Calling all Yamato (大和) and Musashi (武蔵) fans

[kraveen]

The ship I'm referring to is musashi. In your picture of the yamato in your post where You have two arrows pointing to the 4 mounts closest to stern where it says enclosed in turrets I was wanting to know if the 25mm triple machine guns on musashi in same place were enclosed in turrets or not. Another post said they were enclosed but I've read that when musashi armament was modified the Japanese had none left which would make every single machine gun added to musashi unenclosed. I was able to check out the photos on your website wow! I think there were a few pics on there I've never seen. The high angle shot of musashi that's labeled hit and near miss from bomb on page 4 is the best pic to see that area of deck but I just can't tell. Did the 2 deck 25mm mounts that were in front and back of the side 15.5 guns get reused on musashi and yamato?

[kraveen]

when musashi had the 7 & 8 search lights removed I've read that a single 25mm Mount and also a machine gun director were put in their place. What machine guns would this director have controlled? How did these directors work? Weren't there gunners pointing the mg and moving it on their own or did the directors somehow turn and all the guns it controlled turn with it? That doesn't seem right because planes would be hard to shoot down like that. The yamato had a lot more of the smallest directors but the yamato also had a lot more 25mm triples added than musashi. Sorry if my post doesn't make sense

[bucketfoot-al]

kraveen -Musashi also had AA rocket launchers added, though they were not operational yet at the time of her sinking during Operation Sho-Go.

I will shortly upload closeups of the Oct 1944 Musashi deck as reconstructed by the Pit-Road/Takara 1/700 see-through snap-apart model in 2005.

These recreations of both Yamato and Musashi are the best I have seen and appeared years before Tamiya and Fujimi started updating their model kits ...

[bucketfoot-al]

Musashi Oct 1944 deck configuration per Pit-Road/Takara reconstruction circa 2005. To my knowledge this is still up-to-date.

Note that most of the 25mm AA machine guns are open - only a few are enclosed in turrets and those are at the front and rear of the superstructure; also note the AA rocket launcher just forward of, and under the funnel on both sides.

[kraveen]

What do you think about this model? It shows the smaller director where 7 & 8 search lights were. The book is from 2005 it's called 3dcg musashi there's a few on eBay. Isn't the director on the takara model the type for the larger 12.7 as guns? Would they have installed the director before the guns maybe and then when the 12.7 aa guns weren't available they just left them there? When I look at photographs of musashi after refit on your website it doesn't look like anything is there. When I look at photo of yamato you can see those larger directors clearly because they're so large. What do think?

[kraveen]

I forgot the pic here it is

[bucketfoot-al]

Since I don't read Japanese, I, like you, can only look at the pictures. Musashi's superstructure was changed a couple of times, and I doubt that any of her photos on my website show her in her final Oct 1944 configuration (outside of the aerial photos of her being bombed, but none of those are close-up shots.)

As far as reconstructions go, my opinion - based on their rework of the 1945 Yamato - is that I would tend to trust the 2005 Pit-Road/Takara reconstruction unless there was a more recent book that showed otherwise.

Have fun with your build and don't get so wrapped up around the axle on every last detail that it takes the fun out of it. For example, my 1/200 custom Yamato is missing the added AA director beneath the back end of the superstructure - I had the info but just missed that detail (again, having to go off of photo reconstructions alone). God knows I cast dozens of other pieces to make the update and the building of the upgraded as well as extra 25mm open mounts took forever. So that one omission doesn't bother me too much. Like the fact that I left the crane tower in place instead of removing it as I knew I ought to do. When I finally retire maybe I'll cast an extra and place it there and also remove the crane tower. Maybe not.

[chuck]

The 4 mounts on the end of the boat crane sponsons on both Yamato and Musashi were enclosed with shields as soon as they were added.

Those shields were there to enable to AA crew to stay with their mounts when the main 18" battery opens fire. Otherwise the crew would be injured and incapacitated by the blast. The 4 mounts in question were particularly susceptible to blast from the aft turret, so they got the shields as soon as they were added.

Only later when japanese anti aircraft situation became desperate did they begin to forego shield with new additions to the 25mm batteries, reasoning the extra barrels is worth it even if the crew has to run to the mounts only after main battery is secured from firing.

Chuck - the 5/8 octagonal deck 25mm shields would not have protected the crews from the 18" gun blast. When the main guns were operating the open deck 25mm crews had to be evacuated to the interior of the ship. The aircraft deck rear 25mm mounts were not housed in turrets which would have provided protection from the main gun blast...

I meant the 4 mounts on the sponsons that cantilever out from the side of the hull just ahead of the aircraft catapult. The sponson supports the overhead traveling crane that is used to move boats in and out of the hanger on the sides of the hull. I am not talking about the boom crane at the stern of the ship that is used for handling aircraft.

[bucketfoot-al]

According to the reconstruction above, those 4 mounts on Musashi were open. Do you have a Japanese book that shows them enclosed in turrets like they were on Yamato?

[chuck]

Keep in mind that musashi's final AA fit was a rush job to get whatever AA guns immediately available at the dockyard onto the ship in time for the ship to sail in the upcoming sortie to Leyte gulf.

The intended shields for many of the 25mm AA mounts, and the new 5"/40 dual purpose mounts, we're not available in time, so open 25mm mounts were substitute for them.

Also, many, if not most, of the new open mounted 25mm AA sprinkled around the main deck level on the musashi were actually land based mounts screwed into the wooden deck. They were manually worked, fired over open sights using local control. They didn't have the through deck remote power and data transmission connections to work with fire control directors on the ship. So in her final configuration musashi could throw up a lot of lead, but only a fraction of those had proper AA fire control.

Power controls were added to the added enclosed 25mm mounts on the Yamato only after Leyte, I believe.

Also, notice the newly added enclosed 25mm turrets on the Yamato were visually different from the ones that came with the ship when she first came into service. The new ones has squared off connection between sidewall and roof. The original ones had rounded connections.

[chuck]

According to the reconstruction above, those 4 mounts on Musashi were open. Do you have a Japanese book that shows them enclosed in turrets like they were on Yamato?

I always thought they were enclosed to start with. I will try to find where I got that impression.

[kraveen]

Thanks for all your answers they were a big help

[baseballbrat]

For all the Tamiya Musashi guys building in 1:350, I just found a new detail set from eduard.

https://www.scalehobbyist.com/catagorie ... &so=a&pr=1

[richter111]

so what was the consensus on the hull plating? I have seen it prominent and absent.

(About to fire up building my 1/200, moving to a new place where I will have the room and most importantly a place to display again)

[RandomNoob]

I kinda like how the hull plating looks, and if you are building a 1/200 scale, I don't think it would look too exaggerated. I'm not sure if the plating is supposed to be visible or not, although I recall that the expensive metal and resin kit have them visible out of the box.

Can anyone help me with the "racing stripes" on the Yamato's concrete deck? I assume they are linoleum. Are they colored the usual linoleum color, or are they actually a lighter grey than the concrete deck? I am leaning towards a light grey for now, but I would love to hear other people's opinions.

[bucketfoot-al]

I kinda like how the hull plating looks, and if you are building a 1/200 scale, I don't think it would look too exaggerated. I'm not sure if the plating is supposed to be visible or not, although I recall that the expensive metal and resin kit have them visible out of the box.

Can anyone help me with the "racing stripes" on the Yamato's concrete deck? I assume they are linoleum. Are they colored the usual linoleum color, or are they actually a lighter grey than the concrete deck? I am leaning towards a light grey for now, but I would love to hear other people's opinions.

I have never seen them depicted as grey, only reddish in color.

[RandomNoob]

I've seen several kits with a light grey color for the stripes. I like how it looks, but in the end accuracy is prioritized, which is why I really appreciate your help.
I also came across this picture (third pic) in this thread, arguing that the correct color should be light grey in Yamato's final mission.

[RandomNoob]

TimmyC, i meant on the aircraft deck linoleum, the main deck is pretty much ok , here's a pic to be more specific -
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many depict this in a light grey color as if the linoleum has been painted over :S:S
It could be trick of light, but many photos (us and jap) show that part lighter than the color of the ship. It could be the trick of light/reflection/different cameras etc. I wonder how that same red-brown linoleum seems on other ships photos - to me it looks quite the same as color of ship or darker in terms of color lightness (considering the black and white photography)

One more thing, about the blast bags, they seem some kind of ivory/beige color on the model, is this correct? Shouldn't they be, because of the wartime, made of some kind of medium grey or brown canvas instead of the white?

I'm referring to this post about the linoleum deck color argument, BTW.

[bucketfoot-al]

You can argue it either way. I like the color to B/W photo comparison idea. What do the actual accounts from Japan say? Well, all I have is Yoshida's story, which, alas, does not mention (to the best of my recollection) the linoleum strips. So we are left with all of the various Japanese versions of the ship, with the text incomprehensible to us.

The updated 1/10 scale Kure Model (yes, they fixed the shape of the AA buckets a few years back) shows it thus:



So, if it were up to me, reddish they would stay ....

[baseballbrat]

I've seen several kits with a light grey color for the stripes. I like how it looks, but in the end accuracy is prioritized, which is why I really appreciate your help.
I also came across this picture (third pic) in this thread, arguing that the correct color should be light grey in Yamato's final mission.

What publication are these photos from?