The Ship Model Forum

Talk to Burkhardt at BMK... he will make you a beautiful set of 5in/54 barrels. The barrels are nearly 1/4" longer in scale, so there is a definite difference. However, as others have noted, it would be difficult to tell with nothing to compare them against.

OK Thanks...
And how do I contact Burkhard??

_________________
NIKOS (NICK)
ΜΕΓΑ ΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ
(GREAT IS THE NATION THAT MASTERS THE SEAS)

Sorry about that - Burkhardt.Masch@t-online.de.

The 5" /54 cal gunhouses provided with YMW Montana are ok, just add some hatches and sight ports to the
front and of course Burkhardt´s beautiful 5" /54 cal brass barrels! Some photos of the single mount can be
found at http://www.navweaps.com. The twin mount shouls have had the same shape, only wider to take
two guns.

I am really looking foward to other interpretations of the Montana, especially the YMW kit. To see how you
have solved occurring difficulties or what aftermarket parts were used.

By the way, i have received the high resolution versions of the photos of my Montana i have posted recently.
The problem is, the files are quite big ( 1.2 megabyte, 3000 x 2000 pixels )so i don´t know if i can upload them.

But i will try anyway.

Jan - if you can't upload them and would prefer, email them to me and I will host them for you with links.

So here is the batch of high res photos. The first upload attempt failed.
"file too big, max file size is 1 MB". So i have reduced the pictures a bit
to make the upload work.

I hope the details can be seen much better now!

Absolutely brilliant!

_________________
Have fun, Monkey around.™

-Steve L.

Complete catalog: - https://www.model-monkey.com/
Follow Model Monkey® on Facebook: - https://www.facebook.com/modelmonkeybookandhobby

Here are the next three photos.

And the next three pictures.

Keep 'em coming, Jan - these are awesome.

These are three new photos. Your opinion is welcome.

GREAT JOB... SIMPLY GREAT... JAN

By the way, I am thinking of replacing all 20mm single mounts with twin gun mounts. Do you think that this was possible concerning the number of crewmembers it would take to operate all the mounts?

And another question... what was the difference of the two quadraple gun mounts? I mean the one used on the ships and the one that had all of the four guns together in a single line. I have also seen pictures of quadruple 20mm enclosed gun mounts. Did they appear much later? Would it be possible to find those mounts on a Montana??

_________________
NIKOS (NICK)
ΜΕΓΑ ΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ
(GREAT IS THE NATION THAT MASTERS THE SEAS)

Thankyou for the compliments, Nikos!

Concerning the Oerlikon 20mm twin mounts, as far as i know this type of gun entered service in spring of 1945,
but in quite small numbers. For example the Iowas never received any twins. The only battleships i have found
with only or mostly 20mm twin mounts are the Maryland (20 twins, 1 quad) and California (33 twins, 8 singles).
Several other battleships had some twin mounts added to their single mount 20mm. I have photos of North Carolina,
Alabama or Massachusetts, where single and twin mounts were placed together in one gun tub. So mixing up both type
of mounts is legitimate. But i would suggest that you use more single mounts than twins because the latter were seen
quite seldom. I guess because the limited production numbers and the many ships to be equipped.

On my Montana i replaced some of the 20mm gun tubs with 40mm Bofors quad mounts, a much more powerful weapon,
that saw more service towards 1945 then.

The armament i used is: 24 40mm Bofors quad mounts = 96 barrels
23 20mm Oerlikon twin mounts = 46 barrels
42 20mm Oerlikon single mounts = 42 barrels

Concerning the 20mm quad mounts i have read that some of the Iowas received several during summer 1945 on an ex-
perimental basis but i have no information about the success of this weapon. Furthermore i have never seen any photos
or drawings, so maybe you can show some?

Since the quad mounts were installed for experimental testing on a few ships i would suggest that you go with a mixture
of twin and single 20mm mounts.

I hope that helps,
Jan

Hello USS Montana fans, here are three more photos.
By the way, how many of you are planning to build or are already building the
YMW USS Montana? I am just curious.

I think I'd like to do some quad 20's on my Montana, which won't be YMW. I do 700 scale, and after the horror stories, I'd be reluctant to even consider it. The only thing is, I'd hate to do the quad 20's for the fact I'd have to scratch build them I think. That's the only thing I really dread about doing Montana, is all the 20's. I can't help but shake my head at the waste of manpower they constitute, and how it could have been fixed by saving the wages for the extra gunners and crewmen to staff all those guns and keep them loaded, and putting it into developing some halfway decent mountings. But then, hindsight is always 20/20 and I can't imagine what was going through their heads at the time.

_________________
Die Panzerschiffe - Putting the Heavy in Heavy Cruiser since 1940.

It's not Overkill, it's Insurance.

If you think my plastic is crazy, check out my Line Art!
http://s37.photobucket.com/albums/e58/S ... %20Images/

Build your Montana as a modernized Montana No tiny AA to worry about, then =P

_________________
De quoi s'agit-il?

Here is a photo of the quad 20mm mount. I will not place any of those on my build, since I think that the quad 40mm is much more useful as an aa weapon, by simply noting the equasion:
AA Protection = No. barrels X weigh of shells X dispersion of fragments of shots...
So the quad 20mm is as dead as a sitting duck.

_________________
NIKOS (NICK)
ΜΕΓΑ ΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ
(GREAT IS THE NATION THAT MASTERS THE SEAS)

I already own one but have not started yet.

p.s. The coat of arms on your avatar is from Bremen isn't it??

_________________
NIKOS (NICK)
ΜΕΓΑ ΤΟ ΤΗΣ ΘΑΛΑΣΣΗΣ ΚΡΑΤΟΣ
(GREAT IS THE NATION THAT MASTERS THE SEAS)

Beautiful ship!!!...what a shame she never got to be a reality!!!

Beautiful build Jan!!!


Dave

_________________
"There is no problem which cannot be solved through suitable application of naval artillery."

Hello Montana fans and builders,

i will try to answer several questions in one post.

-to GTDEATH13: Thank you for the picture of the 20mm quad mount. That thing looks really interesting. At first i thought
the mount was remote controlled but then i noticed the Mk14 electric gunsight. So does that mean, some
poor guy had to sit in that tub following all the movements of the gun? No, thank you.
The flag you are referring to is not that of Bremen, it is the federal state of Schleswig-Holstein, where i
come from.

-to Timmy C: Your suggestion of building the ship in a modernized version sounds really tempting. How about a version
like the Iowas looked in the 1980´s? Ok, the superstructure has to be reworked to accomodate the modern
equipment, the catapults and the crane have to be removed and a heli pad has to be established. For the
Seahawks the beautiful ones from Veteran Model can be used. The radar suite can be taken from the GMM
photoetch set "Modern New Jersey". All 20mm and 40mm mounts removed, maybe a few tubs remaining, the
5" turrets reduced from 10 to 6 mounts, of course the 4 16" turrets have to stay. For the modernized equipment
like personnel boats, ECM stuff, chaff launchers, Tomahawk launchers, Harpoon launchers, Phalanx CIWS i can
highly recommend the sets from Veteran Models.
Well, i really think about getting me another one to realize that project! Would make an interesting comparison.
On the one side a "what if" Montana if she had been build and on the other side a "what if" if that ship would have
stayed in service right into the eighties.

-to Sauragnmon: I think the phrase "horror stories" is a bit exaggerated. Ok, you might consider replacing parts like the 16" and 5"
barrels with turned brass, or the 20mm and 40mm, the gun directors, balsa rafts and other stuff with aftermarket
parts, which surely will rise the costs. But on the plus side, all the needed sets are available. And furthermore many
parts of the kit are nicely cast, the 16" turrets, the smokestacks, to name a few, and of course the beautiful hull.
You mentioned, that you do 1/700 scale, so the Montana from IHP is the alternative for you. Mike Bartel has done
a really good job on this kit. Ok, it is a so called craftsman kit, that means many of the smaller parts like armament,
structure parts and other stuff have to be taken from Tamiya Iowa class kits, but i think that is no problem. I can
relly recommend that kit.

Regards,

Jan Schulz, IG Waterline