wrote:

Plus I believe it's been discussed that the USS Vestal is available in that scale, which you are presumably going to want to include. Edit: I'm mistaken- it's 1/350. Sorry about that.

A Vestal is available in 1:700 scale -- from Corsair Armada

CA also makes a Hoga tug and Vireo AM in 1:700 scale.  Both were present at Pearl.

mikepowers wrote:

Seems more doable with the 700 scale. I think you would have all of the options for that scale plus a smaller footprint. Just a thought. Mike

1/700 would be more cheaply done but not really cheap. In plastic the only ship available is once again Arizona. Everything else is in resin and hard to find. The Maryland, West Virginia, California and Tennessee were all produced by HiMold, a Japanese resin maker. As I understand it they are currently unavailble except on places like eBay where I have seen them sell between $128-200 each. Nevada and Oklahoma in the 1941 configuration are still cataloged from H-P Models at about $130 each. As far as I know a 1941 Pennsylvania does not currently exist in 1/700. Midship models has purchased and is re-tooling the old Classic Warships kits but they are not on the market at this time. So, if you wanted a Pennsylvania you would have to modify an Arizona. Now if you really want to cover all the bases you could try to modify the new Niko Florida into the 1941 Utah, a truyl Herculean task not for the faint of heart or thin of wallet. WS

bondoman wrote:

Tennesee's white turret tops really stand out.

Actually the Arizona can be made into several ships of the same class most of which were at Pearl. Some of the others had 5 turrets like the Texas

Mikeym, arizona & pennsylvania where the only 2 ships of the pennsylvania class. the preceeding nevada class of 2 ships were somewhat similar to pennsylvania class. all bb's at pearl harbor had 4 turrets

Mikeym_us wrote:

Actually the Arizona can be made into several ships of the same class most of which were at Pearl. Some of the others had 5 turrets like the Texas

With a good set of plans and some patience you could create a Pennsylvania, but not anything else at Pearl Harbor. To say that you can is like saying you could convert a Mini Cooper into a Cadillac because they are both cars. Sure you could, but at what cost in time and materials? WS

Different Classes 

Nevada and Oklahoma - 10 main guns

Pennsylvania and Arizona - 12 main guns

Tennessee and California - 12 main guns

Maryland and W.Virginia (at Pearl) Colorado and Washington - 8 main guns. 

ps1scw wrote:

Different Classes  Nevada and Oklahoma - 10 main guns Pennsylvania and Arizona - 12 main guns Tennessee and California - 12 main guns Maryland and W.Virginia (at Pearl) Colorado and Washington - 8 main guns.

Then that actually means Nevada and Oklahoma both had 5 2 gun turrets seeing as I don't know how you would get 10 guns into 4 turrets unless it was 2 3 gun turrets and 2 2gun turrets ?

 

 The Nevada class had their main battery arranged in turrets of 3 and 2.  

 

now what did it look like pre refit. The hull looks similar to the pennsylvania class. And the 2 gun turrets look somewhat similar to those on the Bismark/Tirpiz.

Mikeym_us wrote:

now what did it look like pre refit. The hull looks similar to the pennsylvania class. And the 2 gun turrets look somewhat similar to those on the Bismark/Tirpiz.

The US Battleships that survived the Washington Naval Arms conference and built before the more modern North Carolinas, South Dakotas and Iowas all underwent massive refits between the wars and during the Second World War as well. The appearance of the Pennsylvania class for instance by the 1930s was radically different than it was as built during WW1. The surviving Pennsylvania underwent another transformation after Pearl Harbor. During these rebuilds just about everything on the ships changed except the main battery. Hull shape, superstructure, armament, electronics, etc. etc. This is in addition to the initial differences in each class of ship as built. While you can say that generally the hull shape of Arizona & Pennsylvania is similar to the Nevada & Oklahoma they are certainly not the same. As laid down the Pennsylvania class ships were 608' long, 97' wide and displaced 31,400 tons. The Nevadas were 583' feet long, 93' wide and displaced 27,500 tons. The Pennsylvanias could be characterized as improved Nevadas, but that would be about as far as I would take it.

As to what each of these ships looked like "pre refit" you would have to be more specific as to the time period. The two classes above when launched in 1914-15 would have had a radically different superstructure than when rebuilt in the early 1930s. In addition they had torpedo bulges added to the hull and changes to the casemated guns, etc. There were additional minor modifications in 1940. The four ships in question went from cage masts to tripod masts, all "similar" in appearance. The Pearl Harbor survivors underwent another radical tranformation during WW2 losing their tripod mainmasts and gaining much more compact superstructures and totally different secondary batteries.

As to the two gun turrets looking similar to Bismarck & Tirpitz, the only resemblance is that they have two guns in each gunhouse. Nothing else about them is similar except as to the general shape ( being somewhat oblong with two pointed things sticking out of one end). WS

I'm amazed this thread has long legs, but that's cool, and since I'm no qualified ship modeler I'll keep my thoughts brief.

The original question was whether or not mass produced, i.e. plastic models could be used to recreate Battleship row. The reasonable answer is no. In resin at a smaller scale, yes and it's been done- see steelnavy.

Now, if a group of modelers took on the task at a larger scale, it certainly is well within the possible. Arizona is available, and no doubt a bunch more of those kits would yield all kinds of useful bits and pieces like boats, cranes, lesser armament etc. for the other ships. Uh oh, I'm guessing!

But to commit to major kitbash a Tenessee, scratch build a Neosha or a Vestal etc. is a real job.

And as been pointed out; sea mules, tugs, barges, mooring points, torpedo nets.

Dioramas are a geometric exercise, in that the complexity increases at least as a cube of the dimensions. I once built a representation of part of the German battle line at Jutland using 1:1200 or 1:1250 ships, and it took me quite a while. And that was just the ships; my carpet was the North Sea. Such a project as BB row at a large scale would be a good project for a club over a considerable amount of time, with a well managed and spent budget.

(see model railroads)

 

ps1scw wrote:

You say that Adm Kimmel issued the order, were all the battleships listed on the link you provided due to homeport in Pearl or were they West Coast ships?

BatDiv 5 was an East Coast division. You'll note too, that the ships assigned to it were older and less armed or armored.

 

Bondoman:

No sea mules, no anti-torpedo nets. Quays, Barges, tugs and yard craft, maybe Ford Island's ferry, yes, if you want, but other than it pretty much everything else is already produced for you. BattleFleet Models produces YG-17 and some barges in 350th.

Tracy White wrote:

ps1scw wrote: You say that Adm Kimmel issued the order, were all the battleships listed on the link you provided due to homeport in Pearl or were they West Coast ships? BatDiv 5 was an East Coast division. You'll note too, that the ships assigned to it were older and less armed or armored.   Bondoman: No sea mules, no anti-torpedo nets. Quays, Barges, tugs and yard craft, maybe Ford Island's ferry, yes, if you want, but other than it pretty much everything else is already produced for you. BattleFleet Models produces YG-17 and some barges in 350th.

If BatDiv 5 is east coast they probably were not bound by this order then I would assume.

Dreadnought52 wrote:

mikepowers wrote: Seems more doable with the 700 scale. I think you would have all of the options for that scale plus a smaller footprint. Just a thought. Mike   1/700 would be more cheaply done but not really cheap. In plastic the only ship available is once again Arizona. Everything else is in resin and hard to find. The Maryland, West Virginia, California and Tennessee were all produced by HiMold, a Japanese resin maker. As I understand it they are currently unavailble except on places like eBay where I have seen them sell between $128-200 each. Nevada and Oklahoma in the 1941 configuration are still cataloged from H-P Models at about $130 each. As far as I know a 1941 Pennsylvania does not currently exist in 1/700. Midship models has purchased and is re-tooling the old Classic Warships kits but they are not on the market at this time. So, if you wanted a Pennsylvania you would have to modify an Arizona. Now if you really want to cover all the bases you could try to modify the new Niko Florida into the 1941 Utah, a truyl Herculean task not for the faint of heart or thin of wallet. WS

Who is H-P models, have a link?

Battleship row would be quite a task, but I saw that there is a 1/700 Hoga and Nevada which could be used for a diorama of the Nevada's grounding. I've never tried a resin ship kit but can't imagine a 1/700 resin battleship could be much more difficult than resin aircraft or cars.

If you are interested in obtaining H-P Models in the US they are available from Pacific Front Hobbies in Roseburg Oregon. Go to www.Pacificfront.com. They have a huge selection of ship models and they are very knowledgable in the hobby. H-P is also available directly from their site in Germany or from NNT Models in Germany. Before buying you may wish to consult the reviews of the ships you are thinking of from the model review sections on SteelNavy.com, Modelwarships.com or the Rajens Kit list on line. WS

ps1scw wrote:

If BatDiv 5 is east coast they probably were not bound by this order then I would assume.

Unsafe assumption. The order might not have originated with Kimmel; he may have been passing on a CNO or BuShips order and included east coast ships and divs for reference of officers and ships that might operate with them if they came over or there was an excercise in the Panama Canal Zone.