The Ship Model Forum

Does anyone have any drawings that indicates the dimension of the 16" turrets built for the H-class? I want to know whether they were far enough from the dimensions of Bismark's 15" turrets to warrant scratch building.

I might have this though I'll need some pointers as to what publications either books or journals H-class information has been published?

The DKM is perhaps my 2nd best covered Navy in my archive, but I can't think of where to look!

I glanced through my Garzke & Dulin, but it doesn't say anything specific- except the armor was slightly thicker in places. Glancing at the drawings, the turrets look to be the same shape, but larger overall.

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Sean Hert

Yes, I have a photoset of the turrets on the production line. It does appear nearly identical to Bismark's in all shapes and layouts. Perhaps I will use Bismark turrets as a core, and thicken out the turret on every side with styrene sheets by about 7%, corresponding to a linear scaling up of all dimensions corresponding to caliber increase from 380 mm to 406 mm

I am doing the planning to modify Revell's new Bismark to H-class, in case no one has guessed. Because H-class essentially preserved Bismark's beam, only lengthening the hull and moving the drive shafts further apart, It's actually less work than you would imagine to convert Bismark to 1939 H class, certainly much less work than modifying Iowa to Montana.

Had brain wave! which don't happen often!

Isn't there a plan of an H-class on the inside of the dust-cover of Breyer's large white volume?

I recall there is, if so, have you measured the turrets on that plan?

Regards
LB

there is a plan in breyer anyway. its quite small but you can get quite good approximations of the turret size.

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Vlad

I have a drawing of a Bismarck next to a proposed H-39 and the turrents looked longer(horizontal) but not as tall(vertical). Once i get a digital camera ill take a picture, but that may be a while from now. Ill surf the net and try to find the pic if i can.

theres a scan of the Breyer drawing i found i had on my PC. the length of the ship si about 872 feet or approximately 266 metres. im sure you can use that information to work out the size of the turrets from the drawing

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Vlad

A particular curious thing about this design is the fact that the seaplane and its catapult are right behind Y turret...not very healthy for the plane!

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"Build few and build fast,
Each one better than the last"
John Fisher

Checked Breyer book I have here and the detailed line drawing on and inside the cover only shows the midships section of the hull, thus missing out the turrets!
It still shows the funnels, bridge and superstructure in detail, would you like a scan?

See "Battleships" by D & G; has a set of detailed plans of H39 drawn from official plans. The plans have a scale attached, so you will have no trouble.

Forgot to look in that monster, I can also scan from it if desirable.

The hangers are next to the X-turret barbette. They are blast proof and the aircrafts are intended to reside inside when the main guns are fired. The big mufflers required to keep the diesel engines quiet made it impossible to site aircraft hanger midships.

Incidentally, USN battleships site the catapaults on the fantail and had no hangers to protect the planes. And yet there is no record of serious aircraft damage from artillery blast. There is record of Littorio's tail turret blasting a plane right off the catapault, however.

Incidentally, they're only blast proof - one wonders what would happen if the hangars are hit.

Jorit

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Many battleships had hangers but no battleships had anything more than blast proof hangers. This is why gas storage is usually somewhere else. Incidentally, whenever hanger/catapault is hit, the enemy is usually mislead into believeing they've inflicted serious damage by the brief, superficila, but spectacular fireball that results as aviation gas onboard the plane goes up.

I am a little weary of measuring component dimensions from overall drawings of ships. I find that while most of them gets the locations of the components right on, their individual component dimensions were not always spot on from the component specifications.

Well as the ships were never built who can question your measurements!

The G & D book plan traced from official plans and thus is still your most accurate bet, unless you go to the German archives and photocopy a set of plans.

South Dakota's main battery torched at least one of her aircraft, before a subsequent salvo blew it overboard, while engaging the Japanese off Guadalcanal in November 1942.

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

I stand corrected.

Then you will have to obtain the working drawings (if they exist) from the German archives, and then you will have to RESCALE from those.
It's a tough life kid.

A question; what do you need these drawings for?