Calling all USS Nevada BB-36 and USS Oklahoma BB-37 fans

[gregory p]

How long was the anchor chain on the uss Nevada?? How much did each chain link weigh?

[MartinJQuinn]

Oklahoma or Nevada in this photo?

http://images.google.com/hosted/life/b9 ... f240a.html

[Dick J]

If the date is correct, this is Oklahoma. Nevada had her "birdbath" on top of the mainmast by then.

[GMG4RWF]

Found a book at the school library; BB-37 USS Oklahoma. An account of the crew @ Pearl Harbor. She took the same damage as WV but the crew were confused & abandoned early & the Mary's crew cut her mooring lines letting her roll. There was one account of one of the crew suggesting flooding the starboard mags but his PO rejected the suggestion. One humorous account was a sailor on the Main Mast when the attack started. He was hit by the blast of the 2nd torpedo. It threw him clean off the Mast & he flew over to the Mary where he landed on the awnings. a few minutes later a bomb blast threw him off the Mary & into the water. he learned to fly without a plane. Not too humorous for him but, considering what happened to a lot of good men, he got really lucky.

[Tracy White]

Author / ISBN?

[Jim21680]

?

http://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Oklaho ... S+Oklahoma

[GMG4RWF]

http://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Oklaho ... S+Oklahoma

Yea, that's it.

[Tracy White]

Thank you to both!

[Haijun watcher]

Just from looking at the attack/post-attack photos, I see a few things. Nevada had: 1. No external degausing cable 2. Trusswork yardarms on the foretop, like Arizona and Pennsylvania 3. A heavier structural member at the top of the boat cranes, not the cables shown on Oklahoma 4. Some kind of covering (a pipe or something) over much of the length of the cables on the stern crane. 5. A square-aligned birdbath gun platform on the maintop, not diamond-aligned as on Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Oklahoma (don't know if you already caught that one) Most of this can be seen in this shot: http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013629.jpg
From the photos I've seen, I can't tell whether Nevada had the four 3" AA guns like Oklahoma and Pennsylvania or empty tubs like Arizona. Also, it appears that the blast bags on the lower turrets were dark and the upper ones were light in color. Comparing the stern and bow shots of the crippled Nevada, since the stern ones look the same as the bow ones, I suspect it's not just scorching from the fires forward.

- Sean F.

Thak you Sean F. for pointing out the differences between the 2 sisters. Still, do you think it's feasible to use a 1/700 Classic Warships kit of Oklahoma for making a June 1942 Nevada? I'd like to possibly depict her with Admiral Pye's "Task Force One" of surviving USN Pearl Harbor battleships gathered together to protect the US West Coast during the Battle of Midway.

[Haijun watcher]

Nevada was still at Puget sound naval yard getting repaired & modernized in june 1942 as those jobs weren't done til oct 42.

Oops. I could have sworn Nevada was one of the BBs in Task Force One in June 1942. I guess I was wrong.

[Frank Fowler]

A couple of other differences between Nevada and Oklahoma should also be noted. The air defense station on the upper deck of the bridge is a different shape on the two ships. I believe the Oklahoma is round and the Nevada more square. The forward leg of the tripod mast goes into the structure on the Oklahoma and enters the deck at the back of the structure on the Nevada. The Nevada's signal bridge deck (first deck of the bridge) was reconstructed to more match the Arizona with signal flag bags at the aft end of the deck (Oklahoma's flag bags were either side of the bridge). This was necessary for the trusswork yard arms fitted to Nevada. The two small structures on either side of the funnel were removed from the Nevada. The search light platform on the mainmast (the aft tripod) is smaller I believe on the Nevada, it does not extend as far aft as the one on the Oklahoma, they are the same general shape however.

One other thing when building the Classic/Midship/Blue Ridge Nevada or Oklahoma is the need to add a deck between the stepdown at the end of the gun deck and the large structure forward of the no. 3 turret. There is a deck that runs from just outside the cranes across the width between the cranes. The cranes pass through this deck. The deck is a curved shape, not straight. The HP versions of these ships have the deck as shown on the plans for these ships.

[Haijun watcher]

Was it ever intended that Nevada use MS21 if the aborted invasion of mainland Japan, called Operations Olympic and Coronet, had gone through?

I'm inferring this because in this painting below from Navsource that depicts her entering San Pedro harbour in October 1945, Nevada sports what appears to be MS21. If can recall correctly, the only time she reportedly wore MS21 previously was during the bombardment in support of the 1943 invasion of Japanese-held Attu island.

However, the shipcamouflage website states that Nevada only wore MS 31a/6B for the duration of 1945.

Thoughts, anyone?

[Tracy White]

However, the shipcamouflage website states that Nevada only wore MS 31a/6B for the duration of 1945.

OK, as the webmaster for ShipCamouflage, let me say a couple of things.
1) It is not definitive - it is merely a starting point and quick aid
2) IT HAS ERRORS.

The original site was designed to be printed, and there are limitations in width that this layout gives us. I have experimented with revising the layout to give a chart similar to the charts you see on sites like DestroyerHistory.org but without embedding large graphics. So far, I haven't found a good method that I like, and I"m not going to update the pages until I do so that I don't have to change things multiple times.

To your original question, Nevada would have most likely have been in Measure 21 *OR* 22 for any Operation downfall operations. This photo on Navsource is purported to be September 2, but an October photo here is in Measure 21. None of the 1945 neutral gray shift documents I found talks about battleships other than how to do it nothing on what was assigned.

[Rick E Davis]

Here is NEVADA in February 1945




And her is NEVADA in October 1945



She was repainted sometime after Okinawa if the dates on Navsource photos are correct. The September 1945 showing her in Ms 22 is likely from her time off Normandy in June 1944.

Short answer to your question is that "YES" she likely would have been painted in ms 21 for the invasion .... UNLESS the USN decided to change camo schemes again before then.

[MartinJQuinn]

That top photo is a beauty. Loved Nevada's look post-rebuild.

I've edited the first page, and added Bob Cicconi's build of the HP Nevada to the list of Nevada class kits in the gallery, and grouped those builds by scale.

[Tracy White]

I'd agree with Rick's assessment. Ms 21 is more likely, although there were some battleships that were in Ms 22 in the Pacific. I haven't been able to find any battleship orders though so as far as textural orders I got nothin'.

[Rick E Davis]

The one thing that I don't like about post-refit NEVADA, that damn added-on funnel extension. They could have spent a little more sheet metal on that.

[Tracy White]

Naw man, what they really needed was a carbon fiber spoiler over that and some neon lights under the hull to give her a dope glow!

[Brian K.]

Anyone know if Oklahoma and Nevada had got their AA tubs and 3"50 guns like Pennsylvania or just the tubs and no guns like Arizona or no tubs at all by December 7th 1941?

[MartinJQuinn]

Anyone know if Oklahoma and Nevada had got their AA tubs and 3"50 guns like Pennsylvania or just the tubs and no guns like Arizona or no tubs at all by December 7th 1941?

From these photos, it appears that Oklahoma did have the tubs, which had 3in AA guns in them:
http://navsource.org/archives/01/037/013737b.jpg
http://navsource.org/archives/01/037/013743i.jpg
http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013707.jpg

This line drawing also shows them (FWIW): http://www.navsource.org/archives/01/013751.jpg