The Ship Model Forum

Abram,

Here's my 1/200 scale 3D version of the mast PRE-1942 based on my drawings that you mentioned and photos from the early 1940's (pre-war) as well as the drawings of BB-38 that I scanned at NARA (1935-yard drawings) -
[attachment=2]1-200 scale Main Mast Assy.JPG[/attachment]
[attachment=1]1-200 scale Main Mast Assy_2.JPG[/attachment]
[attachment=0]1-200 scale Main Mast Assy_3.JPG[/attachment]
I'm not sure that I'll actually build this kit (I've had it for sale with all the additional vendor parts) but did the mast design as something to do over the last week or so. I may try printing it as a complete assembly, but also created the individual platforms & legs as individual parts. It's as yet incomplete - I've got to do the fwd. leg ladders and they will be separate parts that would be added to the assembly after printing/painting. Perhaps at 1/96 scale, this might make an interesting display model, but with the rangefinder house, pole mast/yards/rigging, etc. As I mentioned earlier, I may end up having to design the searchlights and rangefinder, as well. The originals were all part of the mast assembly that was lost in our move. I haven't checked to see what I've got on hand, perhaps spares are in the big box... :huh:

This could be modified in your case by the addition of the searchlight extensions and various other modifications as needed. It is an interesting side-project as working with angled pieces always provides a problem with location & fit of adjacent pieces.

Hank

if not mounting ladders on the sides of the mast legs then use plastic rods or metal tubes for the legs but if having ladders on the legs & not pe then 3d print them.

I was able to get some more work done on designing the platforms. I know it's not 100% accurate (due to no drawings of the exact time period and my lack of skills in 3d designing), but they look pretty close. I'm not sure I'll try printing it as a solid piece in 1/200 scale, but it might work for my 1/700 build as a full piece. I need to see if the platforms will print individually before anything else, though.

[attachment=2]PXL_20240918_144458103.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=1]PXL_20240918_144517684.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]PXL_20240918_144530071.jpg[/attachment]

Jeff, thanks for your input! I keep forgetting I have that book! One of these days I should take an inventory of my books and make a spreadsheet I can reference.

I'll continue working on my platform with extensions as that photo is pretty definitive. Other interesting things of note I noticed right away in the photo: a kingfisher float stored on top of the turret by the catapult, a decent view of the projector booth at the back of the boat deck, and she still has the range clocks fitted. I'll need to thumb through my copy of the book again!

Hi Abram!
In the 1940 film "Meet the Fleet", she did not have the extensions yet.
[url=https://postimg.cc/zVK5SCf2][img]https://i.postimg.cc/02HQvZ1v/Screen-Shot-2024-09-15-at-6-27-29-PM.png[/img][/url]

However, in this August 11, 1941 pic from the book "The Way It Was Pearl Harbor The Original Photographs", you can see the extensions were definitely there. So, I would have to assume that they were most likely added during the Puget Sound refit at the end of 1940.
[url=https://postimg.cc/p9XHH3J3][img]https://i.postimg.cc/KYtvn2kc/IMG-4716.jpg[/img][/url]

Jeff

Hank, thanks for commenting here. The drawings you made several years ago have been an excellent starting point. The post from Jeff on question is this one (hopefully I've linked it correctly): http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=75739&start=300#p934932

You can see in the first picture of her November 1940 refit it looks like they've started adding the searchlight extensions onto the platform. In talking to Steve we came to a consensus that it is the most logical time to have done that as the searchlights were much bigger and heavier than the machine guns they replaced and there would have really been no room to efficiently use the searchlights without the extensions. The picture Jeff posted is the only one I've seen that shows the platform after (during) the 1940 refit and before the 1942 refit, so I may be totally off base in saying the extensions are there, but, in my opinion, they would have been there from November 1940 onwards.

Abram,

Having read the current question at hand and the replies, I went back and looked at the drawings I had made back in 2018 for the main mast. It appears I missed the boat on this one!! :doh_1: - I didn't include any of the extensions you are referring to - I don't know how this happened unless I was under the influence of torpedo juice at the time!!! :lol_3:

Although I haven't gone any further on my BB-38 project, this might be an interesting mini-project to do in 3D just for the hell of it. I think your last reply with Jeff Sharp's illustrations should answer your question as to the correct configuration of the revised and rebuilt searchlight platform. It also could be that at that time I simply didn't "see" the difference in the platform configuration from the earlier one (your #115254 & 115313) to the later version (your #11534 & 115401). As far as the question of "when" this modification took place, I have nothing to document the date of construction.

I would go back now and only use the Mare Island photos from Feb 1942 as reference. As a side note, when we moved to our current residence in 2018, I somehow lost the small box that had the main & fore masts inside. So, these parts (I've since managed to obtain replacements for the raw kit parts) would need to be replaced in any case. Doing a 3D DSM mast project might be an interesting exercise for the Fall. And...doing this in 3D would certainly produce much higher level detail in the final product! :thumbs_up_1:

I'll be interested to see how yours proceeds now that you've basically determined the direction to take on this.

Hank

Edit to Clarify - OK, my design of the mast was for the ship [b][i]prior[/i][/b] to her 1942 rebuild at SFNYD - it took me a while to recollect the time frame my model was to show. So, my guess would be that the mast rebuild took place after PH occurred when the ship was back in the States, but the exact date(s) I can't say (sometime in early '42 obviously). I don't have any photos of PENNSY at PH to substantiate her main mast configuration one way or another. So, I didn't "miss the boat", I was simply on another scheduled Water Taxi!!! :big_grin:

Well, I started going backwards through the thread to find a post from Jeff Sharp so I could contact him since he seems to have a knack at finding obscure pictures and lo and behold he had already posted a picture of exactly what I was asking about. I'm not sure how I missed it.

The answer to my question is, yes, they did build the extensions onto the platform at the same time they moved the searchlights. I've started designing the platform for my future build(s) of the Pennsylvania with help of documents and pictures on the forum or sent to me from Hank, Steve, and Jeff. Is it going to be 100% accurate? Most likely not since there aren't any plans I've found of the platform with extensions, but close enough will be good enough for my build(s)

[attachment=1]PXL_20240910_213150793.jpg[/attachment]

[attachment=0]PXL_20240910_212523485.jpg[/attachment]

look at the time period & what is shown there as that is Feb 1942 with search lights in those locations & still there in March as per these links.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013839a.jpg
http://navsource.org/archives/01/038/013803i.jpg

I apologize if this has been discussed already, I looked through the whole thread and don't remember seeing the answer. I had a question about the searchlight platform on Pennsylvania's main mast. I know before the search lights were moved there it was a machine gun platform and looked thusly:
[attachment=3]Screenshot 2024-09-08 115254.png[/attachment]
[attachment=2]Screenshot 2024-09-08 115313.png[/attachment]

When the search lights were moved, did they build the circular extensions onto the platforms that are evident in her 1942 Mare Island refit pictures, or were those added during that refit? Seen here:
[attachment=1]Screenshot 2024-09-08 115334.png[/attachment]
[attachment=0]Screenshot 2024-09-08 115401.png[/attachment]

In those pictures you can see the original shape of the platform, and the obvious extensions around the search lights. As asked above, were those extensions added at the same time as the 20mm mounts, or would they have been there from the time the search lights were moved? I hope I'm making sense here, basically I'm trying to determine how the platform would have looked towards the end of 1941. Again I apologize if this was discussed already and I missed it in my re-read of the thread.

Guy who lived across the street when I was a kid served on the "Pensatucky" during the war. Of course the veterans never talked about it then, too soon.

It helped as I've seen the platform for the loaders which seems to be the same as the mark 19 mounting. Thanks!

Did other ships used this shielded 5"/25 mounting?

Tzoli - Here are croppings of several photos in the same series as your above posted photo - all showing the 5"/25 mount shields as of 1942 -
[attachment=2]1020-42 Blow up.JPG[/attachment]

[attachment=1]1028-42 Blow up.JPG[/attachment]

[attachment=0]1124-42 Blow up.JPG[/attachment]

All are stbd side mounts.

Hope this helps,

Does anybody have different views or models or even drawings of the 5"/25 Mark 10 guns Shielded mountings which was used on the Pennsylvania and likely other warships in around 1942?

[img]https://www.history.navy.mil/content/history/nhhc/our-collections/photography/numerical-list-of-images/nhhc-series/nh-series/19-N-28000/19-N-28413/_jcr_content/mediaitem/image.img.jpg/1459904168582.jpg[/img]

These mounting looks very similar to that of the IJN's 12cm/45 Type 10 single shielded mountings
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNJAP_47-45_10ns.php

Wow, no wonder it didn't match the square on the line drawing, it was practice loaders! Ugh.... thanks so much!

The "loading machines" under tarps are just a pair of 5" practice loaders mounted side by side, spaced as the real weapons would be inside a 5"/38 Mk.32 twin-gun mount. On many ships, an outline of the mount was painted on the deck in white. The photo below shows a single practice loader as it appears on museum ship USS [i]Kidd[/i] DD-661.

[attachment=0]661kidd 11.jpg[/attachment]

The radar equipment under the tarp is a Mk.57 director. In the photo of the USS [i]Missouri[/i] builder's model below, a Mk.57 director is circled in red. See also: http://shipbucket.com/wiki/index.php/Mk_57_GFCS

Here's a training film for the Mk.57 showing it in detail and in operation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_HUZSk8c2c

Hope this helps.

Hey folks,
Missing a couple of details on my Pennsy '45. Wondering if anyone has images of the kind of equipment circled? Can *sort of* make out some of it on the photographs but not enough to scratch build with confidence.

[img]https://i.imgur.com/RAdtlb3.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/Vw7WZvG.jpg[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/5D2Ib11.jpg[/img]

Timmy, believe it or not, but this is one of the original transparencies that I scanned at NARA and then provided to the Photographic Collections Branch staff. NARA staff has been posting some of them online, but NOT using my notes ID'ing ships in the view and in some cases correcting dates. Some of the original captions are way off for the original transparencies. NARA has been assigning new ID numbers to these images, rather than using the original 80-GK image numbers. It makes it a pain to search for them and when you have a listing of all the 80-GK images, they aren't in order. This image is 80-GK-1026, a 5x7-in transparency.

The aircraft transport, is USS KITTY HAWK (AVP-1). Based on movements of the ships in the photo, where USS NEW MEXICO and her sisters arrived at San Francisco on 31 January 1942, this photo was likely taken after 25 February 1942 when USS KITTY HAWK arrived at San Francisco from Pearl Harbor and could have been taken in March. From USS PENNSYLVANIA's Deck Logs, she was in dry dock at Hunters Point 1-12 January 1942 and moored portside at Pier 7 during the balance of January and into February 1942. This is my crop of this image I posted sometime ago;

[url=https://app.photobucket.com/u/TincanREDavis/a/0ce50924-0031-45f3-8823-66214c56ffd8/p/3ede137f-25f5-4998-a0ff-a9e4df22b231][img]https://hosting.photobucket.com/albums/p303/TincanREDavis/TincanREDavis001/.highres/z80GK-01026crop-SF-10Feb42_zpsluzpgcq4.jpg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds[/img][/url]

An amazing colour photo showing Pennsy (and New Mex) on the San Fran waterfront in February 1942, from NARA: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/178141068

(attached version is cropped from the original in the above link)

Yes, your guess is accurate.