The Ship Model Forum

Yes it's the same molding... thank you....

Anything we know on the guns? 5"25's & 5"51's?

Black Cat Models of France produce both the types of 5 inch guns:
https://blackcatmodels.eu/en/weapons/72-5in25-mk19-gun-on-platform-x4.html
https://blackcatmodels.eu/en/weapons/154-5in51-gun-on-open-mount-x4.html

Veteran Models do the 5/25 Guns also:
https://freetimehobbies.com/1-350-veteran-models-wwii-us-5-25-cal-single-gun-open-mount/

This is the only pic I have ever been able to find that shows the aft gun tub and director platform still somewhat above water. Just behind the tub and the platform is YG-21 on the other side of the ship.

Glad to see the color issue moved. Now maybe we can get back to what the details of the ship were. What needs to be done to different kits to improve them. I'm working on the 1/200 kit and spent a week redoing the bow. Not perfect but a lot better that the kit to start with. I had asked a question awhile back about if the stays or guide wires for the stack were still in place as they were on the Penn. Hope someone out there has an answer Jeff you mention a YP21 in the back ground. Just what is a YP21?

it is YG-21 not YP-21.
YG-21 http://www.navsource.org/archives/14/6221.htm

I have no doubt that the stack still had support wires but I can’t find a good pic yet. There is no way the stack would survive any kind of wind without support wires.

why?

Why what?

why "There is no way the stack would survive any kind of wind without support wires"?

Too tall and too thin to withstand wind on a consistent basis without wires. Also, if you look at photos of her all the way up her 1941 refit they show she had guide wires. There would be no reason to suspect there was no need for guide wires after her last refit.

stack is not too tall or thin compared to the "Big 5". as the stack consists of a round tube within an oval tube & structurally connected at the top & bottom, the stack is not going to collapse unless hit by another big object. also the stack is protected from the wind coming from the front by the forward superstructure.

Sorry, I meant the steel was thin, not the actual size of the stack. So do you believe then Arizona didn't have any?

she had them til at least late 30's but by the time of the PH attack, the stack was being structurally connected to the forward superstructure according to the 1941 plans.

Here is a comparison of her initial modernization plans of 1929/30 to her final refit plans of 1940/41.


In both cases the only thing that connected the stack to the superstructure were the ladders that went up to the emergency cabin platform.


No other deck from the superstructure was attached to the stack during her last refit.

This pic shows the guide wires sometime after 1935 when the stack was made higher. In this pic you also can see where the initial stack height was and how much it was raised.

the stack must have structural members in it that the skin attaches to it to also support the searchlight platforms & whatever as the skin itself cannot if it is thin.

Wind was not the primary issue. Most of the stacks of the period were free-standing (not incorporated into or attached on to neighboring structures), and so needed guy wires. The primary reason was to keep the stack attached and upright when the ship rolled from side to side. The weight of the stack, pulling laterally, would have broken it off just as the ship needed propulsion the most - in a storm. Not only the direct weight, but the momentum added to the weight as the stack reached the bottom of the arc as the ship started to roll the other way. It would have been difficult to reinforce a free-standing structure to withstand that without adding significant weight, all at a time when overall weight was strictly controlled by treaty. Guy wires did the job and were far lighter.

Here's the National Archive link to this photo. I've never seen the harbor water THAT purple blue. Makes me leery that the photo is a bit blue shifted. Thoughts?

https://catalog.archives.gov/id/178141248

Actually, aside from being a bit blurry, the colors of the temporary sheds on the barges, the brownish red brick wall and bluish grey roof in the background and the sailors in whites tells me that it isn't shifted much if at all....

That's interesting. That is one of the images I scanned from original color transparencies, in September 2018. I made a close crop scan of USS ARIZONA's wreck, besides a scan of the full frame of the 4x5 Kodachrome transparency, aka 80-GK-464. Our group of NARA researchers of Naval Subjects (the new hire NARA employees call us the "NARA Boat People") that went to NARA in group trips about twice a year (I went more often to NARA and scanned several times a year) had been scanning the original color transparencies and B&W negatives (when there were no prints available), every since NARA did away with the contractor scanning program that charged for transparencies to be scanned. Our problem was we needed to use specific "approved" scanner equipment ... aka very expensive. Fortunately, NARA soon got a high quality scanner for researcher use (eventually they added a second scanner) with rules limiting us to pulling only ten transparencies/negatives per day and use of the scanner to about one hour at a time (unless no one else was waiting to use the scanners). It normally takes the full hour to scan ten of these large transparencies at hi-res dpi in color TIFF files. Anyway we setup a combined database of scanned images that we shared among ourselves and as needed to others.

Our scans are quite large TIFF files. The few I post, have been converted to JPEG's and reduced in size so they can be posted. The majority of color transparencies of Naval Subjects at NARA are 4x5-in in size. But some are as large as 10x10. As for myself, I soon ran out of color images that I thought were worth scanning . There are about 24,000 transparencies and negatives (most negatives are "copy negatives" made originally from transparencies) in the NARA Official USN Color image collection ... 80-GK. But, a very large number of them are "red". Some are color transparencies that have shifted to red. Others are likely IR Film. IR Film was used for mostly aerial recon over jungles to spot enemy installations. All in all I'm guessing that much less than 5,000 transparencies are still good quality color. Many of the good color transparencies are portraits, which I don't scan. Some of the turned red or shifted blue transparencies were still worth scanning because the subject was one rarely photographed. I shifted to scanning original B&W negatives of "missing" prints.

Anyway, back to how NARA was posting one of my images. In discussions with NARA staff on the 5th floor Photographic Collections, it was understood that it would be beneficial if NARA could have access to the scans that researchers made so they wouldn't have to repeatedly pull the same images for people to scan. There were concerns that repeated pulling and scanning (taking from cold storage, letting them warm to room temperature, and the act of handling the originals) risked the originals. Eventually the NARA staff asked if we were willing to share what we had scanned. After discussing with the "image cartel", those willing to share their images (the images in our database included images some of us had paid to be scanned under the previous arrangement with contractors) were put in a folder which I provided the NARA staff on a large Flash-Drive with the images. They said they planned to eventually make reduced size images available online. I guess they did.

As far as being blurry, you have to realize this close crop is a quite small segment of a larger image. Not bad actually for a likely hand held 4x5 camera with a relatively slow speed film taken from a small boat (based on the angle of the camera to the subjects).

One of the things a couple of us are trying to solve, is when was this transparency taken? The original transparencies come in paper sleeves, many with ID and date info. The date info is almost ALWAYS WRONG, and ID's are spotty. The main subject in this image, the auxiliary ship USS Hammondsport (APV-2) War Diaries available online don't start until about March-April 1942. It is suspected that this photo dates from about February 1942. Since NARA is closed, her Deck Logs are not available unless they get scanned in the ongoing effort at NARA.

This is the full image as posted online by the Naval History and Heritage Command, (in low res) and they only post B&W online.....



https://www.history.navy.mil/our-collec ... K-464.html This is the page and you can download a B&W tiff which is much much larger....