Calling all Iowa-class (BB-61) fans

[Timmy C]

The forum doesn't display .tif files, so I've resaved it as a .jpg here:

[bigjimslade]

I have an August 1943 plan for the New Jersey from the PNY.

The plan shows 41 x 20mm single and 8 x 20mm twin mounts.

The twin mounts are:

The four at the bow (Mounts 1�4) main deck
P/S at FR 146 on the O2 level (Mounts 35�36) (At the aft end of the superstructure)
P/S at FR 161 on the main deck (Mounts 39�40) (The aft most of the pair alongside the #3 Turret)

However, I have never seen a WWII era photograph that clearly showed a Twin 20mm mount on the New Jersey. I have seen them for the first tour in Korea before all the 20mm were removed prior to the second tour.

Does anyone know of a WWII picture showing a twin mount on the New Jersey?

[Rick E Davis]

Jim,

Did you mean the plans are dated AUGUST 1945?

David,

Experimental twin and triple 20-mm gun mounts were field tested onboard USS ENTERPRISE (CV-6) in June-July 1943. Development of a production twin mount was started by BuOrd in early 1944. Completion of the mount and successful test was completed in September 1944. Production started after that, but installations on a large scale didn't happen in numbers until early 1945.

[bigjimslade]

Jim,

Did you mean the plans are dated AUGUST 1945?

[Rick E Davis]

Ahhh ... now I understand. What you are looking at are likely a set of BGP plans and the date you are quoting is the "As completed date of the drawings". There will be somewhere on the drawing a change block noting changes to the drawing as of some date. Below are examples of what typical USN BGP (for 1959 destroyer transferred to German in 1959 and BIW Engineering drawing for FLETCHER class destroyers) and Engineering drawings look like. Depending on the draftsman and yard "standards", the layout and location of title blocks can change. I have no idea where the change block would be on the drawings you have, but there should be a note as to when the drawing was LAST updated, likely in an upright corner.

If so many changes were made that an all new drawing was required, like for destroyers modified for transfer to Germany, the date of the drawing when drawn would change. Otherwise changes would be made to the original drawing used to make blueprints from (erased old replaced by new) and a note placed in the change block.

I'll bet that the drawings you have will show that there were modifications made sometime in 1945 or post-WWII.

These are pretty small images for reading here, but you get the idea.

[bigjimslade]

There's only one modification listed and it is unreadable. But it's not from a booklet of general plans.

[bigjimslade]

We did some exploring on the New Jersey today. One of the things we looked at was the hull plating.

The construction plans from the Iowa used on the New Jersey show that, in most cases, the strakes overlapped with rivets. There are some examples of scarf joins between strakes in the plans and some examples that show beveling but, nearly all the joints are overlapped.

However, we could find few examples of overlaps in the hull. Notably, at the bow where there is a triangular convergence of strakes. And we looked at both the inside and outside.

Does the Iowa have such overlapping strakes? If not, does anyone know how the ships went from overlapped strakes to butt aligned strakes?

[chuck]

Here are a couple picture I took showing where the lap joint transitions over to butt aligned joints on the Iowa. This is near the forward turret:


https://1drv.ms/u/s!AietPwAuPc0SjDD2HqFksWcz45b9

https://1drv.ms/u/s!AietPwAuPc0SjDFF3HlivI0BBB4N

[bigjimslade]

Here are a couple picture I took showing where the lap joint transitions over to butt aligned joints on the Iowa. This is near the forward turret:

This, is the one area where we found overlapping strakes on the NJ. The plans show overlaps all over.

One problem is that the way the NJ is docked, you can't get up close to the bow or stern.

[chuck]

I found this set of general plans for the Missouri. It�s a copy of what is on public domain.

https://1drv.ms/b/s!AietPwAuPc0Si326Eq8G3RKQhhSk

The hull station section drawings at the bottom shows over lapping as well as butt aligned joints on the hull skin at places consistent with what I saw on the Iowa and on photos of the other three ships, including underwater hull. So I am assuming the 4 ships are plated the same way.

I am using these as reference for plating detail on my 1/200 model.

[Fliger747]

Forward of Turret 1 where the upper side plating transitions from 60 lb to 20 lb plate there is a "tummy tuck" discontinuity in the smoothness of the external plating. Somewhere I have a photo of this.

[Fliger747]

Bow plating Missouri

[chuck]

Does anyone have the dimension and thickness of Iowa�s rudders?

[Fliger747]

For anyone building the 1:200 plastic Iowa class kit, be especially aware of the incorrect below the waterline shape of the kit, especially aft, but also of the forward bulb area. To see how extensive the modifications are reference the NJ build by Hank Strub. If one is going to the extent of replicating the plating, you might as well get the hull contour right. This turned out to be a major project, but Hank's version of the ship during the time which he served on her is quite spectacular and I am sure he is glad he took the effort to correct the hull.

Thousands of hours get put into these ships and a good build often takes longer than the construction of the original, if perhaps only slightly less expensive.

Cheers: Tom

[Thomas E. Johnson]

For anyone building the 1:200 plastic Iowa class kit, be especially aware of the incorrect below the waterline shape of the kit, especially aft, but also of the forward bulb area. To see how extensive the modifications are reference the NJ build by Hank Strub. If one is going to the extent of replicating the plating, you might as well get the hull contour right. This turned out to be a major project, but Hank's version of the ship during the time which he served on her is quite spectacular and I am sure he is glad he took the effort to correct the hull.

Thousands of hours get put into these ships and a good build often takes longer than the construction of the original, if perhaps only slightly less expensive.

Cheers: Tom

I added hull plate detail to mine using the tape & paint method, but didn�t do any hull shape corrections. To my eyes it looks close enough and not worth the effort to modify.

[Fliger747]

At this scale the paint and tape is good method!

[bigjimslade]

For anyone building the 1:200 plastic Iowa class kit, be especially aware of the incorrect below the waterline shape of the kit, especially aft, but also of the forward bulb area. To see how extensive the modifications are reference the NJ build by Hank Strub. If one is going to the extent of replicating the plating, you might as well get the hull contour right. This turned out to be a major project, but Hank's version of the ship during the time which he served on her is quite spectacular and I am sure he is glad he took the effort to correct the hull.

It looks like the Trumpeter 1:200 kit hull shape is blown up from the 1:350 Tamiya. The twin keels are add-on's to the hull rather than being an integral part of the hull shape. That causes a number of problems, including the shafts being off.

[chuck]

For anyone building the 1:200 plastic Iowa class kit, be especially aware of the incorrect below the waterline shape of the kit, especially aft, but also of the forward bulb area. To see how extensive the modifications are reference the NJ build by Hank Strub. If one is going to the extent of replicating the plating, you might as well get the hull contour right. This turned out to be a major project, but Hank's version of the ship during the time which he served on her is quite spectacular and I am sure he is glad he took the effort to correct the hull.

Thousands of hours get put into these ships and a good build often takes longer than the construction of the original, if perhaps only slightly less expensive.

Cheers: Tom

I kept the deck, the center 14 inches of the hull, and about 2 inches of extreme of bow and stern from trumpeter. I built up about 70% of the hull length using styrene plank on bulkhead method using FDD plans for bulkhead shape.

[Fliger747]

Big job!! Good way to do it though.

[bigjimslade]

BTW, this is why the Tamiya has the funny outlets for the outers shafts. Without it, the shafts would be way too long.

The basic misteak is these kits have assumed the upward slope is the same on either side of the twin keels.