Calling all Essex-class (WWII configuration) fans

[Avery Boyer]

I can't help with the info you want, but that's a fantastic model, what program are you using?

[Tracy White]

Oh boy do I want to talk to YOU!

First off, the afore-mentioned photo:



CV-19, port side, aft of the deck-edge elevator.

First is the gallery decks, how far below the flight deck are they please ?, looking at images it looks to be 5 feet, with drop down sections where the access doors are to the innards ( excuse my poor terminology).

It varied; in areas such as the starboard side main deck cranes it jogged upwards to provide clearance for the cranes. I get a bunch of different measures on my 1/192 CV-13 plans, ranging from 6-7mm.

In regards to the quad mount referenced above, the early ships had the quad mounted higher, as in your drawing, to give it a better fire arc over the open 5" mount forward of it. The air group found the cut-outs in the deck to be a pain and pushed for the mounts to be lowered and the notches planked over. Ships going into overhaul in late 44 started having the mount moved, and the newer ships came out with the lower mounts.

PM inbound

[Michael Davies]

I can't help with the info you want, but that's a fantastic model, what program are you using?

Thank you, l'm using Max 8 for modeling, all my previous work has been for flight or train sims and so the work is limited in parts wise to get it to run smoothly in the games.

The Essex is a different model, more a historical model really and something l want to do, maybe l can par down the parts for flight sim so users can fly off her, certainly the Korea ones are a possibility as you remove most of the weapons which saves parts.

Unlike you guys l dont get sticky fingers, cuts from knives and a messy work desk, but...I dont get anything tangible to hold at the end l'm afraid.

Best

Michael

[Michael Davies]

Tracy,

Ohh dear is that good or bad .

Interesting photo, it shows what looks like one of the gallery extended 20mm mount sections at extreme left ?.

This whole area is a labarynth of passageways, rooms and cat walks, was it generic to all vessels, would it be safe to assume some artistic license and make that area to say the plans in the Intrepid book which lay out those areas quite well ?.

Gallery deck, ok thanks, l thought about it last night and decided I wasnt happy with them being straight right throuh so will begin to chop them up as and where l can find reasonable infomration, at the moment there tacked onto the side of the flight deck whose sides are constant depth along the longitudal reference, I think today l'll redo the whole deck and side walls after reshaping the aft twin Quad tubs.

40mm gallery tub, images of the Shangri La are quite hard to come by and she wasnt built with that deck cut out that earlier Essex's had ( and then later filled ) so I assumed it was built as per those vessels, looking closely at that area in the images I do have I can just see that the mount is flush with the 5" decking so l'll ammend that to suit today as well.

Ironically I wanted to do Ticonderoga but that extra large double cut out she had precludes conversion to other models with ease, she did have all her flight deck cut outs filled in at her 04/45, but then they added all those other Quad tubs as well and then lost her Ms 10A camo paint.

Couple of smaller images of the Port side gallery and flight deck overhang

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mickoo/Ima ... Max_16.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/mickoo/Ima ... Max_17.jpg

l'll upload all the bigger renders to my Blog and post a link later, then you can simply save as to get the big pictures.

Best

Michael

[Michael Davies]

Double post

[ModelMonkey]

A question about the Trumpy gallery deck pieces...

The underside of the flight deck overhang on the port side, Trumpeter parts D2, D5, D6, D7, D9, (Tico 1:350); are these parts suppose to replicate any actual parts on the real ships? Are model builders using these parts or scratch-building something else? Anyone?
Thanks

Similar pieces are there on thier 1/700 kits too. What's under the overhang is much more complicated than simple pieces of plastic. There're many platforms, walkways and compartments hanging there. I ditched those parts and scratch built everything using AOTS Interpid 's gallery deck diagram as reference.

Hi Timm!

I'm in the process of doing nearly the same thing Hanchang Kuo has done for the same reasons. I'm not that far yet, I'm further detailing the overhead of the hangar deck at the gallery deck level presently. I'm just now installing the transverse girders supporting the flight deck and the compartments that exist between some of them. I'm doing this because the overhead will be visible.

The earlier Yorktown (CV-5) class appears to have had open trusses rather than girders supporting the flight deck and there are PE sets available containing those trusses. But these parts would not be appropriate for an Essex class ship. For Essex class modelers we'll have to scratch the girders unless a PE manufacturer comes to our rescue.

For those who aren't sure of the difference between a girder and a truss, girders are basically solid beams. Trusses are open structural frames based on the geometric rigidity of the triangle which is probably what you have in your attic holding up your roof.

I'll post some pics of my hangar deck later today.

[ModelMonkey]

Michael, wonderful model!!

I'll add a bit to your questions although Tracy has answered them very well already.

First is the gallery decks, how far below the flight deck are they please ?, looking at images it looks to be 5 feet, with drop down sections where the access doors are to the innards ( excuse my poor terminology).

There are really two features we are considering here, the gallery deck proper and the 20mm gallery catwalks which are in fact different and exist at close but different levels.

The gallery deck proper is a deck that exists beneath the flight deck within the structure of the ship. In many areas it is composed of compartments containing offices, crew berthing, ammunition handling rooms, etc., and is uniform throughout the ship at approximately 8 feet in height (plus about 6" for deck structure). Think of the area between the flight deck and the gallery deck proper as a single story building suspended above the hangar.

The 20mm gallery catwalks were fixed to the exterior of the gallery deck bulkhead. Drawings indicate that it varied in height between about 60" (5 feet) below the surface of the flight deck (Tracy's 7mm in 1/192 scale) and about 48" (4 feet) where some clearance was required (6mm in 1/192 scale).

So if the distance between the surface of the flight deck and the bottom of the gallery deck is about 8'-6" high and the catwalks were 5 feet below the flight deck, they are mounted down from the flight deck about 5/8ths the height of the gallery deck bulkhead on the side of the ship. Therefore, for reasons of accuracy, modelers should avoid placing the catwalks at the bottom of the gallery deck as we sometimes see on models.

Second is the Port gallery bow Quad mount, some images and some models I see have this level with the gallery decking, some level with the 5" deck, some drawings (Anatomy of the ship INTREPID & Naval Institue press :- Essex class carriers ) show it to be between the two.

Depends on the time period. Most war-time Essex class ships were first built with the foremost and aft-most port side Bofors mounted high, close to the level with the gallery deck and there were two small cutouts in the flight deck to accommodate them. By late 1944 the Bofors were lowered to the level of the 5" sponson and the cutout was filled in during refits, presumably to improve flight deck operations. This is one easy way to date wartime photographs of the ships - locate the port Bofors mounts and see how high they are.

[Michael Davies]

Steve,

Ok thanks for the explanations, all sort of makes sense, though some areas do not have the gallery compartments right out to the deck edge, so l presume in those areas the deck side wall for want of a better name is shallower ?.

l've redone the fwd port Quad so its flush with the 5" mounts and l've done some more renders which l'll show shortly, l've been trying to recreate some images as seen from real photos, ie from the catwalk, from the superstructure looking aft etc etc.

A little expansion on the beams explanation, its part of my job so excuse my ramble .

A truss is a light weight load bearing structure, made up of smaller cross braced parts, either tubular or box section, some times I beams. The deck edge elevator structure is a truss with tubular members.

A beam tends to be hollow box / tubular or solid box / tubular cross section.

A girder is usually an I section cross member.

I think most of the hanger roof sections are girders of I section, most to a depth of 8' which you noted above as the depth of the gallery deck, it appears they simply plated the area between the girder webs to form the gallery decking and thus there are a multitude of long thin narrow rooms in this area.

Best

Michael

[Michael Davies]

Ok the pictures, lets see if thumbs work, another first for me.

This is an internal view fwd showing the part lowered elevator #1, l hadnt considered doing the inside in detail, simply good quality textures to represent the walls etc. Rendering internally is always difficult and this seems to have sort of worked in my default studio.but l need to play with more lights.



Thats the boring technical out of the way, heres a view having ridden up the elevator onto the flight deck looking aft, note the side elevator part tipped, all these parts can be animated and made to move at will, even small movies ( 10 seconds or so ) can be made to show how parts work and inter relate to each other, thats sometimes handy for working out what a part should look like, its easier when you know what its supposed to do and how it does it.



This is a shot from the port gallery catwalk with the now lowered 40mm quad mount flush with the 5" deck, l'm not really sure whats inside those dug outs just yet, more doors to ammo lockers l presume, this would probably be where cat 2 is fired from, actually that is a good question, where where the cats fired from, later carriers and modernised Essex carriers were fired from the port and starboard catwalks, or from a armoured bunker mid deck on the CVN's, but where were the WWII and Korea ( WWII re-commissioned ) cats fired from ?. As an aside l've seen images of small older jets being launched with elevator #1 in the lowered posistion, the left main gear is very close to the opening !.



Last an image from the upper aft Mk57 tub, looking down on the lading area, l dont have any suitable plane models yet to populate the area, but you get the idea of what the final view might look like when full textured and populated and enviromentally lit.



Best

Michael

[Capt652]

Tracy wrote;

CV-19, port side, aft of the deck-edge elevator.

To get a perspective of that picture, would it have been taken from the walkway next to the hull where the whaleboat was slung, looking forward?

Thanks,

Timm

[Tracy White]

Actually, from one of the roller doors, main deck.

[Capt652]

Tracy,

Would it be the the area of the slung whaleboat?

Timm

[Tracy White]

No, it's not that high up or far forward. If they were looking from the catwalk or whaleboat they'd be seeing the underside of the elevator itself; this picture was taken from the main (Hangar) deck from one of the roller doors.

[Michael Davies]

I think its taken from the next set of three roller doors aft of the ones near the whale boat, ie the ones under the middle set of 20mm mounts. If it were taken from the whale boat area then youd possibly see the boat or elevator #2 ?, additionally I dont think there are any 20mm platforms in that area and that looks like 20mm support beams on the extreme left.

Best

Michael

[ArizonaBB39]

Look on Navsource's CV-16 page and you'll see some photos of CV-16 bing widened that I sent in. I think it's wrong to call it blistering personally.

I believe the extensions were not even each side either ?, four feet on the port side where most of the weight was added and three feet on the starboard side is what l've read somewhere, still with in the width required to transit the Panama canal which as a safe bet is 100 feet, though some modern container ships push this to 105 feet, I think the actual locks are 110 feet wide ?.

Best

Michael

Iowa class battleships had a clearance of 1 foot total through the canal locks, IIRC.

[ModelMonkey]

Hi Michael!

GREAT drawings! I wish I had your talent.

Ok thanks for the explanations, all sort of makes sense, though some areas do not have the gallery compartments right out to the deck edge, so l presume in those areas the deck side wall for want of a better name is shallower ?

AOTS drawings indicate that the deck side walls you mention were uniformly about 8' deep consistent with the 8' deep girders. However, AOTS drawings A17/1 and A17/2 show that only the flight deck from just forward of the forward twin 5-inch mounts to just aft of the aft elevator is supported by the deep 8' transverse girders. In this area we find most of the internal compartments of the gallery deck such as squadron ready rooms, air group offices, ammo handling rooms, etc. (AOTS A6/1 and A6/2).

AOTS drawings A17/1 and A17/2 also show that the flight deck forward of this deep-girder midships area and aft of it were supported by girders that are substantially shallower than 8', perhaps just 4 feet in height. See this photo of USS Intrepid:



Yet the sidewalls are consistently 8' deep even along these two areas. There are comparatively few internal gallery deck compartments in these fore and aft areas and generally the space enclosed by the girders is open to the hangar deck below. The few exceptions include ammo handling rooms for adjacent 40mm mounts port side aft and the port side squadron armory and berthing rooms next to the aft elevator (AOTS A6/1 and A6/2).

The forward area with these narrow girders is the large area above the hangar deck catapult between the forward twin 5-inch mounts and the forward elevator. In this area, there are also four longitudinal girders supporting the flight deck: one on the ship's centerline, one port about 8' inboard of the hull side, and two starboard - one about 8' inboard of the sidewall and another about 12' inboard of the first and parallel to it (AOTS drawing A16/2). The areas enclosed by these girders are all open to the hangar deck below.

The sidewalls do indeed drop down noticeably deeper than 8' where there are 20mm galleries, presumably to allow for additional bracing under the 20mm galleries to support the additional weight there (guns, crews, heavy splinter shielding, etc.).

Also of note, the roller doors in the area forward are taller here, perhaps to provide sufficient clearance for the launching of aircraft using the short-lived hangar deck catapult. I suspect that the center-most door had to be the tallest in order to permit the tail of an aircraft on the catapult to pass through the door during a catapult launch.

[Michael Davies]

Steve,

Thanks for all that, I've been using the AOTS drawings a lot but there mostly for the older short hull versions, I've also been using the NIP ones and the two contradict each other all the time <sigh>.

I've actually opted for about 8 feet all round to begin with, there are areas where it is shallower, mainly around the gallery 5" dug outs, I've also opted to place the catwalks about 4',6" below the flight deck level, again to begin with, it seem to be the most common height for the majority of catwalks and where there are drop outs for steps down to doors in the flight deck side frame, they appear to be one or two treads deep ( risers being 9 or 12" at a guess.

Drawings, I'm afraid not theres nothing drawn here, its all modelled in 3D, its actually a model and these are....well photos for want of a better word...we call them renders. No one will ever be able to touch it in there hands or take it to exhibitions, it exists only as 1's and 0's in a PC memory.

Tracy gave me some pointers on the bridge structure so thats what I've been working on these past few days, I've basically stripped out the old one, the mesh ( the model shape ) was quite poor in areas and a bit clunky, you can see that in the first render where the shadow from aft raised twin 5" turret decking falls onto the hull side, note its not smooth, thats an area yet to be done.

I've left some of the bits in a sort of gold color, to simulate etched brass fittings, something to perhaps help people transcend from the model world to mine.

I am having trouble ascertaining exactly what type of doors are on the upper decks, they don't appear to be the fume tight or spin wheel multi dog type.







Hopefully I'll get onto finishing the funnel caps and get a basic Mk37 director fleshed out in the next few days

Best

Michael

[Michael Davies]

Concerning camo vessels, was the camo color carried over to the weapons ?, I've seen models where the guns have been painted the same color as the surrounding hull, ie 20mm and Quads, is this correct or were those weapons a standard color irrespective of there location ?.

Camouflage 2 shows several vessels where it looks like the mounts are one color, there splinter shields match the hull colors , but the guns dont, some show what looks like the original color splinter shields ( blue ? ) and then the hull camo around that, and some clearly show guns painted in the hull color, was there a standard or is it just a case of looking at images and best guessing ?.

Best

Michael

[Tracy White]

Camouflage 2 shows several vessels where it looks like the mounts are one color, there splinter shields match the hull colors , but the guns dont, some show what looks like the original color splinter shields ( blue ? ) and then the hull camo around that, and some clearly show guns painted in the hull color, was there a standard or is it just a case of looking at images and best guessing ?.

That's pretty much your answer there; all of the above, varying from ship to ship. I've seen some dazzles where the barrels on the quad 40s had countershading on the bottoms (white) but you didn't see that on the solid schemes. I don't know enough yet about the quad 40mm weapons and mounts (there is a difference) to know if the version of the guns and mounts carried played into the paint; some of them you see black around the recoil springs, others you don't.

[MartinJQuinn]

Good grief, Steve, that is unbelievable!! After seeing that, I think I'm going to go home and use my Hornet for a doorstop.

PS - When is the Air Group compartment gallery-level deck insert being released as a resin after market part? (hint, hint).