1/700 USS Wilson DD-408 at Savo (Kraken & Vladi�s)

[PetrolGator]

Incredible.

[Vladi]

Thank you, Dan and Chris!

The real challenge here will be the Ms12R(mod) pattern, which is still partially unclear...

[marijn van gils]

Beautiful work!

[Kraken Hobbies]

Very nice! When will this be out? I'll take one!

Jon,

Hoping to have wrapped up soon. Have almost everything except for a few tweaked 3D printed parts and final instructions. I had hoped originally for a fall 2021 release, but I am aiming now for first quarter 2022.

Matt

[Vladi]

Thanks a lot, marijn and Matt

I completed testing and amending Benham class PE parts today by building searchlight towers for Benham (1941 and 1942 versions) and for Rhind and Mayrant after their late 1942/43 refits. I added some lenght to the Benham�s railings in the design for a better fit.

Benham searchlight tower version 1941 (left) and 1942 (right)

Rhind and Mayrant searchlight tower after late 1942 refit

Also mainmast and the ship�s bell were added to my Wilson build:

I now consider the PE for the Benham class finalized and I passed them on to Matt. Hooray!

[Vladi]

Silence over here for soooo long... for several reasons incl. lost mojo through waiting and hoping for some more photos showing her paint scheme (to be discussed later) to surface.

But now something�s going on at last!

Boat davits, anchors

While Benham and Ellet landed one of their boats already for weight saving reasons (just like Bagley class members at that time), the ex-Atlantic units kept both boats until their fall 42/early 43 refits. The same applies to anchors, both Benham and Ellet had their portside anchors landed and hawsers plated over already in early 42 while the other ex-Atlantic ships still carried both until later.

[Dan K]

More nice work, Vladi. She does look like a Benham class.

[Vladi]

I�ve been working mostly on the Bagley in the past few days but I�m about to start working on the Ms12R(mod) camo on the Wilson. Before I get there it�s time to sum up some of the details I noticed about the Benham class.

Differences between (ex-)Atlantic and Pacific units in 1942

Units assigned originally to the Atlantic Neutrality patrol and Atlantic/Mediterranean escort duties (Lang, Mayrant, Trippe, Rhind, Rowan, Stack, Sterett and Wilson) were modified for their assignment and thus differed from units assigned to the Pacific (i.e. Benham & Ellet). Units transferred to the Pacific at spring 1942 (Lang, Stack, Sterett and Wilson) retained these modifications until their next major yard overhaul in late 1942 or early 1943 and some of them for the rest of their career. The differences were the following:

• width of the pilot house decreased by 1 window per side
• 5in mounts enclosed, #53 with open roof canvas covered top, #54 double-knuckle with strengthened roof (same as #51)
• aft torpedo tubes removed
• aft emergency radio room removed on top of the aft deck house forward of mount #53, secondary conn moved one level down, searchlight tower removed and searchlight moved to the top of the torpedo workshop (vent tower)
• smoke generators on fantail landed, likely to allow for carrying more depth charges. Pacific-based units likely retained them - Benham had them to starboard in 42, not sure about Ellet but likely the same. Smoke generators seem to reappear again on surviving ex-Atlantic units during their 1943/44 refits.
• large dual towing reel was added to the aft end of the aft deck house (aft of #53 gun mount) in 1941/1942 on Wilson, Lang and Trippe, but it does not appear on Benham, Ellet, Mayrant, Stack or Sterret.

And as mentioned above already

• depth charge racks on the fantail were extended to carry up to 13 charges (downgraded to 8 while transfered to the Pacific)
• both whaleboats retained
• both anchors retained

These differences were already reflected both in Matt�s 3D models and my PE sheet.

The next update will tell the story of rediscovering Wilson�s Ms12R(mod) camo.

[Vladi]

Wilson�s Measure 12 Revised (modified) scheme

The detective story of rediscovering the Ms12R (mod) scheme carried by Wilson in summer 1942 started with my suspicion based on just several strange spots on her superstructure at the end of her October-December 1942 refit as seen on NHHC photos 19-N-38243, 19-N-38244, 19-N-38245 and 19-N-38248:

and some unclear blurs on a photo off Tulagi (NH 97740), though taken from a big distance to be really any proof :

Unfortunately, the most close-up and detailed photo 80-G-K-435 available was completely useless when it came to the camouflage:

Anyway, I suspected that � unlike all Bagley-class units present in the Ms21 Navy Blue overall scheme � Wilson might have been the only Ms12R(mod) camouflaged destroyer directly participating in the Battle of Savo Island. I found the possibility of having another Ms12 camouflaged ship in my Savo Island collection really exciting indeed!

This first phase is partially documented in the Calling All 1,500 tonner (USN DD) fans! thread but it continued in dozens of emails mostly to and from Rick E Davis.

Then came Matt�s lucky find of the October 42 photo from Rick�s photo collection (designation unknown), finally proving the hypothesis of Wilson wearing Ms12!

Another great find by Don Andrews I managed � by pure luck - to track back to Steve Wiper and with his help finally to the NARA 80-G-K series and 80-G-K-432A:

Unfortunately, NARA being closed (and then only partially reopened) to the public due to covid prevented further research for over two years before Rick succeeded in scanning it at a higher res.

In the meantime, I tried asking questions at Modelwarships forum and several Facebook groups but all in vain. Then I tried using the DANFS� and NHHC photos to locate ships that were present at MINY at the time of Wilson�s fall 1942 refit - and that worked! After many attempts, I finally succeeded in identifying Wilson in the background of four more photos (19-N-36770, 19-N-36771, 19-N-36358 and Navsource 091902221), the first two of them luckily shedding light on additional fragments of her camouflage:

It�s been still a long way to create a piece-by-piece reconstruction using as many as 10 photos, of which only one showed the full starboard side of the camouflaged ship yet in quite low resolution, while the others provided only very fragmented coverage.

To be continued (Part II)

[MartinJQuinn]

Great detective work, Vladi! What I found fascinating is that in 19N-38245, you can clearly see the old camouflage pattern under the new coat of 5N.

[Dan K]

I agree, Excellent sleuthing.

[maxim]

A really impressive work of research!

When I had built Wilson many years ago, I had thought that at Savo she would have been painted in Measure 21. It is interesting how many photos appeared since then!

[Vladi]

Thank you all, glad you like it

What I found fascinating is that in 19N-38245, you can clearly see the old camouflage pattern under the new coat of 5N.

That�s what I thought, too, and my first reconstruction attempt was based on that until the color photo surfaced. When compared to the color photo, some areas correspond but others are clearly effect of multiple layers etc.

When I had built Wilson many years ago, I had thought that at Savo she would have been painted in Measure 21. It is interesting how many photos appeared since then!

Exactly. I always imagine how many others may still be burried somewhere. Maybe, one day, it will be all digitized and open to crowdsourcing...

[Rick E Davis]

Martin and all,

During the overall process, the last thing done after all structural mods/repairs were done, was to give the ship a new coat of paint. Plus painting could be done in stages as work is completed. The ship was almost always dry-docked as part of a regular overhaul, at which time the below waterline hull (and maybe the above waterline) was cleaned and repainted. So in yard photos, depending on when the photos were taken (the yard photographer dept was tasked (paid) to take as completed photos post overhaul ... which may end up being taken before, during, or after painting was done), will been seen. Normally, the superstructure was painted first and then the deck was painted last ... is stages of one section at a time allowing for movement via other parts of the deck. I have come across ships photos taken during post-overhaul "checkout" cruise, where you can see bright light areas of the deck painted in primer before a final topcoat.

When a ship is caught in the background of one of these Post-Overhaul photos, you likely will see what their arrival paint job was.

[SG1]

Vladi, that's an excellent progress and research work! Bravissimo on both.
Questions: what primer, acrylic or non-acrylic? rattle-can or airbrush?
Keep it up!
SG

[Vladi]

Thank you!

I used Gunze Mr. Surfacer 1000 via airbrush but I plan to switch to acrylics (perhaps AK) to avoid that annoying smell that�s making me headache. And I am using Lifecolor paints as they can be obtained easily in Europe. Importing paints for personal use from outside the EU is too much hassle.

[Vladi]

Wilson�s Measure 12 Revised (modified) scheme � Part II

One more photo should be added to the previous batch, this one also from the end of the October-December 1942 refit, kindly provided by Dick Jensen (designation unknown):

(designation unknown)

Based on the above photos, the first draft of Wilson�s Ms12R(mod) reconstruction was created in May 2021 with perhaps 55-60% of the side profiles documented to a reasonable extent, although not always perfectly.

Over a year later, Rick has finally been able to scan the above-mentioned color photo 80-G-K-432 and he also discovered two additional shots from the same series (80-G-K-433, 80-G-K-434) when NARA fully reopened again in September 2022:

It�s interesting how the two full broadside photos (80-G-K-432 and 80-G-K-433) that must have been separated by mere seconds apart, still provide quite different insights to the same parts of the ship.

So, this is where we are. All this joint effort enabled me to become somehow certain to present the reconstruction of Wilson�s paint scheme with say 25% of artistic license remaining overall, and to paint my model.

Now, back to the build. 5-O was airbrushed to the ship expect of top of the foremast with an attempt of pre-shading and paint modulation, neither of which seem to have much effect on the outcome. Unfortunately, the spray mask slipped slightly on starboard bow so it is not eaxctly as I wanted it, nothing is perfect... I made no attempt to mimic oil-canning as not even the close-up photos of Sterret show any. I continued with hand painting 5-H splotches to the funnel, forward superstructure and 5in mounts. 5-N splotches on the aft superstructure were hand-painted, too, while these on the hull were airbrushed using a mask created from the reconstruction.

20-B was hand-painted then to the decks and other relevant surfaces and the decks were weathered so that it was possible to install most of the remaining parts. Radar antennae and TBS were sprayed very light gray. There�s no black boot-topping yet as I�m waiting for paints to fully cure before further masking.

Only very few parts � six 20mm guns, two boats and their boat davits � are yet to be installed as these are waiting until weathering and rigging are completed to prevent damage to them.

BIG THANKS to Rick and everyone else who helped me in my attempt to solve this 80+ years old, real-life naval jigsaw puzzle! It�ll be interesting to see if some more evidence pops up in the future, but this is where as far as we were able to get with the currently available knowledge. And as Rick repeated to me several times � let�s see who can prove me wrong.

Comments and criticism are welcome now or never - I can still do some modifications before the model gets weathered

[SG1]

looking great!

[Kraken Hobbies]

Looking Fantastic Vladi! Very fitting end to the journey.

Matt

[Vladi]

Thank you, sirs!

Some fresh photos after spraying the boot top and adding 20mm guns (Shelf Oddity), no whaleboats/davits installed yet. Next comes the gloss coat, decals and weathering, but I�ll give the paint a few days rest again and switch over to Patterson to catch up in the meantime.

For the sake of completeness, the following additional items should be mentioned:

Ejection chutes on 5in mounts

In general, ejection chutes have been added to the back of the shielded 5in mounts to most ships in the course of 1942, but the date of installation apparently varied a lot. The Atlantic units don�t have them in May while being transferred to the Pacific and Benham and Ellet do not seem to have them that summer either. Unfortunately, these cannot be seen clearly on any of photos of Wilson before the fall 1942 refit. Most sisters didn't have them installed until autumn, Sterett did not have them as far out as December.

To make it more difficult, Wilson had the chutes on mount 54 in mid-November although the shield was to be dismounted from the mount the very same month. She certainly has them on 51 and 52 in early December, but the one on 52 seems to be new, unpainted yet. The earliest photo of another class member with chutes is Mayrant in December, but Sterret did not have them at MINY in December.

It�s a question if the chutes can or can�t be seen on any of the two full broadside color photos of Wilson:

I�d tend to say they are not there but I may be wrong. However, taking into account the situation of her sisters and the fact there was no time for a larger refit during Wilson�s transfer from the Atlantic, my conclusion is that Wilson did not have them at Savo. So I removed them from the 3D printed parts, leaving just tiny stumps to depict the ejection doors on the back sides of shielded 5in mounts.

Large vents abreast funnel to stbd & aft of funnel

I noticed there were two very similar vents added to the Wilson (and likely to all sisters) already before the war (seen on 80-G-463972 in 1941) so I scratchbuilt them from styrene rods and sheets.

Smoke screen generators

Apparently, there were none installed on the ex-Atlantic units in 1942, starting to appear on some in 1943. There were smoke generators present on Benham so probably they were there on Ellet, too.

Non-skid pads

Photos show these were used on Benham and Ellet, and they can be noticed on Trippe, too. I found no evidence of them installed on Wilson in summer 1942 (and not even after the Dec refit).