The Ship Model Forum

Well... That settles it then, that is just the Juneau at the pier to the Starboard of the Quincy.

So, I need to go ahead and try to render out as much of the detail as I can recover from the blown-out image of the Juneau in the Juneau and Laffey photo at Guadalcanal.

I had managed to do it before, but in a false-color, that was difficult on the eyes (but showed the camouflage still there). I need to do the same thing with a B/W image (other than the port-quarter/stern of the hull).

MB

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Working on:


1/700 (All Fall 1942):
HIJMS Nagara
HIJMS Aoba & Kinugasa
USS San Francisco
USS Helena
USS St. Louis
USS Laffey & Farenholt
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 4 - 7
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 13 - 16

I did not realize that, Rick. Thx for the clarification.



A fair point. The life rafts as indicators seemed almost too good to be true. Unless, of course, another photo of San Diego surfaces at Santa Cruz where this detail can easily be discerned.

I really don't know enough about JUNEAU and her camo to provide solid opinion one way or another. I have not attempted to study EVERY photo of JUNEAU either. I certainly have no skill at determining specific "colors" used. I'm also, still a little confused about just when everyone is wanting to know what JUNEAU's camo was. This brings me to a source that no one seems to have mentioned. Does anyone have or know about the old Floating Drydock Profile book on USS JUNEAU (CL-52) published in 1993 and written by Rod Dickson? I have a copy of it I bought years ago. In pulling it out of my library and going through the booklet, I found that their study of what CAMO JUNEAU had during her short career from available photos and specifically what camo she had at the time of her lost interesting. What I find is that the photos they used and studied are the same ones that everyone assumes are NEW finds. They credit JUNEAU with being in four schemes during her career in the water according to the writer and his "photo analysis" team; Richard Frank, John Lundstrom, John Sawruk, and Thomas Walkowiak. They looked at the original USN photos at NARA. Also, he talked to as many survivors as he could find.

1) At time of launch she was painted in Ms 3, 5L Light Gray overall with 5D Dark Gray on the deck

2) During February 1942 her builder, Federal SB, Kearny, painted her in Ms 12mod with a splotch and dapple pattern

3) By June 1942 JUNEAU was wearing a third scheme; the superstructure camo was little changed with a harder edge to the pattern, but the hull was painted with a irregular "wave" of 5S Sea Blue and 5L Light Gray and a false bow wave. They say that her superstructure remained painted in the splotches/dapples until at least August 1942 and that the hull scheme remained until September 1942. The New York Navy Yard photos provide coverage of this scheme which appears to be experimental. But, since Ms 12mod had no "standard" pattern(s), that is a loose definition.

Her weather beaten wave camo is evident in photos of JUNEAU taken in September 1942 (aka the photos with LAFFEY). They think that her superstructure was in part or wholly been repainted as was the stern prior to those photos with either 5S or 5N and the hull was repainted after those photos. Based on the series of photos seen in 80-G-13611 and around it.

I will comment a little on this photo. Being old school and remembering when I took my own black and white photos, developed my own negatives and made my own prints, I can say this is an over exposed view. In this copy I increased the contrast to pick out as much detail as I can, which is little as far as camo goes. AS for why there are no shadows on this ship, you have to note the weather. It sure looks like a crappy day and appears to be either foggy or borderline rainy. No strong sun, no shadows. At least in this photo I can see her SC-1 radar on the mainmast and her SG radar on the foremast. As a side note, SAN DIEGO had her SG radar and her SC-1 radar was on the foremast.



4) By the time of the Battle of Santa Cruz JUNEAU had completely been repainted in OVERALL 5S (Ms 11) or 5N (Ms 21)

No mention of WHITE paint being used, but in a sea of 5S and 5N painted ships, 5L would stand out.

Just more food for thought.


How then as to this photo, 80-G-304513. I can't say for sure what color this ship is painted in, but it appears to be an overall scheme darker than 5L. I'm pretty sure that this is JUNEAU because it "looks like" her SC-1 antenna is on the mainmast and her SG radar is atop the foremast, not part way down as seen on SAN DIEGO. I have labeled this copy of the image noting the "light colored" objects forward on 01 deck edge (labeled A) and something else no one has mentioned the dark patch on the hull ... it is a cargo net deployed over the side of the ship (labeled B). I think I can comment on the "lighter" colored objects. It has been mentioned here that they could be floater net "baskets". But, there is another possibility; that they are "bundles" of floater nets. Something I came across in records for FLETCHER class destroyers was the use and location of floater nets and baskets in 1942 into 1943. Originally the floater nets were bundled and secured to the deck edges so they would self deploy if the ship sank. BUT, it was found that these easily got fouled up in combat and blocked deck passage. So baskets were used and mounted higher in the ships. Operational users in theater didn't like that location of the baskets. So for awhile and on quite a few early FLETCHERS, NO floater net baskets were installed, extra life rafts were shipped, and the floater nets were secured "wherever" the crews wanted them. I suspect that these are floater net bundles without benefit of baskets. If baskets had been used, they would have been painted.





One other thing. The new camo schemes, Ms 18, 21, 22, etc, direction came out in August 1942. In about late August the Atlantic Fleet selected Ms 22 (and in some cases Ms 18) for use on their ships. The Pacific Fleet already had selected Ms 11/Ms 21. The Pacific Fleet CO in October 1942 directed that ALL non-Ms 21 ships (destroyers specifically were mentioned) repaint into Ms 21 as soon as POSSIBLE within operational requirements. Not all ship CO's saw this as "URGENT".

Let me comment on camouflage in general a bit.

Pacific fleet ordered Measure 11 with Navy Blue substituted for Sea Blue just after the war started. Atlantic Fleet beat them into Navy Blue (Measure 12 though and not 11) by over a month.

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

On that photo, take the "Dodge" tool (it will darken areas over which it is passed), and set it such that it has a variable level, only darkening light pixels slightly, but darkening dark pixels more. You can do this simplistically by simply setting the tool to "Shadows" in the Range menu.

Then, when you go across the Hull, the wave pattern on the hull will LEAP out at you in hard contrast.

The superstructure is more difficult.

I have been telling people since this photo was first taken (edit: posted) that it is overexposed (Blown-out). I have been taking photos with SLRs, and even more expensive cameras since 1978 (when my best friend in High School taught me with his camera - which he then loaned me until I could afford to buy my own about five years later). And, I do a LOT of work in CGI Special Effects (mostly modeling, but at times I have to do lighting effects). With CGI Effects, you are essentially using a Virtual Camera... So... I recognized this as being an overexposed image.

Another tool I have is Mathematica, but I am not really good with the image processing capabilities in terms of re-rendering a processed image.

I can extract data from an image, but that data is simply an array of numbers giving pixel values. I have done this on a portion of the superstructure, and it looks to still have the camouflage job on her (based upon the line detection routine finding what is a relative "extreme" variation between adjacent pixel values over an X-Y gradient in the image).

As to later camouflage measures..... I can't say.

The later image you should could be either Ms. 11 or Ms. 21.

MB

Edit: So... If we were going to do a Juneau as she sank, then Ms. 11 or Ms 21 would be what to use? .... たぶん?

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Working on:


1/700 (All Fall 1942):
HIJMS Nagara
HIJMS Aoba & Kinugasa
USS San Francisco
USS Helena
USS St. Louis
USS Laffey & Farenholt
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 4 - 7
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 13 - 16

The two measures were functionally identical for the majority of their use. Measure 11 was initially defined as 5-S Sea Blue, but the paint itself was discontinued before the official documentation (SHIPS-2 Rev 1) hit the fleet. Every time there was a paint change, the Navy essentially incremented the first number. Measure one (Dark solid) became Measure 11 (Still technically dark solid), which became Measure 21 (dark solid). Measure 2 (graded) became Measure 12 (still graded) which became Measure 22 (still still graded). The fact that Measure 11 was essentially Measure 21 was lost on a lot of earlier authors or they chose not to portray it as "Measure 11 with 5-N instead of 5-S."

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

The only distinction I am making between the two is a few more drops of pure-blue in the paint before airbrushing.

I have only done some test-strips at present, but the Ms. 11 would show just a hint more of a "bluish" highlights than would the Ms. 21, whose highlights would be "flatter" (greyish).

But with all of the scaling in the paint-scheme on a 1/700 ship, only a very astute eye would likely see the difference, consciously.

MB

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OMG LOOK! A signature

Working on:


1/700 (All Fall 1942):
HIJMS Nagara
HIJMS Aoba & Kinugasa
USS San Francisco
USS Helena
USS St. Louis
USS Laffey & Farenholt
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 4 - 7
HIJMS Sub-Chasers No. 13 - 16

Rick,
Personal opinion is that it isn't a cargo net. The photo was taken in direct sunlight as evidenced by the strong shadows on the after stack area. The dark patch labeled "B" is directly below the starboard side cutter the Atlanta's carried in that location. So I think you are actually looking at a strongly contrasted shadow.

As for 4 camo paint jobs on Juneau, see the site at http://www.ussatlanta.com/juneauwardiary.htm. The superstructure got a 4th of haze grey and off white, perhaps light grey, at Argentia on 6/15-16/42.

Nowhere in the on line war diary is there any mention of another paint job after the one above.

The owner of the site tells me he is in touch with a crewman kicked off just prior to her last mission who told him that there were no changes to the camo after the one above. Per the crewman #4 in the 1-4 sequence above never happened.

Matthew appears to be way more of a photo expert than any of us. He also says there was camo on the superstructure.

See the bottom photo of Juneau on page 11. Taken by San Juan while Juneau was with CV 6. Appears to have been taken under bright sunlight. It remains to be explained how a dark color ship that most folks agree was Juneau went from a very dark solid color with Hornet to a very light scheme consistent with the Argentia description within a few hours. By the way the other CLAA behind CV 8 in the photo in question barely visible is also a dark color. One of them has to be Juneau.

There exists to our knowledge no other 42 photo of a CLAA with 2 rafts by the 2 20MM cannons. There exists no other photo to our knowledge of a 42 CLAA with a bunch of floater nets except Juneau with Laffey. These facts plus the radar review above are strong evidence the ship in question is Juneau. How it went from a dark color with CV 8 to a very light color with CV 6 within a few hours on the same day has yet to be explained.

The color Noumea photo at https://crashmacduff.wordpress.com/tag/military-monday/ IDs the CLAA as San Juan. Compare that photo with the known color photo of her on navsource. Looks like 2 different ships to me. And the one at Noumea is a very light color. Taken just prior to the Guadalcanal invasion, and I highly doubt there would have been time to convert her into a solid dark color before she was sunk.

Last but not least for whatever it is worth download the painting on the South Dakota navsource site of her plus CV 6 plus a CLAA. Then crop and enlarge the CLAA. What color appears on part of the hull and superstructure---white. The painter by the way appears to have been there.

And why am I so anal on this topic? Shortly after I completed a Barton model I found out it was re painted before it even reached the Pacific. Before I do a Juneau model, I would like to be as sure as possible what scheme it was in. Based on the crewman, the San Juan photo, the Laffey photos, the painting, and the absence of any mention of any more camo schemes in the on line war diary, and Matthew confirming the presence of camo pattern on the superstructure, it appears safe to assume she was still in the pattern she left Argentia in.

_________________
FRED BRANYAN

Direct link to the post in question here.

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

There are a few things I forgot to include in the post earlier today.

The NARA photo in question did not have the ID of any ships in it. So I am real curious how San Diego came to be labeled as the ship in the foreground. Having seen probably every Santa Cruz photo at NARA over the last 20+ years, and noted that cruisers are ID'd on a good number of them, and destroyers on some, very interesting how this photo has zero IDs on it.

While there on 10/26-27/15 I was hoping to find the 2 photos on the San Juan site. I was hoping to find the originals to have them scanned and relay them to any photo expert that might be able to extract camo pattern details from the light color one. They did not show up. I emailed the couple that put them on the San Juan site long ago trying to extract from them the source from which they got the photos. No response.

Of the 3 CLAAs at Santa Cruz 2 out of 3 show up on either photos or footage at NARA in which their camo patterns are identifiable and the ships are ID'd correctly in the photos/footage. Only Juneau does not. The very few at NARA of Juneau show her dark. One of the ones on the San Juan site, source unknown, shows her in a color consistent with the crewman description and the war diary. And the Noumea photo. Why did those 2 photos never make it to NARA? To be fair I should also point out that while Pensacola took a ton of photos at Santa Cruz, I have never found a single photo of her either.

_________________
FRED BRANYAN

I come across photos without IDs on a regular basis. Sometimes they were processed by a sailor who didn't know. I've seen a lot that were obviously misidentified, along the lines of calling a cruiser a battleship or even a flattop a destroyer once, I think. It's not a conspiracy.



You don't know that they didn't until you've been through everything they have there. Plus, not everything was turned over to NARA - there is a law that records should be turned over when the agency is finished with it, but they tended to think more macro with that. Records were used bot, say, ten years and then turned over to NARA> During that time, "obsolete" documents were pulled out and destroyed for file maintenance, they didn't think or consider that they should turn over those records when they pulled them out of their working files. I've also seen assumptions that Navy HQ in DC had them so the local files were "not necessary" and destroyed, but the HQ didn't keep them either, which is one reason that plans can be so spotty.

I've run into a lot of conspiracy theorists who presume that missing records indicate a cover up or efforts to hide something. When you spend enough time in the records, you see a larger pattern where things are missing not because of malice, but because of different goals. We as interested parties and historians want to see EVERYTHING, they were just doing a job or fighting a war. How many of you think your everyday activities are a historical record and that maybe a historian 50 years from now is going to derive something useful from that receipt you just shredded?

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

As I said before, I have probably seen every Santa Cruz photo they have while searching every ship there and multiple other triggers for over 20 years. I would estimate over 50% of the ones with cruisers have the ID and about 25% of the ones with DDs have ID. On that topic I probably have seen every photo they have. The fact that the ship that has been labeled as San Diego in several sources on line and published is not ID'd on the photo and is probably really Juneau has yet to be explained. If not conspiracy, there sure are some real strange coincidences when it comes to the Juneau.

_________________
FRED BRANYAN

Fred,

I'm confused ... Do you think that 80-G-304513 is or isn't JUNEAU? By your definition of the rafts amidships being present, she almost has to be. How do you explain her single color scheme?

I have no conclusions about the September 1942 photo 80-G-13611. The image is so poor for my image processing skills to determine which parts of her superstructure still does or doesn't have her June 1942 camo scheme. I wouldn't be surprised that not all of her superstructure had been repainted. From looking at photos of ships in the South Pacific, the sun and sea water really took their toll on the paint. 5N chalked and faded pretty pretty fast. Since JUNEAU repainted/touched up her superstructure by the crew at Argentia in June 1942, that paint is less likely to hold-up that paint applied by a yard. Whether it was off white or light gray, I don't know.

If 80-G-304513 is JUNEAU and she is painted in a solid pattern, whatever she was painted with in June 1942 is irrelevant for October 1942 based on this image. If someone was modeling JUNEAU at the time of USS WASP lost, then it is important.

The differences in the two photos of SAN JUAN only proves what I know from processing negatives and prints in the old days, you can get different results from different lighting and camera/developing settings. I have come across many photos of destroyers, sometimes in the same folder, at NARA where the same photo was processed from the same negative and they look almost completely different "shade-wise". The USN censored photos during WWII to hide only three things I'm aware of; radar suites, some fire control systems, and hull numbers or names to prevent IDing the ship. Camo and paint schemes were just not a National Secret. They didn't have photoshop in WWII and censoring was done by hand ... and almost always is done so very crudely. Trying to paint the hull or these very tiny images AND not be noticeable, would be next to impossible then.

Matt,

One of the things pointed out in the Floating Drydocks book about the 80-G-13611 photo is that the stern had certainly been repainted since this photo was taken after her "wave" pattern was applied at New York Navy Yard, I can see that the most visible part of the ship in this photo doesn't have a dark/light demarkation line even without image processing software. I seldom do anything to photos I scan to maintain the original image as much as possible. I then will sometimes play with a copy to adjust the contrast to pull out configuration details or to pull out the hull number for ID purposes. That is about it. The only time I scan with settings set during the scanning process is for document pages when they are "blue ink ... FADED blue ink" where reading scans otherwise would be difficult. The rest of what you are talking about is above my head.

Oh, I checked on this series of LAFFEY/JUNEAU photos at NARA on my last trip and the caption cards didn't say there were or weren't negatives available. Some 80-G mounting cards will have a stamp of "NEG" or "NO NEG" at the top of the card. These had no such notes.

Another thing to add to Tracy's comment. A common occurrence you encounter in NARA files, particularly early in WWII, is that once a ship was lost, that ships files were purged as unimportant. I don't how many destroyer files I have been in where every other destroyer around it in the hull number sequence records are filed in, have several inches of documents and a "lost" ship has maybe one small folder.

I too have come across MANY unidentified ship photos or miss-identified photos. The TOP TEN images I have come across at NARA have not been in the card catalog and/or were not ID on the mounting card caption. Many of the photos you see ID on-line or in reference sources where there is an ID on the original photos, were ID by people doing a cross check of which ship took the photo and when that ship was located at that location to see which units were with her. That also leads to correcting inaccurate dates as well. Finding these "unknown gems" is why I'm on a quest to go through all 2866 boxes in 80-G. I may get done before I dies.

The way things go, six months after you build this model, a photo will surface clearly showing JUNEAU's hull number and taken two days before the Battle of Santa Cruz.

I believe the ship in the foreground that Martin posted is Juneau. Not because of the rafts, because of the floater nets that appear nowhere else plus your analysis of the radar.

As for the solid color, I agree with Matthew the hull is clear evidence someone screwed around with the photo. Call it conspiracy or whatever you care to call it, that is my opinion. And by the way no one has explained how or why this superior clear photo does not show any evidence of camo regardless which ship it is. The Juneau war diary makes it clear it was not re painted after Argentia. Whether it is San Diego or Juneu, there should be camo visible.

Camera issues aside, I have yet to see an intelligent explanation for how one of 2 dark ships in the photo Martin posted departs CV 8 and is photographed 2X by San Juan something like 3-6 hours later on the same day in the same weather and one of the 2 shows the ship in a very light color. Both photos clearly say it was Juneau. The photo in the light color has an amazing similarity to the color photo of supposedly San Juan at Noumea and in a scheme not remotely similar to the known color photo of San Juan on navsource. The other ships in the Noumea photo appear to have normal colors for the types of ships involved. So how did the CLAA become a very light color in the photo if it is not in fact a very light color?

_________________
FRED BRANYAN

Fred,

I'm confused, which photos are the ones that were taken two hours after the one Martin posted (80-G-304513)? Too many images have been referenced in this thread for me to keep them straight.

I don't want to spend time looking at the wrong images.

Did you see evidence of censor's "paint" on the photo 80-G-304513 at NARA??? To "Airbrush" (did they have airbrushes in 1942?) or use a brush to paint the hull on the photo would require someone with a very small brush and really good skills. AND then to paint in all the detail visible on the hull. Why would the color of a ships hull in black and white photos be so classified to be censored?

Rick

I said “something like 3-6 hours” after the one Martin posted not 2. Rather obvious the time interval is a guess.

As for airbrushing see Matthews post in the middle of page 14. Sounds like his photo credentials are way more than any expert on this site. And he agrees someone screwed around with it. So maybe he is a conspiracy nut too. I will leave it in his very capable hands to address that issue.

You can see the Juneau photo series taken by San Juan near the bottom of page 11.

I have not claimed to know a reason why. Way beyond my pay grade and age to attempt to compute why. I put this into on the site for the benefit of model builders, not to ignite a debate as to how/why I have the opinions I have. I put it here for the benefit of anyone else who plans to build a model of the ship, so they have all info possible, not to go into daily dissertations on whys and hows. As I have said several times we have 2 dark CLAAs in a photo of Hornet that can be calculated to time if anyone wants to do the appropriate checking of deck logs. One of them has to be Juneau. Both had camo per photos and the war diary of Juneau and a surviving crewman. The closest one is a solid color. Impossible based on info/photos available and the info from the crewman. Supposedly San Diego but by commentary other than mine obviously is not. One of the 2 shows up guessing 3-6 hours later with CV 6 and is photoed 2X by San Juan. Ship is ID'd by San Juan as Juneau, so zero chance of confusion as to which ship it is. One of those photos shows a very light paint scheme way lighter than the 2 cruisers with Hornet. Said paint scheme has a remarkable similarity to the Noumea photo already discussed. So my question remains unanswered, if we have a photo expert confirming my guess that 80-G-304513 was screwed with—no doubt clerical error or some other lame excuse vs conspiracy—and we have no explanation for one of the same ships showing up with CV6 looking very much like the one in the Noumea photo on the same day in the same weather, HOW DID THE COLOR CHANGE HAPPEN? And unless I am way wrong none of our resident experts have the current photo credentials to prove the Noumea photo is not the correct color. No other CLAA in 1942 had a color like the one in the Noumea photo.

As also stated previously, based on the normal colors of the closer ships there is no evidence of overexposure or any other excuse for the white color ship in the Noumea photo not being its real color. None of our resident experts and no peon like me has yet to provide an explanation for this rather miraculous transformation of colors on the same ship when it goes from CV8 to CV 6. I do not know why any of this happened. I only know what is pretty obvious to even amateur eyes like mine.

Is your confusion resolved now?

_________________
FRED BRANYAN

Fred,

Not worth the argument, you can paint your model anyway you want.

I spent some time going through JUNEAU's War Diary. She had a full FIVE DAYS of down time at Noumea ... 27 September through 1 October 1942 ... more than enough time to repaint the ship by the crew. It was more UNCOMMON for War Diaries/Deck Logs to MENTION painting than to not. Once they got into a shooting war, that kind of detail in a War Diary seemed kind of unimportant. In looking to answer what the early FLETCHER's were painted when they arrived and when they got repainted, I looked in War Diaries for several units ... only one, USS O'BANNON, mentioned "going over the side" to repaint in early November 1942. I know that many of them arrived painted in something other than Ms 21 based on photographs; DD-449 and DD-450 came in Ms 18, DD-446, 498, 499, among others came painted in Ms 22.

The photos you reference on page 11, no 80-G numbers provided, seem to show a dark ship and a light ship. The same cruiser or two cruisers? A case of overexposed and underexposed photos?? Maybe they painted one side of the ship one color and the other another. Without seeing the original prints, I can't make out any details to determine ID based on configuration from these very low-res images. I don't see those two photos as proof of anything ... if both are ID as JUNEAU. If you are trying to say that the cruiser in the background of the Oiler photo is JUNEAU, that isn't possible ... she wasn't there in early August 1942.

Two things to consider (again);

The image of this cruiser in 80-G-304513, likely JUNEAU, is a VERY SMALL part of a much larger image. The actual image of the cruiser is very small. Going in and altering that size of an image in 1942 of film based prints would be a challenge. We are only able to see most of the detail in this photo because of high-res digital scanning.

In all the WWII-era censored photos I have seen, they normally mark up a print ... NOT the negative ... and produce a copy negative from that for public release. But, this overall photo shows no sign of being made from a copy negative. Plus, if censoring was involved with this photo, why would the paint be the only thing altered ... they left the radar antennas untouched.

Bottom-line, who would photo-retouch a 70+ year old photo that was made 70+ years ago???? And most important why?

One thing I'd like to say as an aid in keeping things straight. You can link to individual posts fairly easily in these threads. Each post has a line for "Post Subject" at the top. Usually it has the original thread title in it, but if posts from another thread are merged in, it will show that title for those posts. I've changed mine to "Look here" just to make it more apparent for the purpose of this explanation. Note that each post is a hyperlink - if you click on it, it will take you to the same post you just clicked on, but the address that is in the address bad is now the address to that direct post and you can copy and paste that. Examples:
Random post on page 5
Martin's posting of the picture Roger scanned for Fred.

I would suggest that linking to the specific posts will help us now and in the future, keep track of who is talking about what.

_________________
Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

NOTE TO MODEL BUILDERS

There will be no more daily dissertations in response to our resident experts.

If any of you are building a model of the ship, I have original downloads of the photos on the San Juan site and the Noumea site if you want them. The San Juan photos were sent to me by the site. Let me know if you want them.

I also have a series of 19 LCM photos of close range photos of the ship showing its superstructure. Most but not all of them are on line. I re arranged them from bow to stern. If any of you want them let me know.

Armed with the recent Quincy/Juneau photos you can do most of the hull pattern accurately. Note the major blue pattern difference and probable lighter color of blue on the port side. You can flip the starboard photo horizontally to use it for the missing superstructure pattern on the port side. If you need to know how to do that or need a site for how to make masks let me know. From personal experience I can tell you masking tape is not the way to go for the complex superstructure pattern.

I expect to start the model within about 6 months. I may attempt a water base for it. I do not do WIPs but when it is started I will be putting something on this site. I do send periodic progress emails to model friends. If you want to be included in them let me know.

In the meantime I hope the info/opinions/theories/sites from page 13 are of some help to anyone building Juneau.

Good luck and Godspeed for whatever you are working on.

_________________
FRED BRANYAN