Calling all Northampton-class (CA-26) fans

[aercastro82]

Can anyone please share information about the USS NORTHAMPTON in October 1942.
Did NORTHAMPTON have a single Mark 34 Gun Director for the 8"/55 guns?
Or was there another?
If so, where was it located?

Did NORTHAMPTON carried the Mark 37 Gun Director for the 5" gun by 10/1942?
Did it have the Mark 4 Fire Director Radar?
Or did NORTHAMPTON continue with the Mark 19 Gun Director?

Also, what type of 5" gun did NORTHAMPTON had in 10/1942?
Was it the 5"/25 or the 5"/38?

I appreciate for any response to my questions.
Thank you.

[Vladi]

Hello, Norman Friedman in US Cruisers - An Illustrated Design History has some limited info on her May and October refits in 1942. Most important follows:

Gun are clearly 5"/25 as noted by DavidP.

[G-Opt]

She had her same 5"/25cal AA battery until her loss. Her War Diary for Santa Cruz (Oct.26) confirms she was firing 5"/25cal AA at the time HORNET was attacked & disabled, etc. Other docs (CruDiv 5) show that the 5" fire against a/c was considered ineffective and poorly directed. The situation may be more fully grasped by NORTHAMPTON's after action report entries which stated that "Whistle and arm signals were used to great advantage in controlling 5" AA fire..."

Her quad 1.1" automatic cannon batteries were considered more effective than 20mm at the time of Santa Cruz.

She had CXAM radar. I don't think she had SG when she sank. Her secondary director up until late Oct. '42 was the old upgraded MK19 model.

MB director would have been MK24, I thought, but not real certain. Someone else can dbl-chk on that. Maybe that was replaced (?)

She did have a rather odd arrangement of directors & radar, as Friedman's pic shows, on her mainmast in the May 1942 period.

[Dick J]

Being at work and away from my resources, I will have to confirm a few things to be sure. But off the top of my head, I will try to answer some of the questions.

Did NORTHAMPTON have a single Mark 34 Gun Director for the 8"/55 guns?
Or was there another?
If so, where was it located?

The Northampton class survivors did not receive MK-34 directors until 1943 or later. (Louisville - 1943, Augusta - late 1944, Chester - 1945) Directors are not always the enclosed structures we tend to think of them as. The early directors stood on pedestals and were not enclosed. Later, some were put into enclosed structures (the MK-19 being one example). Northampton had one main battery director, in a rotating enclosure, above the spotting top on the forward tripod. (The MK-34 was way too heavy for that height.) A second director had been moved from abaft the second stack to a tub on the after tripod. It was one level below the MK-19 AA director. The MK-3 fire control radar was just below it.

Did NORTHAMPTON carried the Mark 37 Gun Director for the 5" gun by 10/1942? Did it have the Mark 4 Fire Director Radar? Or did NORTHAMPTON continue with the Mark 19 Gun Director?

Northampton still had MK-19's when lost. Both carried MK-4 radar.

Also, what type of 5" gun did NORTHAMPTON had in 10/1942?
Was it the 5"/25 or the 5"/38?

The first US heavy cruiser with 5"/38 guns was the Wichita. None of the earlier heavies upgraded their 5"/25's to 5"/38's.

She had CXAM radar. I don't think she had SG when she sank. Her secondary director up until late Oct. '42 was the old upgraded MK19 model.

Northampton started the war with one of the 6 CXAM sets. By the Doolittle Raid, it had been replaced with one of the 14 CXAM-1's. This substitution was unique and I can only assume that the original CXAM was either defective or damaged. The most likely "donor" for the CXAM-1 set would have been the West Virginia which was undergoing salvage at the time. Photos do not show an SG set on board at Santa Cruz.

Vladi, I think the photos from the Friedman book are Louisville rather than Northampton. Northampton was with Hornet and Enterprise in the South Pacific between the Doolittle Raid and Midway, and so wasn't at Mare Island. She was with Hornet in the Solomons area for all of October of '42. However, Louisville was at Mare Island in both time frames. Additionally, Northampton retained the catwalk around the front of the signal bridge level until lost. She also had 20MM guns in the bridge wings. So these photos are not Northampton.

[Vladi]

Hello Dick J, thanks for correcting me on the Friedman photos. As can be seen, these two are not clearly captioned as to the ship in question, and there are Northampton and Louisville on the preceeding page, so I was mislead.

[aercastro82]

The early directors stood on pedestals and were not enclosed. Later, some were put into enclosed structures (the MK-19 being one example).

You mean this:
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... 9Director/


For sure, NORTHAMPTON did not have the early pedestal type in 10/42.
Is this correct?

Northampton had one main battery director, in a rotating enclosure, above the spotting top on the forward tripod.

Was this director known as the Mark 24?
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... 36771.html


https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... 32465.html

A second director had been moved from abaft the second stack to a tub on the after tripod.

Again, was this the Mark 24?
https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... 36772.html

[G-Opt]

Yes, that's the MB MK24 director atop her foremast. But, as noted, NORTHAMPTON's mainmast was cut down to a stub, atop which the Aft MK19 (Sky Aft) was sited.

The aft arrangement was different for different ships, apparently. On CA-30 the other system ("Battle Two" which comprised Secondary Conn & Aft Spotting Station) remained below the Sky Aft MK19 position, where it was pretty useless.

[Dick J]

The early directors stood on pedestals and were not enclosed. Later, some were put into enclosed structures (the MK-19 being one example).

You mean this:
http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... 9Director/

For sure, NORTHAMPTON did not have the early pedestal type in 10/42.
Is this correct?

The MK-19's, as first installed, looked like this: http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/026/0402626.jpg
The directors were on the two raised circular platforms just aft of the stack. The operators stood next to the director and had to walk around as the director was turned. Tracy White's drawing shows that same director mounted on a rotating platform now co-located with a rangefinder. There was an outer cover that is not depicted in that drawing. The operators could now sit because the whole structure turned. When the directors were enclosed, they were initially mounted one above the pilothouse and one on the original platform aft of the stack. The after one was later relocated to the top of the after mast. That was where Northampton had them by the time of Pearl Harbor and they had not been changed by the time of her loss.

Northampton had one main battery director, in a rotating enclosure, above the spotting top on the forward tripod.

Was this director known as the Mark 24?

A second director had been moved from abaft the second stack to a tub on the after tripod.

Again, was this the Mark 24?

I was able to check my Friedman volume last night and the original directors on the Northampton's were the MK-24's. Here is a link to a shot of Chester in 1944: http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/027/0402761.jpg
The forward MK-24 was in a rotating enclosure at the top of the spotting top. You can see it just below the SK radar antenna. Because the enclosed structure carried the weight, the MK-3 fire control radar could be directly attached and is on top of the director. If you look at he after mast, the upper platform carries the AA director (by 1944, Chester had replaced her MK-19's with the MK-33's you can see in the photo), and on the platform directly below it was a "tub" for the after MK-24 director. It was still the pedestal type and, lacking an enclosure, is canvas covered to protect it until needed. Being only a pedestal type, the MK-3 fire control radar couldn't be directly mounted on it and so the radar is bracketed to the back of the structure immediately below the director.

[G-Opt]

Additionally the LIFE magazine photos of USS NORTHAMPTON (CA-26) are very useful for smaller details.

The original MK19 director on the early Treaty cruisers had two components, and was certainly obsolete by the mid-Thirties.

Re the upgraded enclosed single MK19 mounts, the Air Defense officer was usually positioned outside the director in a metal chair--as shown in the CA-26 LIFE photos--along with his assistant, spotters & talkers. A junior officer was inside the mount with all of his crew (range keepers/range tender/director trainer/director pointer/cross leveler/RF recorder/phone talker/ gun phone talker/ sound phone talker, etc.) Elsewhere were the associated switchboard operators and plotting room personnel.

The large enclosure below the MK24 director is where the Gunnery Officer was positioned along with his talkers & lookouts, etc. A junior officer was inside the actual director above.

[Vladi]

Hello everyone, I have just started a new work-in-progress thread for a 1/700 USS Chicago CA-29 at Battle of Savo Island. I would be pleased if those interested subscribed to my WIP thread and occassionally help steering me in the right direction and avoid/correct possible errors. Thanks!

[Captain Morgan]

I have a Corsair Armada Northampton in my stash, but since I wanted to build all of the class I bought a CNDragon Northampton on ebay being a little scared of what it would be like. What I found is it is the Corsair Armada Northampton. I'm not sure if they bought the molds, but it has the copyright mark and CAP 1995 in the exact same spot as the Older Kit I have. The hulls are within a mm of length and are both molded very well. It has to be from original molds or it would not be as distinctly identical as these are.
I hope it's not pirated, but I found no way to contact Mike at CAP to find out.

[maxim]

That is very likely a pirate copy!

[Vladi]

Hello everyone,

two rather general questions:
1. would anyone have at hand dimensions (length x width) of planking on a Northampton-class cruiser?
2. does anyone recognize the type of equipment shown below (from a drawing of USS Chicago)?

Thanks a lot!

[maxim]

To 2.) That is a compass.

[Timmy C]

Binnacle, in which a compass is housed.

[Vladi]

Thanks, Lars! Don�t you have a photo of it?

[taskforce48]

Partly obscured, but you can see the one the Indianapolis used so it should be the same model the Northampton�s used. If you search Binnacle on Google images, you will get a wide array of different versions used over time.

http://www.navsource.org/archives/04/035/0403536.jpg

Matt

[Vladi]

Great, thanks, mystery solved! Looks really "alien" with the two lights

Re deck plank dimensions - I checked some photos and the width seems to be roughly 12cm, see e.g. on NARA 80-G-13490. What is interesting is that the planking pattern appears to be less regular than I�d expect as noticeable on the hi-res version of the photo. Anyway, the pattern is probably nothing to really care about in 1/700

[Guba]

1. would anyone have at hand dimensions (length x width) of planking on a Northampton-class cruiser?

I was stationed on USS Prairie which served through all of WWII. Planking width was 6"/15.2 cm. Length was variable, but anywhere from 12'/366 cm or less.

Looks really "alien" with the two lights

What is interesting is that the planking pattern appears to be less regular than I�d expect as noticeable on the hi-res version of the photo. Anyway, the pattern is probably nothing to really care about in 1/700

The two "lights" are actually solid metal sphere's. They help the compass keep accuracy.

Plank pattern was really not there except that they were laid fore and aft for the most part. When it came to deck protrusions and deck edges the there were planks custom cut to fit around them and fill in the space where the 6" wide planks "missed" filling.

[Vladi]

Thanks a lot for the insights!