USS New Jersey 1968

[Guest]

I am about embark on building USS New Jersey depicting her during her Vietnam tours. I am using the Tamiya 1/350 WWII Missouri as my base. My question is which wood deck to use for her and how to do the helo pad?

[Timmy C]

There is no commercially available Vietnam-era wood deck; however, board member BB62vet managed to arrange for Pontos Models to custom-make a deck for his own Vietnam NJ build: viewtopic.php?f=59&t=154697

You might try asking him to put you in touch with the Pontos folks and see if you can get a copy of the deck as well.

[Steve2838]

Yea I have seen the commercially available decks. I am just wondering which is best for what I am wanting to do.

[BB62vet]

Steve,

I sold my unfinished 1:350 Tamiya/Life Like MO kits a year or so ago after years of gathering dust. As Timmy C has stated, there are no commercially available deck sets for the 1967-69 era NEW JERSEY in the 1:350 scale kit.

I did work with Pontos to obtain a modification of their 1:200 scale MISSOURI (1945) deck set and it arrived last month.

Whether or not they will do this for the 1:350 scale Tamiya kit, I couldn't say. You need to contact Kim @ Pontos Help. Here is their email address: help@pontosmodel.com. Be as specific as possible when you email Mr. Kim - include all the information that is pertinent to your request. You can tell him that it should be identical to the 1:200 deck set he made for me, only to be made FROM the 1:350 WWII Tamiya MISSOURI kit instead.

Hope this helps,

[Steve2838]

What I ended up doing is ordering the WWII deck and modern deck. Think I can get them to work by using parts from each. Then cutting the area for the helo pad from the wood and just making the helo pad out of raw styrene.
BB62 vet think I got a question anwsered by you about this build on qanother forum lol.
You might beable to tell me . When you used a helo for spoting rounds. Did you all use Army Navy or Marine Hueys primarily, or some other type?

[BB62vet]

Steve wrote:

. When you used a helo for spoting rounds. Did you all use Army Navy or Marine Hueys primarily, or some other type?

We had no helicopters assigned to NEW JERSEY during her 68-69 Westpac cruise. Helos were NOT used for spotting that I recall; spotting was done by U.S.M.C. and U.S.A. spotters. We may have had some spotting done by U.S.A. Cessna O-1 Bird Dogs, but I'm not sure. There are plenty of photos of Cobras on our flight deck, Hueys, too, but only for visitation.

We also had no marine detachment during that deployment - one of the ways Capt. E.J. Snyder sold the Congress on funding NEW JERSEY in the first place.

If you cut the wooden deck out for the helo deck you will not be modeling it right; the helo deck was build OVER the teak wood deck - you need to do more research on how the ship was modified in 1967-68. Just a suggestion.

[Steve2838]

Thanks BB62Vet. that is what I am trying to do.

[Mgunns]

You will need a Tamiya Modern New Jersey and WWII Missouri to do this. I would also recommend the Gold Medal Models PE set for Modern New Jersey as there is PE on the Fret to do some of the distinct ECM gear for the Vietnam era New Jersey.
I did it a number of years ago with satisfactory results.


Good luck and be sure to post some pictures of your progress.

[Steve2838]

Did you scratch build the mounts on the mast for the ECM? What did you do for the Zuni chaff rockets and directors. I noticed the bow antena looks great . Did you scratch build it? Have to say you did a great job. She looks amazing.
I got the Missiouri and Modern wood decks as you had sugested and looks great. I got the GMM PE that included the parts for the 68 fit. Down to scratch building the parts that did not come with the kit or I could not find produced.