Calling all "Big 5" Tennessee-class & Colorado-class fans

[Brian K.]

According to the book "Colorado class battleships" by Jarostaw Palasek The USS Colorado entered Puget Sound Navy Yard at Bremerton on June 28 1941 and USS Maryland was there until August 1 1941 so if the books are right they both could've been there at the same time.

[SeanF]

Unless someone is able to make out the seaplane handling rails on the aft deck and thus prove it is the Colorado, I'm tending toward Maryland now myself. It does seem more like a ship near the end of a yard period than just one month into it. So... MD with white turrets 2, 3, and 4, and 5-D all the way up to the tops... but of course we do have later photos of her with those color features obviously changed. Odd detour getting from here to there!
(And whose to say the supposed '42 Colorado (with turret top rangefinder) photo I posted the Navsource URL from is correctly identified and isn't also the MD? No, there are never misidentified photos on Navsource... )
And now, we're back to almost square 1: no photographic proof at all about CO's mid/late '42 scheme, just the documentation of what she was supposed to look like: normal Ms. 1, with bow wave (exact shape unknown), black on turrets 1 and 2, white on turret 4, bare wood deck. Would still have range clocks when reporting to the yard, probably no radar platform on the foretop, and unbulged hull.

- Sean F.

[Jeff Sharp]

Another clue that it is Mary. There is no center anchor plate or wildcat in these photos. Mary lost her center anchor plate during her Jan. '41 refit.

[ArizonaBB39]

The Maryland's limited pre-war modernization (which included generally just the blistering and replacing several 5''/25s for 5''/38) was completed by August 1st, 1941. The Colorado's by February 26th, 1942.

Thanks for that info, although I didn't know Maryland had 5"/38s at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Was that part in Friedman's book?


So who is going to contact Navsource and the Navy History page to tell them?

[ArizonaBB39]

I see something on top of turret 2 in this Feb. '42 shot, which may be a rangefinder seen on its narrow edge:
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/014502.jpg

- Sean F.

It looks like a crew member or two to me. Judging by how many are standing around topside it is possible.

[Brian K.]

If you do a search on that auction site (I don't know if it's forbidden to say) for USS Colorado their is a set of plans for sale with a date of DEC 1941 item number 191750574680. It shows the range finder on turret 2 and a mix of Maryland and West Virginia parts to make the super structure also its has the hull bulges which were not completed until Feb 42 we know.

[Jeff Sharp]

Now here is Colorado at Puget Sound Dec. '41. Too bad we can't see more of her. Is that a torpedo bulge or just the armor plating still?

[Guest]

Jeff nice picture, It looks like she hasn't got the 5L on the upper works. Just like the other photo's that have been posted.

[SeanF]

Good find, Jeff.

It looks more like the armor belt than a bulge to me; it seems vertical rather than flared out at the waterline.

- Sean F.

[SeanF]

Right you are, David!

And for that matter, that makes it conclusive that it's also a bulge on the July '41 photos based on the same logic.

Now, why would the tops of Maryland's turrets 2-4 white just about a week prior to letting her out of the yard... some kind of white (or very light) primer? Sandblasted down to bare metal in preparation for primer? Weird!

I do think we can pretty much conclude that while all the ships of BatDiv 4 did operate in Ms. 1, they probably never operated together in that scheme - MD likely went to the yard in Standard Gray, then came out of the yard after CO entered it.

- Sean F.

[Daytona675R]

The Maryland's limited pre-war modernization (which included generally just the blistering and replacing several 5''/25s for 5''/38) was completed by August 1st, 1941. The Colorado's by February 26th, 1942.

Thanks for that info, although I didn't know Maryland had 5"/38s at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Was that part in Friedman's book?

Of course she didn't have. Of course they were installed only after the Pearl Harbor attack repairs. My bad, my bad. I don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that nonsense

Edit: And as Dick correctly posts below...no such thing as single 5''/38s was ever installed on Maryland or Colorado. I simply and blindly followed incorrect info instead of using my own eyes

[Dick J]

Of course she didn't have. Of course they were installed only after the Pearl Harbor attack repairs. My bad, my bad. I don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that nonsense

Maryland didn't receive 5" 38's until the twin mounts were added in 1945. She and Colorado did receive shields for their 5" 25's and some writers confuse those modified mounts with 5" 38 singles.

[Daytona675R]

Of course she didn't have. Of course they were installed only after the Pearl Harbor attack repairs. My bad, my bad. I don't know what I was thinking about when I wrote that nonsense

Maryland didn't receive 5" 38's until the twin mounts were added in 1945. She and Colorado did receive shields for their 5" 25's and some writers confuse those modified mounts with 5" 38 singles.

And you are right! I always simply followed information provided by Myron J. Smith in his Free State Battlewagon...Just wow.

[Jeff Sharp]

So who is going to contact Navsource and the Navy History page to tell them?

My vote is that Dick J should get the honors. After all, he was the one that raised the red flag in the first place.

[Tracy White]

Hey All - a couple of random, quick items. I'm in the middle of an email server migration for a client this weekend but Abram dropped me a line about this thread.

1) Battleship decks weren't ordered painted until August of 1941, and it was "as early as practical and when supplies are available."
2) Colorado and Maryland were experimenting with different types of wood on sections of their decks in 1941. Each had a different type and the only wood I can remember is mangachapoi - and I can't remember which ship had it. Did a quick scan of my documents but can't find it and I'm out of time. I'll try and find it later in the week. This was ordered well before the painted decks were.
3) Maryland seems to have been a test ship - she got the 1.1" guns early and was one of the few to record expending 1.1" rounds during the attack on Pearl.
4) There's enough variation and experimentation going on in 1941 that SHIPS-2 should be considered a starting point for camouflage

I have a document about battleship camouflage experiments I found on my last trip but haven't had a chance to post yet. I'll see if I can read through it on my next break and report anything of value, only things I can remember right now is that it stated observers used the stern wake to determine speed, not the bow wake, so it wasn't effective and that there were referenced reports from each ship on their camouflage and I was really excited when I first saw that, only to find that none of them were attached. This is unfortunately fairly common in our "modern" records state. Thought process was probably "all these attached reports make this too thick so we'll just save the summary and toss the rest as no one's going to care about these other reports."

[Dick J]

So who is going to contact Navsource and the Navy History page to tell them?

My vote is that Dick J should get the honors. After all, he was the one that raised the red flag in the first place.

Navsource is dead easy. NHHC is the problem.

[Tracy White]

Drop Chuck a line, he has connections still.

[Jeff Sharp]

Since there are no known photos of Colorado wearing MS 1/5 camo, I decided to see what she might have looked like. I took the 1940 pic of her and put a MS 1/5 camo on it. This is what I came up with. Hope this pic never gets confused as being real. The SOC's should be a dead give away that this pic is doctored. Anyway, she looks pretty cool this way.

[Brian K.]

Jeff I found a stern picture of Colorado in 1942 (it has the float plane cart tracks). It's in a book by Antony Preston BATTLESHIPS page 157 copyright 1981 Bison Books Corp. She is surrounded by what looks like torpedo nets and her 5/25's have the shields and tubs with 20mm are installed, you can't see the forward turrets to tell if a range finder is on turret 2 or not and a shadow hides if the hull bulges are present for the photo.

[Tracy White]

Hope this pic never gets confused as being real.

I give it less than a year