Hi, I've recently finished building USS Belleau Wood CVL 24 to how she's suppose to appear during the Philippine operation around October 1944
I use Dragon's kit as a starting point and it's a lot of work just to correct the mistake that come with the kit.
Material- Dragon 1/700 USS Belleau Wood CVL 24
- Search light, paravane, life raft and many other little pieces from shelf oddity
- Gold medal model photoetch set for light carrier
- fstar model photoetch set for Oerlikon canon, shields and much more
- Trumpeter 1/700 aircraft
- Ocean spirit dynamic propeller
- flyhawk aircraft and radar etch set
- finemolds 40mm bofors
- Home made photoetch flight deck (I'd rather only design and let the professional manufacture it but I couldn't find anyone willing to do it locally)
This build is one of the most challenging I've ever attempt. The dragon(once pit road) kit fit where it does and leave a very large gap where it doesn't
with the latter being far more common.
I'll include a build section in the replies.
finemolds 40mm mount look very impressive despite being slightly overscaled.
size comparison with a flash drive
The Grumman Hellcat is a very large aircraft for it's type along with the P-47 Thunderbolt.
It's older brother, the wild look small in comparison. The aircraft is more comparable to the Stuka which is a ground based dive bomber
Comparing the Independence class light carrier to a proper fleet carrier.
She's a lot smaller than the Illustrious which is known for having smaller dimension in exchange for better protection.
And she's dwarfed when compared to her adversary, the Zuikaku and to the US fleet carrier, the Enterprise
Finally comparing to how she might have look like if completed as a cruiser