Calling all USS Hornet CV-8 fans

[MartinJQuinn]

Ok, I just went through this whole thread before asking this question...(I had a 2nd question answered by 2 hours of reading)

What colors were the boats carried by the Hornet? I'm guessing the hulls were 5-0 to match the bulkheads around them, but what about the rest of the boat, specifically the tops or insides?

[Angeliccypher]

Yes they match the bulkheads

[Bob-D]

Currently building the 1/200 USS Hornet. Can anyone tell me where the port and starboard navigation lights are located.? Many thanks....

[Angeliccypher]

Ok, I just went through this whole thread before asking this question...(I had a 2nd question answered by 2 hours of reading)

What colors were the boats carried by the Hornet? I'm guessing the hulls were 5-0 to match the bulkheads around them, but what about the rest of the boat, specifically the tops or insides?

Further bit on the boats. The anti-fouling was typically painted black. The top was painted the deck color and the hull and any thing sticking up was painted the relevant bulkhead color. If the bulkhead behind the boat had more than one color they typically matched (like splinter shields did). But in the case of the Hornet that was not an issue. Canvas tarps might have been or not have been painted depending on the case. These three pictures are from the USS Kidd (sorry about the quality of lighting, it was on my phone when I was in Baton Rouge). I know it is not the same paint measure but what I mention is still valid.

I will go through what I have on CV-8 and see what I can get you.

[Angeliccypher]

Okay I have two more crops. These are of CV-8, but the clarity bumped in too much is not great. Given what I shared above you can likely make out what I was talking about. The painting was SLIGHTLY changed post Midway when they changed her radar and AA loadout.

Pre Midway

Santa Cruise

[MartinJQuinn]

Thanks!

[Max61]

Hi all, new to the board and have a few questions re the Hornets waterline and boot topping. If I'm correct the Hornets draft was 28 feet fully loaded. Does that include the Boot Topping? As per previous pages here that I read the general census is that the Boot Topping was about 5 feet? So her hull would be Anti fouling red from the keel to the bottom of the Boot Topping, 23 Feet? Then 5 feet for the Boot Topping?

Please correct me if I'm incorrect.

Thanks

[John W.]

Max -
See below in this section (CASF, aircraft carriers) the thread "Calling all USS HORNET CV-8 fans", and go to page 29 - there is some discussion of the size and location of the Boottopping.

[Max61]

Thanks, I read that. What I do not know is: was the anti fouling red section of the hull is 24 Feet minus the boot topping?
Thanks,

[John W.]

Ah, trick question. Or maybe it's a trick answer. The height of the design waterline is 24' - 5 3/4" (or maybe 7/16" - a difference too small to see in 1/350). But the design waterline is approximately at the center of the boottopping. The boottopping is placed there so all the slime, oil, and floating crap in the harbor stains the boottopping not the hull color or antifouling red. The top of the boottopping is located at the top of the side armor belt. The top of the armor belt is at the 4th deck which is the armored deck, so that's the top corner of the armored box on this class of ships. So if you have plans which show the internal decks, then you've got the location of the top of the boottopping. So starting there, drop down the boottopping height, and from that point downwards the hull is antifouling red. I actually used 48" for the boottopping height, though I cannot recall where I got that number. Others say 5' as you saw - a difference between 0.14 and 0.17" in 1/350. Be sure it's Gloss black, not flat black.

[Max61]

Hi John, thanks for the reply. Your answer is exactly what I needed. Good point, as I forgot the waterline is the center of the boot topping. I'm building in 1/200 scale and I decided also on a 4' boot topping. Guess I'll start taping up now. LOL
Thanks, really appreciate the help.

[John W.]

Max -
Glad to help. One thing I forgot to point out in the picture of HORNET's boottopping on page 29 is that she is light so the BT is very prominent. Here is a picture of her sailing past a jetty at NAVSTA Norfolk with a group of sailors sitting on the jetty rocks - you can see how light she is, and the lack of armament. She has yet to have her 5"/38s mounted, nor her smaller cal AA fit including the 'bandstand' on the focs'l for the two 20 MMs, so she's riding high.

Here's a picture of HORNET in DD where you can see the Boottopping clearly and estimate its size using the sailors nearby (I picked 48" - I doubt those sailors were all 6'). Note the top of the BT and the top of the armor belt (where the sailors are scraping and painting) coincide.

Even as she sailed for the Pacific, she was more heavily loaded with additional AA fit and some items like most of her boats, the boat crane adjacent to the island, and other equipment removed to compensate for some of the added weight. (Each 20MM mount with pedestal weighed about 1600 Lbs.) The pictures you see of her after Feb 1942 show her considerably lower in the water with little BT showing.

[Max61]

Thanks, appreciate the help. I did notice the difference in the waterline. Almost appears that later after she was prepared for the Doolittle raid the waterline was actually smaller in height. Are there any good plans of the Hornet around on line. I really need a good drawing of the forward port holes at the front of the bow of the ship. Trumpeter have them as an oval shape so it's filling time and then re drill.

Max.

[John W.]

Max -
The design waterline of a ship essentially assumes the ship's weight doesn't change between design completion and construction completion - an unlikely event. It may change later if changes are made, say, to the hull (such as blistering on ENTERPRISE in order to compensate for more weight and to improve stability.). For HORNET, the boottopping top during the Doolittle Raid was unchanged from the picture above with the sailors on the jetty. The ship has more weight aboard for the pictures of the Raid and so sits deeper in the water. USN ships were generally overloaded after the beginning of the war due to added equipment and AA guns not envisioned when the design was finalized.
Trump's oval portholes are the result of the molding process because the molds for the two sides of the hull come together horizontally where as the portholes in the bow area are at an angle to the horizontal of about 45 degrees due to the flare of the hull. You are correct to drill them out round.

This link should answer many questions for you: http://www.hnsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/cv5.pdf

These are blueprints for YORKTOWN, and while she and HORNET were not identical twins, they are mostly twins. If you go through the entire CASF / 'calling all HORNET CV-8 fans' thread you will see a lot of discussion of the similarities and differences. For example, in the case of portholes, HORNET as commissioned did not have the same number of hull portholes as YORKTOWN. You notice in the drawing showing the Starboard exterior view of YORKTOWN in the link above, YKTN shows two horizontal rows along the length of most of the hull. These two rows are broken into two groups which are at different heights (Ignore the row under the forward pair of 5"/38 on the sponson). In the case of the two rows just under the Hangar / Main deck, HORNET was only completed with the upper row. Also, HORNET did not have any portholes in this row after the leading edge of the aft 5"/38 sponson, while you can see that YORKTOWN's portholes went much further aft in both the two rows under the Main deck. (Most of HORNET's hull portholes were blanked off with circular metal plates welded to the hull in July 1942.) Likewise, HORNET completed with only the upper row of port holes just under the focs'l deck, forward.

There are plans out there for HORNET sold by Maryland Silver. They are very complete and a bit expensive depending on your goals. The good news is that you will have a pretty complete set of plans showing most of the details you will need. The bad news is that you will have a pretty complete set of plans showing most of the details you will need. And those plans will show the conflicts between the real ship and the Trump rendition. If you are likely to lose sleep if I were to tell you that the porthole locations on the starboard side are not the same to the port side, then I shall not tell you that.
You see the situation here. Only you can decide how deeply to get into this. Tread carefully.

[Max61]

Thanks! Much appreciate the help and info. I have one other question re the Class of Carriers and their elevators. I understand that when the elevator is at deck level the elevator pit in the hangar deck is exposed and fenced off? I'm currently trying to improve the Hornets hangar deck and scratch building new interior wall etc so it resembles a carriers hangar bay not what was provided in the kit.
Thanks,
Max

[John W.]

Max -
Not entirely true. At least on the YORKTOWNs, when the elevators are at flight deck level a secondary elevator bridges part of the elevator pit - about a third of the width - so that men and equipment could pass across it from fore to aft. Especially for the aft (#3) elevator, this allowed access to storage space behind the elevator and on the wall of the elevator shaft. On that same after wall, there was a door providing access to the fantail.
Tracy White posted a couple of pix in one of the CASF threads - one of the YORKTOWN class threads. I don't remember which of the three it was, but there are a number of pix in all three of those threads that show a lot of hangar deck details including the hangar deck elevator wells.
John

[Angeliccypher]

Here is what I have involving either the hangar or the deck railings around the elevator on the Hornet. I would also recommend looking at the "Warship Pictorial #44 Yorktown" as there are 3-4 pictures in there that are great of CV-5. I had a photo somewhere that I can not find at the moment which showed planes in the hangar with at least one plane and several spare parts hanging from the support beams on the overhead.

5F1 NOTE DARK STRIPE R SIDE OF FLIGHT DECK..tif (384.72 KiB) Viewed 6002 times

[Thomas E. Johnson]

Trumpeter�s painting instructions for the 1/200 kit show some of the non-flightdeck external steel decks to be the same ghost grey as the hull. I�m guessing this is in error and all the steel decking was deck blue?

[Thomas E. Johnson]

How pronounced was the armor belt? Does it need to be added to the smooth sided 1/200 hull? I was planning on doing the tape & paint method to add hull plating detail to the hull. Is there any online diagrams that give an outline of how the hull plating was laid out?

[John W.]

Tom -
The armor belts are visible enough in photos from a medium distance (400 Yds, say) that I think they should be applied to 1/350th models, probably even 1/700. In this thread, on page 29, you can see the belts as I applied them to my HORNET in 1/350. You can also see on a later page how they look when the hull is painted. The top edge of the belt is 4", or about 0.011 in 1/200 and it tapers to about 2.5" at its bottom. I used either .005 or .010 strip on mine (I forget which). Note that the belt looks like a rectangle when viewed directly from the side at the height of the waterline. But to look that way the belt is much wider at the stern because it rolls under the waterline toward the ship's centerline as it gets closer to the outer prop shaft supports. It is nearly twice as wide there at the stern as it is on the bow or two thirds of the way along the side before it starts to roll under. I used two strips of plastic, one the same width for the full length of the belt. A second roughly triangular piece (the hypotenuse actually is a broad concave curve) for the last 1/4 or so of the length where the belt rolls under. If you have the MD Silver book of plans, there are drawings that show the details. The top of the armor belt coincides with the 4th deck, which is the armored deck (not the hangar or main deck).
External armor belts are characteristic of this class and I think they should be included in most reasonable scales. I also went to the effort of doing the shell plating strakes which are also visible - though some are disinclined to go that far for their own reasons. Your call on both features. This topic is discussed earlier in this same CV-8 thread for your further education and amusement depending upon where you personally fit with you modeling views.
John