Calling all New Orleans-class (CA-32) fans

[Dick J]

1. During the first part of 1942, most large US cruisers received about 12 20MM guns. A few received an extra mount, but 12 was the normal number. Once each ship had "its share" from the first go-around, numbers could be increased. Both New Orleans and Minneapolis received a few extra 20MM when the 40MM were installed on their sterns. Portland received a couple of extras on her stern prior to the Nov 13, '42 battle. When San Francisco was repaired and modernized, she had many more added, including the extra pair on the hangar roof, but was unique among the 4 survivors in the class in receiving only 4 quad 40MM at that time. She added the last pair of quads on the hangar roof later. 20MM guns were something that could be added quickly, even at forward bases.

2. Vincennes was unique in so many ways. Rick Davis has a shot taken pre-war at Norfolk that shows both Vincennes and Quincy still in pre-was light gray. Vincennes had already received splinter screens for her 5"mounts, and they were the separate, individual screens seen on the majority of the class. (She also had the tubs for the 1.1's but the shot was too distant to determine whether there were 1.1's or temporary 3" guns.) Quincy had yet to be modified. If you look at the close up shot in the upper left corner of page 55 of Steve Wiper's book, you should be able to see lifelines ("rails") between the outboard corners of the individual tubs. My conclusion is that canvas dodgers were attached to the lines and painted to match the camo. Why do this? On some ships with "inset" areas of superstructure, such as the one in the middle of the port side of the midships deckhouse on the Sims class (enginering space access hatches inside), canvas was placed over the inset and painted to match, probably to prevent dark patches in the camo that could spoil the effect. If that was the case on Vincennes, it was ironic in view of her big black funnel cap.

During the 1943 refits, the three Pacific units had the splinter screens merged together with single panels separating the main deck 5" mounts. Tuscaloosa appears not to have had that modification. One apparent irony is that following their final wartime refits (anti kamikaze upgrades) New Orleans and Minneapolis appear to have had those last panels between 5" guns removed, making their splinter screens conceptually similar to Quincy's. (This final upgrade made them especially top-heavy, so any weight reduction was welcomed.)

[sandy]

Hi,

In the Steve Wiper Warship Pictorial book about the New Orleans class cruisers on page 27 there are two portside photos of the USS Tuscaloosa showing her in two versions of the Measure 12-Modified camouflage scheme she wore while with the Home Fleet.

Based on the shape painted on the fore funnel, I will call the top one the U-scheme and the lower one the V-scheme as that seems to be the (sideways) shape to the Haze Grey band.

Now, is the U-scheme what was first used and then, based on the text, Tuscaloosa switched to the more radical V-scheme?

If so, when was the switch?

And was Tuscaloosa wearing the later scheme while in action off Casablanca?

Any help appreciated.

Sandy

[Dick J]

The lower photo on page 27 is the earlier one. Note the lack of radar, 20MM guns and 1.1's in the fantail tubs. Also, note the boats still stowed on the hangar roof (which were removed to make room for the 20MM seen in the upper photo). During the late '41-early '42 period, especially in the Atlantic fleet, ships couldn't be spared for lengthy yard periods, so the mods were done in small batches during short periods in the yard. Camo was often touched up, and usually in a hurry. The earlier scheme is the one you consider to be more radical, but on these more complex schemes, sometimes the patterns were simplified to hasten the repainting process. Remember that for MS-12 mod, there were no set patterns, so no "master" was being violated by changes. The preferences of the yards and ships captains influenced the final results. (But on DD's, some strong similarities often existed among division mates painted in the same yard.)

By the time this photo was taken http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/037/0403710.jpg she had repainted into MS-22. More 20MM were added in a gallery just aft of turret 2. Interestingly, the "birdbath" for the rangefinder atop the bridge has returned. It was present in the lower photo on page 27, replaced by a pair of 20MM in the upper photo, and reinstalled for this MS-22 photo (after the lower 20MM gallery gave "sufficient" forward AA firepower). This photo is dated Oct of '42, and so this (MS-22) is the paint scheme she wore at Casablanca.

[sandy]

Thanks very much, Dick.

Now you point out the 'missing' early details it makes perfect sense which is which.

I have access to a 96th scale New Orleans hull and was wondering which one to model. I initially liked the Minneapolis in the fake destroyer camouflage but now think Tuscaloosa would be nice seeing as how she spent some time in the war here in Scotland. Also, I have access to the means of casting a 96th Brooklynn hull and a '42 Wichita would be a nice companion.

Is there a website that lists what Tuscaloosa's movements were through the war? I thought DANFS did it but I cannot get access for some reason.

All the best
Sandy

[cduckworth]

Been slowly working on the San Francisco 1942 version. What color were the interior of the wood boats painted? Are they the same as the deck blue?

Thanks
Charlie Duckworth

[taskforce48]

The directions were to paint the boats the same as the surrounding area of the ship.

HTH
Matt

[generalgrog]

Hi can someone tell me what the signal bridge on the NO cruisers are? I see that for some of them it is supposed to be plated in, but as I look through pictures of the first 5 NO cruisers I can't tell much a difference between the bridge structures.

I did a google search and found that the "signal bridge" is where they run up the flags and use the light flashers for communications, so I assume it is the portion of the bridge at the top of the bridge island?

Can someone help me out?

Thanks,

GG

[generalgrog]

Never mind I was able to download the plans for the USS Astoria, and it has helped me a lot in educating me on Naval ship building terminology.

In case you were wondering, I got it here.

http://www.hnsa.org/resources/manuals-d ... ns-online/

Lots of other ship plans.

GG

[Quaestor]

I've not been able to find, on the web, a photo of Minneapolis in Measure 8. Does anyone have one that can be posted here?
Pardon me if there's one buried in this thread already; I didn't have the time to page through it all this evening.
TIA

[MartinJQuinn]

I've not been able to find, on the web, a photo of Minneapolis in Measure 8. Does anyone have one that can be posted here?
Pardon me if there's one buried in this thread already; I didn't have the time to page through it all this evening.
TIA

Navsource is your friend...
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/036/0403627.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/036/0403619.jpg

[Quaestor]

Navsource is your friend...

Sheesh, even I know that and Navsource is the first place I looked. Yet I saw the two shots you linked and thought "Nah, can't be it"; seems I have to study those and the Measure 8 specs a little more closely

Thanks Martin; best to Keira and all of you.

[Dan K]

Forgive me if this has been asked and answered but, I didn't come across it after having read thru the thread. Exactly how accurate is the Trumpeter 1/700 San Francisco 1942 kit? Thx.

[DavidK]

Forgive me if this has been asked and answered but, I didn't come across it after having read thru the thread. Exactly how accurate is the Trumpeter 1/700 San Francisco 1942 kit? Thx.

Lester Abbey in "New Orleans Class Cruisers" wrote re Trumpeter's Minneapolis, Astoria and San Francisco kits: "These three ships are covered by the same kit. It appears to be designed to be accurate for the San Francisco, with the minor differences of the other two regarded as close enough to be ignored. The kit comes with both the flat and round faced 8-inch turrets, so that is not a problem." Apparently the hanger deck of the kit is an area that needs work if building New Orleans or Minneapolis.

L.A. also noted: "The bridge is correct, with the signal bridge level plated in and the windows a deck and a half high."

I bought and built the Trumpeter New Orleans kit, and have the Minneapolis and San Francisco kits in my stash. One thing I noticed was that a small deck that sticks out of the aft superstructure and somewhat overhangs the aft 8-inch turret is found on some of this class and not others, but I'm pretty sure that my New Orleans kit didn't have it in the box (New Orleans didn't have this deck).

Once upon a time there was a comparison of the Trumpeter San Francisco and New Orleans kits sprue by sprue in the forum. The comparison noted that the San Fran kit contained two new sprues not found in the New Orleans kit (H and J). My notes from the compoarison are currently in a docx file which I could email to you if you like (it is 6.8 Mb file with many images of the sprues).

Anyway, it sounds like the Trumpeter San Francisco kit would be one of the better builds out of the box from the Trumpeter group of New Orleans class cruisers. (I only have SanFran because I was able to pick it up cheap, so it is going to be my spare parts box for my later builds of the New Orleans class at Coral Sea -- New Orleans, Minneapolis, and Astoria).

[Dick J]

Forgive me if this has been asked and answered but, I didn't come across it after having read thru the thread. Exactly how accurate is the Trumpeter 1/700 San Francisco 1942 kit? Thx.

In all probability, San Francisco was the original subject and the other two (Astoria and Minneapolis) were considered "close enough". There are a few "nits" with the kit as San Francisco, but they are mostly correctable. The two most glaring errors are high on the forward superstructure and aft on the hangar roof. Forward, the deckhouse at the level of the 1.1" tubs is a bit short in height. The tops of the inboard side of the 1.1" tubs almost touch the next deck up. A bit of styrene strip can easily fix that. Aft, of the three ships, only San Francisco's hangar roof overhung the side of the hangar structure. Trumpeter uses that overhanging part with all three. The thing that is wrong is that they have a bulwark or splinter screen along the length of that overhang. On San Francisco, there were only splinter screens around the 20MM guns, not on the rest of the overhang. That will need to be trimmed off. On the other two, the 20MM tubs had the same splinter screens, but other than the little bit under the tubs themselves, the hangar roof did not extend beyond the edge of the structure. As was mentioned, there was something attached to the after end of the hangar structure. All three had a small tub for a small navigation rangefinder. On San Francisco, it was at the level of the hangar roof. On Astoria, it was a bit higher, and on Minneapolis it was a bit lower. The bridge part on the San Francisco that has the 1.1" tubs is most correct for San Francisco. The tubs are basically a full circle and the two tubs are practically connected by a splinter screen that runs across the back of the deck. On Astoria the tubs were not full circle and the splinter screen was not installed across the back of the deck.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/034/0403412.jpg
I don't have clear enough shots of Minnie's bridge at that time to comment on her differences there. Other than that, and the fact that Astoria and Minneapolis had the curved-faced turrets while San Francisco had the flat-faced type, the three ships were largely similar. This applies to Astoria after Midway. She received most of her 20MM guns in the brief stop between Coral Sea and Midway, and had the last pair placed in the modified rangefinder overhang above the bridge just after Midway.

Depending how anal you want to get, there are a couple of other things to look at. First, the anchor capstans are in the wrong place on all of the kits. On the first 5 in the class, the capstans should be almost back to the base of turret 1. On the other two, they shouldn't even be as far back as the muzzles for turret 1's guns. Also, the stern form is a bit off. At the waterline, it should come to a point, like the after end of Indianapolis. But at the deck level, it was round. That produced the crease in the stern that you can see here:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/034/0403421.jpg This is not so easy to fix and I will probably ignore it on my builds.

[Vladi]

Hello guys,
do you have any details about USS San Francisco fit in 1943 (Aleutian campaign)? The Warship Pictorial #5 book gives lots of details about her 1942 and 1944 fits. According to the armament summary on page 54 there should be 20 of 20mm Oerlikons in 1943 but it is not clear where all of those were placed. I can see 2 at the forecastle, 2 on the bridge, 2 forward of the 5" platform and total of 8+4 on the aft bridge. Does anyone have any idea where the remaining 2 might have been placed?

[Dan K]

Thank you, David and Dick! Dick, I appreciate the details.

I picked this kit up on an HLJ sale at a price too good to pass up some years back. I pull it out every now and then to consider for building. Who know, it could happen at some point.

David - email received, will respond at some point offline. THx.

[Dick J]

Hello guys,
do you have any details about USS San Francisco fit in 1943 (Aleutian campaign)? The Warship Pictorial #5 book gives lots of details about her 1942 and 1944 fits. According to the armament summary on page 54 there should be 20 of 20mm Oerlikons in 1943 but it is not clear where all of those were placed. I can see 2 at the forecastle, 2 on the bridge, 2 forward of the 5" platform and total of 8+4 on the aft bridge. Does anyone have any idea where the remaining 2 might have been placed?

The gallery around the front of the bridge at the level of the deleted conning tower held 4 20MM guns rather than 2. The after pair are not always obvious in the photos and it is possible that they were added later than the more-forward pair.

[Vladi]

Hello Dick J,
thanks for your reply! Do you know about any photo showing the second pair? I am not sure if I can see them e.g. at (Navsource 0403870) and they definitely do not appear on the photo in Warship Pictorial #5 page 36. I can see them only on a drawing on page 146 in Norman Friedman�s US Cruisers (there is also the latter photo on page 158).

[Dick J]

Vladi, e-mail sent. Contact me off-line.

[Angeliccypher]

Does anyone have pictures or more information of CA-38 involvement with Typhoon Cobra? Either just before, during or immediately after. I saw the little bit on DANFS regarding it.