Calling all Essex-class (WWII configuration) fans

[Rdutnell]

First, I'm never sure which Forum to put my questions on. I'm currently working on the USS Bennington (CV-20), an Essex class carrier, so all of my questions have recently been related to that. It seems that the "Calling all Ship Fans" is the appropriate Forum to put my questions, but I would suspect that the "Main Forum" would get more traffic, and thus be more likely to get a response. I have never had a problem getting a response to my questions, but does anyone have any recommendations as to which Forum to use?

Now to my question...

I'm building the USS Bennington wearing the MS 32 - 17A dazzle paint scheme. Is it possible that the scheme was only used up to the level of the flight deck, with everything above that level being Haze Gray? I ask, because all of the pictures I've seen (a relatively small number, even with much time spent doing Google image searches) the entire island appears to be a light gray and doesn't seem to have the pattern of 17A.

What say you?

[Timmy C]

I put the question here in the Essex thread. It could've also went into the Camou section.

But where a question should never be placed is as its own thread (i.e. "New Topic") in the CASF section! Exception is if the question is regarding a ship class that does not already have a thread in the forum, in which case you may pose the question as a New Topic and adjust the subject so that it fits the "Calling all xxxxx class fans!" format.


But to your question, I'm looking at the photos on Navsource and it appears to me that the camouflage pattern does continue onto the island, albeit variating from the official plan pattern (http://www.shipcamouflage.com/DesignShe ... 9Class.jpg), such as the 5-O and 5-N on the island appears in the photo to both be 5-N: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/022029.jpg Admittedly, the starboard side of the island does not show the camo pattern. However...

Complicating this is that she appears to have switched from MS 32 17a to MS 33 17a during those short 1944 months - Navsource's photos that say "Design 17A #2" refers to the lighter colours used, consistent with the colours of MS 33. In these photos, both sides of her island do appear to be painted in the pattern.

So, the question for you becomes: "MS 32 or MS 33?" If the latter, then definitely both sides of the island. If the former, then definitely the port side of the island, while the starboard side can be left "blank".

[Brian J.]

I'm guessing the side mounts and extra stern mount would have been installed at the same time as the bow mount, which means it looks like I'm good to go as far as gun mounts are concerned.

I believe Bennington commissioned with the double stern mounts. She definately had them while she was in her dazzle. When she emerged from her July '45 repair (Typhoon) she was in measure 21 and the starboard mid mounts were not yet installed. It may be a little work to find out when these were installed.

To sum it up:
Double stern mounts (installed as built or refit in 1944).
Double bow mounts (SCB-27A 1950-1952)
Starboard mid mounts (Post July 1945).

[Rdutnell]

I put the question here in the Essex thread. It could've also went into the Camou section.

But where a question should never be placed is as its own thread (i.e. "New Topic") in the CASF section! Exception is if the question is regarding a ship class that does not already have a thread in the forum, in which case you may pose the question as a New Topic and adjust the subject so that it fits the "Calling all xxxxx class fans!" format.

Thanks! It looks like I put it the right place.

But to your question, I'm looking at the photos on Navsource and it appears to me that the camouflage pattern does continue onto the island, albeit variating from the official plan pattern (http://www.shipcamouflage.com/DesignShe ... 9Class.jpg), such as the 5-O and 5-N on the island appears in the photo to both be 5-N: http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/022029.jpg Admittedly, the starboard side of the island does not show the camo pattern. However...

Complicating this is that she appears to have switched from MS 32 17a to MS 33 17a during those short 1944 months - Navsource's photos that say "Design 17A #2" refers to the lighter colours used, consistent with the colours of MS 33. In these photos, both sides of her island do appear to be painted in the pattern.

So, the question for you becomes: "MS 32 or MS 33?" If the latter, then definitely both sides of the island. If the former, then definitely the port side of the island, while the starboard side can be left "blank".

The pattern you provided is the one I'm using. In the attached photo, taken after the typhoon, that I got from the uss-bennington.org site, she appears to be painted in the MS 32 -17A (although it is difficult to tell due to wear).

Since I've already painted the hull in MS - 32 - 17A, I think I'll stick with it.

Thanks for the info!!!

[Rdutnell]

I believe Bennington commissioned with the double stern mounts. She definately had them while she was in her dazzle. When she emerged from her July '45 repair (Typhoon) she was in measure 21 and the starboard mid mounts were not yet installed. It may be a little work to find out when these were installed.

To sum it up:
Double stern mounts (installed as built or refit in 1944).
Double bow mounts (SCB-27A 1950-1952)
Starboard mid mounts (Post July 1945).

OK, I have a little work to do. Still one stern mount is better than what I was starting to think.

Now I just need to find some pictures showing what it should look like and figure out how to do it.
THANKS!!!

[Brian J.]

Bennington used the original 6 color (17A #1) for her dazzle (during her shakedown?). But was reduced to 3 colors (17A #2) prior to deploying to the pacific.

The 6 color design calls for overall 5-L on the starboard side (island), and
5-L, 5-H, 5-N and black on the port side (island).

The 3 color design calls for the 5-H, 5-N and 5-O on both sides of the island.

For the stern sponson (and dazzle pics) check out these photos:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/20.htm

[Rdutnell]

Bennington used the original 6 color (17A #1) for her dazzle (during her shakedown?). But was reduced to 3 colors (17A #2) prior to deploying to the pacific.

The 6 color design calls for overall 5-L on the starboard side (island), and
5-L, 5-H, 5-N and black on the port side (island).

The 3 color design calls for the 5-H, 5-N and 5-O on both sides of the island.

For the stern sponson (and dazzle pics) check out these photos:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/20.htm

AWESOME!

I had seen this site when I first considered building the model but didn't bookmark it so I haven't seen it since I really got started. I thought I had all the good sites bookmarked or copied.

Anyway, A couple of these pictures along with your description really clear things up for me.
THANKS!!!

[DennisJP]

I worked in the Ship yard for awhile at Bremerton where they had the Bennington. We had to go on board her to rig her for tow because a company in Portland Oregon bought her for scrap. As well as the Hornet.

[Rdutnell]

I worked in the Ship yard for awhile at Bremerton where they had the Bennington. We had to go on board her to rig her for tow because a company in Portland Oregon bought her for scrap. As well as the Hornet.

Cool!

[Tracy White]

Hey guys, I'm finally delving into my whiffed version of Leyte using the Dragon Antietam kit as a basis and I have a question about the bow on the kit versus drawings; which is correct?! The kit squares off the deck and resembles a perfect "arc" from the waterline to the bull nose. All of the drawings I've seen, including Raven and Roberts book and the USN General Booklet of Plans, show an arc starting from the waterline that rises about halfway up and then reverses direction for the upper half creating a bulge that I assume was added to support the bow gun tubs.

Are you talking about this profile (SteelNavy) versus page 3 of this one?

I'm guessing the side mounts and extra stern mount would have been installed at the same time as the bow mount, which means it looks like I'm good to go as far as gun mounts are concerned.

Sorry to rain on your parade, but she did have the two quad 40MMs on the stern before she left the east coast. You can see it in this Navsource image.

I count ten;
one bow,
one next to each of the open 5" galleries on the port side,
two on the port sponson where the earlier ships had the hangar cat,
Two on the stern,
Two on the islan, itself
One atop the small hut aft of the island (between it and the #3 twin 5" .

[Cliffy B]

Yes, yes I am Tracy. I'm assuming the plans show the correct lines? If so the bow is going to get a huge glob of putty and a lot of sanding. Thoughts?

[Dick J]

Hey guys, I'm finally delving into my whiffed version of Leyte using the Dragon Antietam kit as a basis and I have a question about the bow on the kit versus drawings; which is correct?! The kit squares off the deck and resembles a perfect "arc" from the waterline to the bull nose. All of the drawings I've seen, including Raven and Roberts book and the USN General Booklet of Plans, show an arc starting from the waterline that rises about halfway up and then reverses direction for the upper half creating a bulge that I assume was added to support the bow gun tubs.

Unfortunately, neither Dragon nor Trumpeter got this bow right. Ironically, the old Hasegawa kit has a much more accurate bow form. I chose the Dragon kit over the Trumpeter because the Dragon kit needs the bow filled out, and that can be done. The Trumpeter bow is too full in its form and needs to be "carved back". My fear is that the plastic would then be much too thin, or have been sanded completely through. A pity, because the Trumpy kit had some other features that might otherwise taken me in that direction. The tubs on the bow of the Dragon are too square, so I will replace them with round tubs and sand the deck's corners a bit rounder to match before I start filling the bow with putty. Oh well - a lot of work that might have been spared with a little more attention to detail on the manufacturer's part!!!

PS: I would follow the plans over the kit!

[Rdutnell]

Well, thanks to grayson72, who was kind enough to send pictures of an Essex dual stern gun mount, I know what I need to build. Now I just have to figure out how to do it. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

I think the flat piece would be easy enough to build, and the shields(?) I think could be made out of a spare piece of PE. The support is the tough part. It doesn't seem like plastic is an option because I don't know how you would bend it to the correct shape. All comments and suggestions will be appreciated!!!

[whaynes]

Hi, guys. After going through this forum several times and seeing some of the fantastic models of this ship, I've worked up my courage to begin my Yorktown as she was after Fall, 1944, refit. I've accumulated several books, including AOTS and Mr. Raven's Essex book among others, GMM PE and the new Pontos detail set, as well as the 1/350 Trumpeter kit. I hope to model the external details including the strakes, butt straps and flight deck girder supports. I have a few {?!!?} questions, if I may ask.

1. Does anyone have diagrams/plans of the strakes, butt straps they might be willing to share? I know these can be abstracted from AOTS, but my left {?right} brain does not always work in that fashion.

2. Are the sea chest openings diagrammed on page 54, B2/1 of AOTS the only hull bottom openings? Are they symmetrically located on the port side as well?

3. Is the Docking Plan available from Floating Drydock for USS Intrepid, 1969, applicable to Yorktown? Are the GQ series plans of USS Franklin, 1945 of benefit for my purpose? Can't seem to find any WW II plans except the Bu series and there are too many different sheets and too expensive.

That's enough to get going for now. Hope some of you can help.
Walt Haynes

[Tracy White]

2: No, those aren't the only openings. A ship that large has many more. Your best bet Might be the national archives, but be aware that there were something on the order of just below 7,000 individual drawings and they don't have them on file in such a way that you can say "I want XX view." I just haven't bought many of the Floating Drydock plans so I'm not sure if any of theirs do.

3: Can't comment on the Intrepid plans, but the Franklin plans would be sort-of useful; you'd need to check for differences before trusting them, as the two ships did have differences.

[grayson72]

Well, thanks to grayson72, who was kind enough to send pictures of an Essex dual stern gun mount, I know what I need to build. Now I just have to figure out how to do it. Anyone have any ideas on how to do this?

I think the flat piece would be easy enough to build, and the shields(?) I think could be made out of a spare piece of PE. The support is the tough part. It doesn't seem like plastic is an option because I don't know how you would bend it to the correct shape. All comments and suggestions will be appreciated!!!

Here's how I'd approach scratching this:

- Make the flat piece first out of sheet styrene.
- Once you have the correct shape for this find a dowel (or any round object) the same diameter as the radius on those gun tubs.
- Cut some thin strips the appropriate width for the guard rails accounting for the thickness of flat piece.
- Take the strips, wrap them around the dowel and carefully apply a heat source (hair dryer should do it). This will help the strips stay the shape you want.
- Let them cool, if you made them out of a thin enough piece of styrene you should be able to glue them to the outside edge of the flat piece you already made only do one side at a time (at this point you've only glued the strip to the outside edges and not where the guard rail curves into the flat piece at the center, leav this part unglued for now)
- Make the strips longer than you need, once the glue has dried you can trim off the extra length
- Let that side dry for a day
- Where the railing curves into the center of the flat piece you'll need to trim off the bottom of the strip the width of the flat piece (you may want to do this before glueing the guard rail to the flat piece)
- You should be able to simply bend the strip on a straight edge at the appropriate spot
- Glue the center section of the rail to the flat piece, leave this long until it dries and you can trim off the extra

As for the support structure underneath:
- Temporarily tack the flat piece to the stern of the ship where it should go.
- Mark with a pen the outline of the support structure on the stern where it should go.
- Take some two part epoxy putty and stick a glob of it underneath the flat piece using talcum powder or thinned vasiline as a release agent between the glob and the hull of the ship or it will mostly like stick there for good.
- You want the glob to be slightly larger than the intended part shape so at this point you don't have to be perfect about how it looks (you just don't want to have to add more to it later).
- Let the putty setup and become hard, once this occurs you can remove it from the hull, now you have a perfect fit to the stern for the part you just made when you need to permanently attach it to the hull
- Here's where your shaping/carving skills come in, using the mark on the stern of the hull and the flat piece as a template keep whittling away at the part until it looks like the picture and your happy with it.

It sounds more complicated than it really is. But that's how I'd do it.

[Tracy White]

There is also a trading section where you could see if there's anyone wanting to do an Intrepid - they would benefit from a straight trade with you

[Rdutnell]

THANKS GUYS!
You have spent so much time helping me, I've decided that I am going to try to do Bennington justice and do it right, even if it is a bit more than I bargained for when I started this project.

I've received the reference materials I ordered, including "Essex Class Carriers" by Alan Raven, "Warship Perspectives: Essex Class Aircraft Carriers in World War Two" by Glen E. Arnold and Ray D. Bean's DVD "Essex 2" Volume 56. They have opened a whole new world for me.

Having made the decision to go for it, the first thing I did was look at the plans from Trumpeter's 1/350 USS Hancock that I found in Timothy Dike's review of the model on this site. Attached are two clips from those plans. The first is of the stern mount that we have been discussing, the second is of the port sponson mount. Looking at these clips, I need parts F4, F16 and F1 for the stern mount, and parts H8 and H4 for the sponson mount.

plans-sternmount.jpg (15.58 KiB) Viewed 1944 times

plans-sponsonmount.jpg (22.35 KiB) Viewed 1944 times

It may be a waste of time, but I've e-mailed Trumpeter's distributer, Stevens International (whose site I obtained on this thread from this site: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=70515), asking if it is possible to get these parts.

If that doesn't work, I think I like Tracy's idea of trying a trade before I endeavor on the scratch build option. In fact, at this point, I haven't even ruled out buying the Entire Hancock model. I do have a Birthday coming up and my wife says she'll buy me what I want to feed my new obsession.

It's ironic, because when I first got the idea to do this project I looked at both the Essex and Hancock as a starting point. I knew practically nothing about carriers, but I knew that there would be differences between the various ships. My first thought was that Hancock, being CV-19, would be closer to Bennington, CV-20. However, Hancock was a long hull, so I opted for the Essex. In my research, and from feedback on this site, I have learned that Bennington, though a short hull, had many features of the long hulls. Perhaps Hancock would have been a better starting point, I don't know. And I don't know why I didn't solicit advise on that question from this forum when I was deciding either.

I haven't even started looking at the islands, but though I don't know, my guess is that the island of the Bennington is also more like the island of the Hancock than of the Essex. Does anybody know if this is indeed the case? If it is, this gives me more reason to buy the Hancock.

In the mean time, I think I might start building guns...

THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR HELP!!!!

[Rdutnell]

There is also a trading section where you could see if there's anyone wanting to do an Intrepid - they would benefit from a straight trade with you

Hey Tracy, I'm still pretty naive about the ship differences in many ways. What do I have, that someone doing an Intrepid would need, that I don't need?

[Tracy White]

Intrepid was one of (if not the.. I'd have to check my notes to be sure) the first ships to get the three starboard Quad 40mms underneath the island. But, unlike the other ships that had this added on, she didn't get the double quad 4omm stern mounts initially, so there's a time period where a modeler needs to start with one of the later kits (Yorktown or Franklin) and come up with a single stern mount (either in trade, scratch-building, etc).

Definitely some differences in the island. A Hancock or Tico kit would probably be the easiest start. Not impossible to scratch build either, but perhaps more than you want to tackle at this point.