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1: USS Oakland class (CL 95 - 98) (not "Portland class") - These ships were ordered in 1940 as the second batch of the Atlanta class. Suggestion: design the kit as Flint/Tucson. Include alternative molded parts for the early Oakland and Reno, whose SC air-search radar antenna was first located on the aft mast and was later relocated to the foremast as aboard Flint and Tucson, and who mounted 20mm guns on the forecastle. Among these four ships, only Oakland mounted quad 40mms during WW2 service. The other three mounted eight twin 40mm; no quads. Oakland, Reno, and Flint mounted depth charge tracks but Tucson had none. I have modeled Flint accurately and can provide information from a weapons officer. The 1/700 Skywave-Dragon-Revell kit is very inaccurate in armament, measurements, superstructures, and the hull. In fact you cannot assemble it OOB even as a fictional representation because the kitted parts do not align.
2: USS Atlanta class (CL 51 - 54), similar modeling situation to the above. These four ships were ordered in 1939 as the first batch of the Atlanta class. The 1/700 Skywave-Dragon-Revell kit is offered as Atlanta, Juneau #1, and San Diego, but another modeler tells me that the kitted bridge is for the fourth ship of this group, USS San Juan. San Diego and San Juan were modified during the war, including new bridge structures and complete re-armament of the secondary battery. "CLAA" was the postwar designation and was unique to the Atlanta-Oakland-Juneau #2 design.
3: Cruiser HMS Sheffield, the RN's most distinguished cruiser owing to her combat actions and to her less-known contributions to the development of radar tactics for surface action (Bismarck) and for fighter aircraft direction. Alternative: RN Colony-class light cruiser. Base the design on HMS Jamaica as in 1942 - 43, the most famous among these ships, owing to her actions in which Sheffield too was a combatant.
4: USS Tacoma Class Patrol Frigate of WW2, built using mercantile standards to the British River-class frigate design. The USA lent the USSR a number of these PFs during WW2. The USSR returned them in Japan, where they were still moored in 1950 when the Korean War broke out nearby. The US sent crews and deployed the formerly Russian PFs against Russia's North Korean ally. This design may be valid for the British River-class frigates, too. A production run for those in 1/700 sold out within weeks.
5: RN war-emergency destroyers of the Q - Z/Ca series. Ships of this series did in the Scharnhorst and the Haguro, embarked General Eisenhower during Operation Overlord, and served postwar in other navies, including Israel's Elath, the first combat loss to autonomous anti-ship cruise missiles. There were differences in the gun mounts among these classes.
All of these kits would be physically small even at 1/350. The Atlanta-Oakland kits should share a common design for most of their parts. Costs for design and production would be low and sales would be good.
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If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, [atmospheric] CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.
Dr James Hansen, NASA, 2008.
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