Calling all Iowa-class (BB-61) fans

[RandyM]

Cliff (Claven?), understood. I look forward whatever, whenever you can provide.

Tom, check out the below pic... it's a little hard to see but the stanchions are a tapered I-beam with a hinge pin at the base (oriented so that the stanchion could hinge down parallel to the deck edge. This is based on FDD plan diagrams, with no actual dimensions.

[Cliffy B]

Look back through the thread, I took measurements of the stanchions (both the I-beam and circular) a while back and posted them. If you can't find them let me know and I'll dig back through my notebook and repost.

-Mike

[James M]

The 20mm shields should have a V notch in center on the sheild, it's for leading the target.

http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missour ... iowa71.jpg


James

[RandyM]

Cliff: will do, thanks.

James: those shields are subject to discussion, I think. I have photos of Iowa with the V, and photos of Missouri without (below). The builder's model of Missouri has square shields, but so does the 1/48 model of Iowa (I don't know who built this one - I do not believe it was G&C).

Below this photo are two images of a twin 5-inch mount. I put some time into the gunsights and hoods. The cover linkage is fully operational ( ).

[Fliger747]

Coming along, note in the above photo that the 51 and 52 mounts do not have the hoods installed. An occasional photo will show these mounted, they attached with a couple of bolts.

T

[rtwpsom2]

Randy, you should look up a guy named John Lambert. He has some nice hand drawn drawings of the Oerlikon that are really good for detailing out the 20mm. That's not a complete model yet. It got put on the back burner quite a while ago and I hope to finish it someday. John's weapon drawings are dirt cheap, extremely high quality, and he is just the nicest chap. He has dozens of other weapon types, too. I have blown through a couple hundred dollars on there easily and he has always delivered in a spectacular way. I try to advertise for him whenever I can.

Also, the picture you have of the 20mm's without the V-notch is of New Jersey. I thought you were doing Iowa, but I could be mistaken. If you are doing Iowa, Missouri, or Wisconsin then you have the shields right, except they need to be radiused on the four outside corners of the shield. If you are doing New Jersey, she got the V notched shields during her square bridge refit. Some of the shields are the stock v-notch ones (the ones that came from the manufacturer that way). Others were "field modified" square ones.

[Fliger747]

Blast hood BB63. Note attachment bolts.

[RandyM]

Tom: as luck would have it, I spent most of last night working on the captain's hatch, open gunsight, and blast hood. I do not have many images which show the detailed mechanical arrangement for the hydraulic dampener used to assist in opening/closing the hatch, but I think I figured it out. Of course, the more I researched, the more I decided to model in SW... and now I have a hatch and blast hood which are fully "operational" (in the digital domain, for now). I have a few outstanding issues - the sight is incomplete, there is an interference issue between the hatch and the blast hood (I think the hatch is too big), etc.

Assuming Mounts 51 and 52 are the forward-most mounts on the 01 deck, the hoods probably aren't there because they interfere with the bulwarks on the navigation bridge level (at least, they do in this model).

rtwpsom2: (please accept my apologies, it is late and I'll be darned if I can remember your name right now: I am truly embarrassed)...thanks for this information - don't know why I assumed this was Missouri (which I am modeling)... I will adjust the 20mm shields (I think I may need a project manager for all this stuff!).

In the spirit of not trying to annoy folks with a bunch of inline images, I tried to use HTML tags to create a hyperlink out of a thumbnail, but it looks like this board doesn't support such (or I'm too dumb to figure out how). So I've switched to basic hyperlinks...

View of the gunsight, with hatch and hood open. If you know where to look, you can see the forward lip of the hatch sticking up through the hood
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414a.JPG

Same image but with the hatch closed. All the connecting hardware are accurately modeled using hinge points.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414b.JPG

Back side of mount showing hood in open position and damper with hatch closed.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414c.JPG

View from above and behind, with hood and hatch both closed.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414d.JPG

Same view but with hatch open. Note the dog-leg connector between the dampener and the hatch.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414e.JPG

Overview of 5-inch twin mount in current state. The various hatch openings are placeholders while I await news from Cliff.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414f.JPG

THE REST ARE FAIRLY LARGE FILES by comparison (roughly 1MB each).
Starboard-aft quarter view of Missouri in current state. Please continue to point out errors when you see something amiss. For now if something isn't there, assume I just haven't gotten to it yet.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414g.JPG

Starboard-fwd quarter view.
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414h.JPG

Just off the bow...
http://www.nulspace.com/hobbies/missouri/100414i.JPG

[Fliger747]

The hoods have at times been installed on the 51-52 mounts, so there is clearance, but being under the bridge wing there might be a funneling of blast with them on. I believe Hank posted a photo of them installed on Joy-Z at some point.

Cheers. Tom

[Fliger747]

The tabs to which the bolts attach the hood to the top of the mount are on the inside of the hood skirting. The bolt passes through the outer portion of the hood and into the tab, which is somewhat protected from weather etc. by being between an inner and outer skirting. I believe the tab is the female threaded portion. I don't believe the hood could rotate forward as the skirting around the bolt area is not radiused.

Cheers: T

[Fliger747]

In the way of dinky AZ details: Note the detail of the raise able glass covers for the coning tower slits, same are installed on the navigation bridge. For some reason the armored door is not on the centerline, guessing the internal arrangement of a rather cramped space is the culprit.

T

[RandyM]

I've been assuming the "blast hood" protected the crewman from blowback originating in front of the mount, but there are no signs of how the hood would be pulled down (plus the crewman would have to have some sort of forewarning to actually reposition the hood...). But if it is fixed, its purpose is to protect from rearward-originating blasts: makes much more sense. It also answers the question of how the hood could clear the gunsight when "closed" - it doesn't need to!

[Fliger747]

I was for a short time a hot case man on a single 5"/38 mount. For the fwd mount it protected the mount captain from the blast of the quite nearby 52 mount! Remember these mounts could fire somewhere Round 15 rounds/barrel per minute with a fresh and trained crew. Most of a guns blast comes forward in a cone. It might also be that the 51-52 mounts on BB 61-64 did not need a hood being somewhat out of the way.

T

[RandyM]

I spent some time on the citadel about a month ago.... curious to me is that while there is only one door on the 05 level, the 04 level had two?

[Cliffy B]

More people in the 04 than the 05 maybe? Weight, space, etc...? Those hydraulic motors that operate the doors take up A LOT of space on the 03 Level on Wisky. Would be "difficult" to get another one in there.

[Cliffy B]

Here's what measurements I got of the hatches on the 5" mounts. Realized I missed a few (some hinges, handles, placements, etc...), so I'll go back and get those next week. Should be enough to get you started for now though





-Mike

[Fliger747]

As the helm was inside the coning tower on the 04 level the armored doors were usually open such that the conning officer on the bridge had good direct communication with the helm, and he could be on either side. On the fire control level the aft position was least vulnerable and the door usually closed as it was on a weather deck and there was access from the back of the conning tower on the 04. Chances of a hit on the sides of the 04 level much greater, but a necessary compromise. A second door available if one is jammed.

To illustrate the benefit of a coning tower position, Texas off of Cherbourg was struck with an 11" AP shell. This shell struck the top of the coning tower at a shallow angle knocking off the top of the fire control periscope. Several were injured in the fire control booth by the falling (heavy) periscope. However the shell exploded against the mast and vented its force directly up into the pilot house above. The only fatality was the helmsman.

T

[RandyM]

Cliff:

FANTASTIC. Thank you.

[RandyM]

Who knew...

one of the reasons I asked for dimensions on the 5-inch mount access hatches is that I couldn't get the correct geometry when using measurements of photos - the two front edges of the side hatch are equidistant from the respective front edges of the mount: forcing this resulted in a hatch opening which was too close to the bottom of the mount. So I figured I was being bitten by the "but I measured a photo" bug.

Sadly, Cliff's excellent dimensions verified that in fact something really was wrong - using his measurements I still had an invalid geometry.

I had drawn the mount per dimensions given in the FDD plan book for Mk 28 mounts. Last night I went through the entire Ordnance Pamphlet 805 (Chargers played yesterday afternoon and the Pats blew out the Bengals, leaving nothing much else on tv) and discovered that the Mk 32 mount is "pretty" close to the same size as the Mk 28, but there are significant differences - one of which is that the lower front face is about 4" taller on the Mk28 (the entire mount is taller by four inches). Comparing the dimensions of the Mk 32 mount in the OP to the drawing for the Mk 28 mount in the Missouri Plan Book led me to the discovery that what is actually shown in the plan book is a Mk 32 mount (and labeled Mk 28). I recreated the mount using the correct dimensions and oila'... perfect.

So unless Missouri actually had Mk 32 mounts, I'm now in good shape - Thank You again to Cliff!

[Fliger747]

Note that the 5"38 barrels are not stepped. Usually this was reserved for larger higher pressure rifles which were of built-up construction.

Taken alongside BB63 in a tropical downpour!

Cheers: tom