The Montana's design was pretty much set by late 1941 with some design work continuing into 1943, a lot of the turret components were already orderd and being made prior to the ships being cancelled, the materials that were completed were maintained as spares for the Iowa class, it was common to start the turrets prior to starting the hull.
I came upon some Montana stuff back in the 1980's when I was working in the battleship program. there were memos and sketches of the ships that more closely followed the Iowa design, remember in late 1942 the Iowas were being reconfigured in the way of the bridge design and AA fit.
The structure for the 3 quad 40 mounts that were on either side midships were anchored on the original boat crane foundation which is still mostly intact on the ships today.
This is by far the closest I have seen a model done that would have been what the Montana would have looked like when she emerged from the shipyard, I think that the 20mm galleries that were on the main deck amidships would have been removed during her post shakedown availability. Those guns would have been untenable when the 5" battery was in action.
Again...excelent rendition of the Montana
You're probably right. The 20mm guns would be in a bad spot so close to the 5" guns. Oh well. It wasn't easy building this ship as I didn't have much research and so forth to go on since the ship was never actually built. After reading various drawings, books, etc., I guess I just took a pinch of this and a pinch of that, and hoped everything would turn out ok. But like I said before, every Montana that is built in the future will be different. Everybody will have a different interpretation of how she looked. I like a bit of variety. It spices up the modeling world. 
Seeing that kit just makes mine look so inferior now. I think I'll go put mine in the closet now. 
LOL! But of course, mine was built pretty much before YMW had even come out with theirs. That kit is sweet, but $500 for one is too steep for me. I'll have to pass. Besides, the white metal parts (especially the gun barrels) is not up to par.
But now I'm back at it again. I guess I'm a glutton for punishment, eh? I also bought some product called "Blacken-It" at my local hobby store to try and blacken jewlery chain to use as anchor chain. I'll see how well that goes tonight. Progress on the base seems to be going ok according to a friend who is making it. The display case won't be started till January though.
