The Ship Model Forum

So, I was offered a chance to build a sample of this beastie if I was willing to prioritize it over the San Francisco and get it done.

...it was not a difficult choice.

The Montana class is simply huge. These monsters were ordered early in the war and promptly cancelled once someone in the Navy had the sense to do so. Still, they're magnificent looking ships.

Kit: My sample came with the prototype instructions and all three versions of main guns that Brandon offers. Had she been built, she would have been armed with the 16"/50 turrets. Nonetheless, BRM has decided to include the Navy's proposed (and built) 18" guns and some insane 20" bloody rail cannons.


Box. It's pretty.


Turret options. Sorry for the odd angle.


Included PE. I think there are plenty of 20mm, but you'll need more bofors for a full outfit. I planned on using Fine Mold guns, so I'm not worried. PE is excellent with the guns from Five Star Models. I'm unsure who makes the main fret but it's beautiful.


Superstructure.


More resin and the wood deck. I did want to note that the resin ship was designed with the wood in mind. The deck is recessed and will avoid the usual "sticker" look of the thicker wood piece.


Dry fit with the 18" guns. I'm still stuck between the 16" turrets and outfitting her with 18" guns. Engineering wise, I know for a fact that she's be waaaay overweight with the bigger turrets, but it looks so damn cool.


Montana and Iowa.




The kit also comes with PE doors and hatches which I strongly suggest using. Fit is good, though you'll want to sand the lowermost resin superstructure at the 3rd turret for perfect fit. It's a little long but should be easy to remedy. I haven't noticed any bubbles or warping.

I'll start work as soon as possible and work as the holidays permit. She'll be in the attractive Ms 22 unless I get adventurous and do her up in a dazzle. Pictures will be taken with all three turret configurations.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

I'll be watching this one. Was looking forward to your San Francisco progress but I can wait. I never realized how much bigger than the Iowa class these ships would have been.

Oooooh yeaaaaaah, this is gonna be sweet.

Edit: When compared to the Iowa, she does look rather more like a bloated South Dakota class than an "extended" Iowa-class, which no doubt would've been necessary to be able to distribute all that bloody weight. Still, an interesting design...

_________________
Sean Nash, ACG (aircraft camo gestapo)

On the ways:
1/200 Trumpeter HMS Nelson
1/700 Tamiya USS Yorktown CV-5

In the stash:
1/35 Italiari PT-109
1/35 Tamiya "Pibber" Patrol Boat
1/350 Trumpeter USS Yorktown CV-10

Looking forward to this as well!




Bob Pink.

Well, I will try not to disappoint, but no promises!

So, getting down to business.... I've noted in my four short years of building, that initial prep, especially with resin, is key to a good result.

I've become a huge fan of the mass dry fit. This revealed a slight problem with the lowermost superstructure part. It was too long. I could either shave the side against turret three OR cut it along a narrow portion, shave off about 1 mm, and call it good.

I chose the easier option.







Fit is now perfect after about five minutes of work. With resin shrinkage issues, having this be the ONLY problem I've come across is impressive. Turrets fit perfects as do the other superstructure bits, after shaving off excess resin from the bottom.



I spent most of the rest of my time with this model ensuring all the major superstructure fit properly. Minus small and expected gaps, it all went together well. I'll have to do some very minor filling, but nothing terrible.



All for now on Montana. I'll be spending a good amount of time on this and my San Fran tomorrow.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

i'll keep my eyes on this one too BTW, that's a great comparison shot of the two classes.. pretty big boats.

This looks like an interesting build - I do have one comment - unless my eyes are playing tricks, the 40mm gun tubs on MONTANA look larger than those on the IOWA model. They should not be larger - everything that was common on IOWA (gun directors, 20mm, 40mm, etc) should all be the same size for both models. The 5"-54cal dual gun mounts would be different from the 5"-38cal dual mounts on the IOWAs. Catapults, aircraft/boat cranes, all the same. Included in that list I would also have to add the 16"-50 gun turrets. The 18"/20" guns might have had larger turrets - is that what is being depicted here?

Just an observation.

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Obviously no photos of the ship available....

What about plans? Were the 18" turrets proposed twins? It is rather striking as to the increased beam, she does look like a big boned cowgirl!

Cheers: Tom

" I do have one comment - unless my eyes are playing tricks, the 40mm gun tubs on MONTANA look larger than those on the IOWA model."

IIRC, they're based on either Midship Models parts or the resin kits themselves. The tubs are also a lot thinner than the Tamiya Iowa versions, making the difference appear more significant than it was.

"The 5"-54cal dual gun mounts would be different from the 5"-38cal dual mounts on the IOWAs."

They are. The barrels are also correct.

" Included in that list I would also have to add the 16"-50 gun turrets. The 18"/20" guns might have had larger turrets - is that what is being depicted here?"

Correct. However, I plan to "finish" the Montana with her 16"/50 turrets. 18" turrets are also bigger. Honestly, the 20" guns are clearly stretching matters. Even IF we had planned to mount these monsters on a BB, this hull wouldn't handle more than four or six guns, total. This is all assuming an increase in beam would not be necessary to handle the weapons. Call the up gunned versions "conjecture" and "fun."


"What about plans? Were the 18" turrets proposed twins? It is rather striking as to the increased beam, she does look like a big boned cowgirl!"

I'm trying to locate these for a few reasons. One, I need superstructure detail. Two, I need to ensure I build the ship as she would have appeared with early open-style bridge. Third, the bridge tower lacks platforms and most USN BBs had a number of them around it. I plan to add one or two but want to have some backing.


Hope that helps, gentlemen.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

As with all the items brought forth for the Iowa ships, this will be interesting. I suppose that by the time shipyards actually were cutting and assembling metal the bridge work might have been modified along the lines of the Iowa's. However it would be super research to unearth any drawings that might have been produced. After all the Alaska's were finished with the bare coning tower bridgework late in the war. Drafting was a major hang up in ship production during the war and a lot of good ideas remained roundtuits.

Regards. T.

Chris,

Thanks for the explanation - Understood!

Tom/Chris wrote:


There are general arrangement plans of MONTANA (usually w/16"-50 turrets) in most of the reliable reference books on U.S. battleship design - The Floating Drydock offers a 1:192 set in their "G" serieis - G-BB67 - $28.00.

As Flinger747 has posted, in all probablity very few of any serious plans that were drawn are now probably history - as I've found in my research on NEW JERSEY, many (and we're talking a couple thousand) drawings produced for her moderate overhaul in 67-68 are now more than likely gone forever - the simple fact being that drawings take space and when BRAC took out many of our installations, old documentation wasn't considered vital for maintaining. I would hardly imagine that any MONTANA plans survived even into the '70s, if then.

There is also a topic on the What IF forum on the MONTANA designs - you may want to visit that - very interesting thread. Some of the drawings on this thread are quite interesting - updated versions of the ship based on what actually occurred in NEW JERSEY and the subsequent IOWA class renovations of the '80s.

Personally, I doubt MONTANA would have actually been constructed as her 1945 plan indicates, but closer to the IOWA superstructure pattern with enclosed bridge and enhanced AAA batteries.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

The real enemy of the Montana's, the last two Iowa's and the last four Alaska's was rather mundane, landing craft and LST's, and maybe DE's as well. There were a lot of industrial bottlenecks in WWII production. As an example DE's often had either diesel or turbine electric drive and CVE's had Uniflow Triple Expansion piston engines because cutting reduction gears was a bottleneck. So much steel, so much drafting acreage, so much yard space. The Hughes Hercules (Spruce Goose) was of wood only because he couldn't get an alloy allocation! Perhaps if the world of atomic weapons hadn't occurred the Montana's might have needed their protection off the coast of the main islands of Japan.

Cheers: T

I'm going to take some time off of San Francisco because this little thing keeps staring at me (and I hate doing railing...)

I did some PE work to the ship and continued lightly sanding the superstructure to improve fit. Most gaps are due to light warping of the super thin wafer which easily disappears when I press down on the part. 90% of the gaps will disappear with some glue, which is pretty impressive.

I just ordered some PE from Flyhawk (fire fighting equipment, etc) to help dress this up because I'm clearly daft.

Here's the ship for now with what PE I had at the house, plus what's in the box. So far, only the hoses are "aftermarket."







I plan to assemble much of the superstructure and paint most of the decks by hand. Verticals will be done with my airbrush.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

I'm seriously considering scratching even a partially enclosed bridge like the Iowa had. We'll see.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

Chris,

Good Job, so far!! This ship would have been awesome had it ever been constructed. I like your approach to the build, as well.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Or are the Iowa and Montana model of different scale?

In real life Iowa and Montana would have been of almost the same length, differing by only 30 feet out of round 900, despite Montana having an extra turret. The Iowa model looks a lot shorter than the Montana in the photos above.

_________________
Assessing the impact of new area rug under modeling table.

Iowa was about 887' long, or 15.2" in 1/700 scale. Montana clocked in at 920' roughly, and should be about 15.77" long in this scale. IIRC, I measured Montana out to about 15.75-ish when checking scale. I cannot comment on the Tamiya Iowa, but I think Montana's correct.

Keep in mind that Montana's girth adds a lot to her massive appearance compared to her slimmer cousin.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

In all my reference materials, the MONTANA class would have been 925' LOA by latest design drawings/models (IOWAs were 887'/888' LOA) which is 37' difference.

The photo showing the two models aside one another is a bit misleading - but, I think it is fairly correct. It's possible that Blue Ridge used the earlier plan with shorter bow on MONTANA than the 925' length (1945?) design.

I just did a rough calculation based on the two known lengths (888' and 925') versus the size I measured of the kit hulls on the computer monitor. The ratios did NOT equate and looking at the two models in the photo the MONTANA does not look to me to have the 925' LOA - it looks like the early short hull design. In addition, the 1945 design had the enclosed bridge and a bit more IOWAish forward superstructure than this model depicts.

Just my thoughts on this.

Hank

_________________
HMS III
Mocksville, NC
BB62 vet 68-69

Builder's yard:
USS STODDARD (DD-566) 66-68 1:144, Various Lg Scale FC Directors
Finished:
USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) 67-69 1:200
USN Sloop/Ship PEACOCK (1813) 1:48
ROYAL CAROLINE (1748) 1:47
AVS (1768) 1:48

Hank,

I'm relatively certain that BRM did use the older plans. I'm still on the fence with the forward bridge, its enclosure, and what to do about her overall configuration. Her AA compliment is very '45, as are most of her components (including the removal of her catapults in favor of MORE AAA.) I can backdate her with the removal of some of the 20mm guns and addition of catapults (present in the kits) boat cradles (present) and launches (not present.) Either configuration is going to take a little work, but it'll be fun. I'm still leaning toward a '44 or '45 configuration with Ms 22.

I've been struggling with how to best approach assembling the superstructure. The fit is good, but I loathe seams and will want to fill ANY evidence of them, especially around the base of the forward funnel. I've decided to start by gluing down the first few layers, fill the seams, and deal with the difficulty of painting the decks and adding PE. It'll take a little longer, but the final product will be a LOT cleaner.

I also assembled the main components of the 16" turrets. I drilled out the blast bag a wee bit to allow some play for the barrels. I then attached the blast bags to the turret, ensuring that they were aligned. Barrels were then glued on to the blast bags and adjusted until everything was where I wanted it. Note: attaching the barrels to the blast bags netted me Turret #1. While it LOOKS cool, it didn't come out as I wanted. Attaching the brass barrels last avoided this.



Even incomplete, this model is VERY impressive. These battleships, had the carrier not been much of a thing, would have been true terrors in the Pacific.

_________________
- Chris

1/700 Saratoga w/Pontos (Needs paint)
1/700 Potato w/Kurama (On hold)
1/700 Murdertorpedoboat Ooi

This just cries out to be done in a modernized state....