The Ship Model Forum

Oh your Yorktown CV-5 plans are fine, FFG-7.... Dan Kaplan sent me those also as a large PDF file... Years ago, Dan supplied me with an amazing same-quality very high resolution image of Shokaku laid out in the four view plan... It was the best Shokaku drawing I've ever seen...

I'll make use of your Yorktown scans, thank you. They're amazing...

I also have the ole Squadron/Signals Publications "Essex Class Carriers" that it seems like (if memory serves me well) has the plain line drawings of the various CVs including the CV-5 Yorktown class... (Page 4 has what appears to be a small line drawing [too small a drawing] of Yorktown CV-5....is a possibility....more 1940 though....but we'll see.)

It's just that lately.....after visiting the Missing-Lynx forum....that the gentlemen on that website claim the old Squadron/Signals stuff is outdated and not very good.

And so that's why I bought the Enterprise book by David Doyle....to see if "new" is better...

I'll try and edit my thread's subject title soon... It grew from Japanese CVs to more vessels of different types, etc.

Thanks for your help, brother

Oh lastly..... Our Lexington/Saratoga image isn't that bad, but it could use the love also.... Wasp also.... but our image is fair to midland. I don't want this to be exhaustive, but I'll scrap to give these U.S. carriers the upgrade. Our Yorktown CV-5 class image is concerning, so I'll try and push this task along here soon...

what is the matter with the Yorktown plans I had linked earlier, are they to big for your purpose as can be used to represent all 3 ships of the class when being used as silhouette? also the plans I linked are free as I also have them saved on my computer plus another 300 of other US navy ships representing most of the classes during ww2 & upto the late 1990/2000's time period.
CV-2 USS Lexington Booklet of General Plans (1941) https://archive.org/details/cv2bogp1941

Okay FFG-7..... I found a Legends Of Warfare book (David Doyle) of the Big E for a reasonable price...off eBay... That'll be a start... The Ryuho is covered outside of hard research needed....that I will get to. Dan Kaplan gave me the excellent scan I needed of IJN Ryuho 1942. (Thanks brother Dan.) The Enterprise's line drawing may be way tougher to analyze with this artist's project...

Hi FFG-7.... I'll try to get around to all of that here as soon as I can. Did Tom Cundiff and myself even touch the CVL USS Robin? We got the CV Ranger FWIW.

My challenge right now will be locating good quality drawings of the three Yorktown CV-5 class vessels. I''ll try and locate the Lady Lex....that could serve for Saratoga... Can cover both hopefully. We wound up using the image silhouette of Lady Lex from a compilation of silhouette's that appear to be drawn by a petticoat officer....that did a pretty good job on the Lady Lex. Tom didn't like the Yorktown CV-5 by the same artist, but I'll trust his judgment there. The Enterprise can use a top grade drawing in this project anyway.

Thanks for your help. I'll see what I can do. A friend of mine, Hubert Cance, has done a few warships, and I can check out his offerings....relatively inexpensive too.

Thanks brother...

Oh Lastly.... It would be fun if I can spot a 1942 Yorktown CV-5 as the "Legends Of Warfare" Yorktown CV-5 book (by David Doyle) appear to backdate the carrier to 1940.....but that book's image could work...

~ Rod

the Doolittle Raid was in April 1942 consisting 2 American aircraft carriers, the Enterprise & the Hornet attacking the Japanese home islands. no Japanese aircraft carriers were encountered.
from a distance & without seeing their flightdeck markings, you would have a bit of trouble of telling which Yorktown class carrier is which ship as the Hornet was a repop Yorktown class as was quicker to build from existing plans then wait for the Essex class plans to be finished & the class started production.

Sure, Chieftain... I'll clarify... It is the smaller light carrier Ryuho.... She got attacked during the Doolittle Raid in February 1942.

She gets an upgrade after the damage from the B-25s that dropped bombs on her knocking her out of the war for all of 1942.

The lumbering Ryujo .....I've already covered her in this art project... Dan Kaplan helped me find great drawings and photos of Ryujo back in 2019 when I first began this artistic task...

It's an early war Ryuho that I need -- along with the CV-5 class Yorktown carriers. Dan has found me an image of a 1942 Ryuho that seems like a perfect fit... The ship looks a lot like Shoho. And that's what I need for the IJN... We pretty much captured the IJN carriers back in 2019, but the hard work to gather in research on the US carrier escorts, Independence class CVLs, and Essex class CVs kept me from getting to the pivotal Yorktown CV-5 class. And they may need all three done separately since the Hornet is much different than the other two.

My thread is still up on the "Japanese CVs of the Eastern Solomons along w/ Kaga & a B-24" thread. I'm trying to add the Yorktown CV-5 class, and the missing Ryuho...here some six years later... (I've had this in the back of my mind for some time now....on returning to this.)

Thanks brother...

Wait a second though, I think there's a misunderstanding here. From what I gathered you need line drawings of Ryujo, which FFG-7 has provided above. But you mentioned Ryuho. Just for the sake of clearance, because I sure misunderstood it in my previous reply, since there's no 'early war version' of Ryuho, there's two Japanese carriers with that name. One is Ryu-J-o, which is the one you're referring to, and was built in 1933. The other is Ryu-H-o, which was converted from the submarine tender Taigei in the 1940s. Confusing, I know, but it does make a huge difference. Disregard my previous message as I thought you were referring to the latter, Ryujo's not an escort carrier, small though she is. Ryuho is.

Hi the Chieftain, and FFG-7.....

I think I'm looking for a 1942 Yorktown.... The Chieftain....brother Dan Kaplan came to my rescue and has/or is providing me a solid scan of the 1942 Ryuho (pre Doolittle Raid when she gets damaged greatly) which is of her from her earlier years....very similar to your scan. She has one more antenna on Dan's copy from a Maru Special magazine.

FFG-7, I sure can use a clean line drawing of Yorktown CV-5, Enterprise CV-6, and perhaps even a CV-8 Hornet. Does David Doyle's Legends Of Warfare series of Yorktown CV-5, Enterprise, and CV-8 Hornet possess these drawings that I can use? It seems like the Yorktown is a 1940 drawing from what I can tell from some limited advertisement scans of the book off the web.

I can buy these and have them scanned that way. I'm going to add to my silhouette artwork from late 2019 here on this forum soon....as soon as I can begin with these ....to add the CV-5 Yorktown series plus an early war Ryuho....before the Doolittle Raid nearly sinks her in February 1942.

It'll take a few months to gather in the drawings. I appreciate your help.

If you all know of any books that have nice line drawings (not colored) on a pretty white background, then that can assist me greatly.

I forgot to add Ryuho years ago, and some how, I thought I had covered the Enterprise class where instead, I had just got to Essex and the Independence.

Thanks everyone...

~ Rod

Ryujo cross-section

This is a portion of a page from a high res scan of a book called 'History of Japanese Aircraft Carriers', which you'll likely not find around because it's not in English, and these books are difficult to find outside Japan. But from the many years I spent hunting down for all sources I could find online about Japanese ships, this is probably the best you can hope for for a line drawing of Ryuho. Unless someone comes across original archive documents or has actual proper drawings / plans for Taigei, I doubt you'll find anything better. Japanese escort carriers are very poolry documented in English language sources so far.
But if you find anything better, please let me know because I would be interested to know too.

Richt03, what time period & would 1940 Yorktown work for you?
CV-5 USS Yorktown Booklet of General Plans (1940) https://archive.org/details/cv5bogp1940

You can just adapt the general arrangement drawings of her: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/502321276?objectPage=7

You'll have to crop and merge the bow and aft halves, but that's easy to do even in MS Paint.

Hi there,

This just dawned on me the other day ago. I need to find a book that has a line drawing of the USS Enterprise CV-6, preferably in waterline format.

A few years ago, I received great help here from brother Dan Kaplan. I might also need a similar line drawing on the IJN light carrier Ryuho too. But Yorktown (CV-5), Enterprise, and Hornet (CV-8) appear to be my focus all of a sudden.

These got left out of my project from 2019 some how. If anyone can tell me the sources or books that have these, then I am interested. Can use all the help I can get.

Can anyone help me here?

Thanks....

~ Rod H