The Ship Model Forum

Hey guys,
I’m trying to figure out CVE-1 light AA armament right after her completion. That’s the first few months with original short landing deck. Did she carry anything else besides 2 x 3” 50 cal guns on the forecastle...? Hardly any good photos of her from this time period exist. Three, poor ones that I saw, I can’t really tell, whether the thing I see is couple of sailors chatting or in fact .50 cal machine gun.
Thanks

Darius

According to US Aircraft Carrier Design and Development, Long Island has 4 X .50 cal machine guns as built. Looking at the photos from this time, possibly a gun tub at the forward corners of the flight deck but I can't see the machine gun because of the resolution of the photo. This may account for two of the four but just guessing.

Ed R

Thank you Ed. Appreciate your comments.
I hope you are correct because this is pretty much the number of guns I intend to go ahead with....
Their placement is still a mystery to me. One on each corner of the flight deck would makes sense except those forward platforms, even though reasonable large, were already carrying 24” ( most likely ) or even 36” searchlights. So placing machine gun in near proximity seems unlikely.
I see their location more likely further back towards amidships and the other pair probably on side platforms at the very end of her flight deck.
Still why do I feel like I’m creating my own facts...

Darius

Darius,

Good luck with your project. Sorry I could not have provided something definitive. The overhead photo dated July 1941 on Navsource may be useful if a higher resolution version is available. Also, the ONI side profile drawing dated June 1942 is interesting as it looks like the drawing is from an earlier time (with light AA at end flight deck??). The only other suggestion is to see if there are any clues from her sister ship HMS Archer.

Ed

Well, here it goes. This is my 1/1250 scale interpretation of CVE-1 as build. Three quick and dirty renderings. For manufacturing reasons most features had to be beefed up but hopefully this won’t obscure overall appearances. Please ignore mast and flagstaff colors. It’s there to indicate different manufacturing material.

I’d like to believe there is some resemblance to the real thing but wouldn’t be surprised if others found many faults with it. When working on her bridge I was surprised how large those side platforms turned out to be. Assuming my way of reasoning is correct of course. It made me reassess my initial comment about .50 cal machine gun placements. There is enough room for such weapon so back we go to one machine gun on each corner of the flight deck...
Although just sitting there without any additional splinter shielding makes it look bit unusual. I might add something there later on based on pure speculation...

Darius