What-If CGN-42 Advanced Missile and Defense Radar Cruiser

[navydavesof]

Breath taking work Dave... I love it...

Why did you choose to install the Phalanx in such a way? I mean overhanging from the edge of the superstructure...

Hey, GT, thanks for stopping by! I have the Phalanx over hung just a bit, because the super structure is kind of narrow, and I want them to have a very wide firing arc. By stepping out a little like that, they will have a better field of fire. I will have to build out a little ledge for them to sit on.

Have you thought out the mast(s) configuration?

Yes. I have begun the forward mast/structure. I will post a full length picture with my next update

Hey, by the way, whatever happended to that modernized Montana of yours?

[CSGN138]

Just a quick note. The CWIS platform on Virgina overhang the superstructure as well, with the SLQ-32 right below it. Good design navy dave. I like the Harpoon tub as well. Im working on a new Picture, going to be a flight II CSGN-138. Ill post it soon.

[navydavesof]

Just a quick update. Guess who has the flu? Well, he has 2 tumbs, and it's this guy. I spent a good portion of my 3 day weekend standing duty and sleeping trying to recover. I have the chills as I write this!!! How's that for a vacation? No goodIt's total crap!

But I got the last of the vent covers made and the CIWS ammunition elevator rails intalled on the side of the ship. Next post will be a full mock-up of the parts and pieces and moving onto the after deckhouse. A big aprt is that I very, very carfully puddied and sanded the SPY panel faces. I had a few seams in the joints and that I had to carefully sand down smooth.

The block you see standing up is the initial mast. I made it too short so now I have to do it all over. Dang it!

More progress this week!

[cmakeng]

Hi Dave,

I happened on your post while researching something else and quickly signed up on the forum. Your conversion is fascinating and the level of detail is incredible. I worked at Gibbs & Cox as a structural engineer designing the DDG-51 in 1986 and later LCS-1 until 2007 when I left. I haven't read through the entire thread yet, but I would be happy to help with any background info.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

[navydavesof]

Hi Dave,

I happened on your post while researching something else and quickly signed up on the forum. Your conversion is fascinating and the level of detail is incredible. I worked at Gibbs & Cox as a structural engineer designing the DDG-51 in 1986 and later LCS-1 until 2007 when I left. I haven't read through the entire thread yet, but I would be happy to help with any background info.

Hope you're feeling better soon.

Thank you very much for the kind words, sir. That is a very kind offer, sir. I would very much like to ask you a few questions. Check your Personal Messages folder, sir!

[CSGN138]

Hello dave

hope the flu passes by quickly.Ive got a bug to but mostly in my head, not to bad. Anyway, Im noticing that your ship is not going to look like the original concept. Looks like your masts are shaping up Virgina style. I like it . I think im going to hold off on your pic tell i see what its going to look like. In the mean time, Ive got a new post with my FlightII boat. Check it out.

Type to you later
Joe

[navydavesof]

Hey, guys,

I have made a lot of progress on CGN-42, and I will be posting some pictures very soon. In the mean time, here is a shipbucket manipulation with about 80% of the details really nailed down.

As I will explain a little later, I will construct 2 optional fits between the super structure and Mk71. One is to have the Harpoon missile tub forward for 16 Harpoons and one 64-cell VLS or one 64-cell VLS and one 32-cell.

Needing continued refinement is the mast configuration.

[HvyCgn9]

Look's good mate, I would go with a mast arrangement similar to the original Virginia mast ie. a sort of tall pyramid/mack style jobbie...

Cheers Bruce

PS had the Flu myself a bit over a week ago when I was supposed to be on holiday spent 97% of it sick....did get 2 sail USS Long Beach on the sea near my Dad's place!! There are some pix in my MKII bow thread....

[navydavesof]

Look's good mate, I would go with a mast arrangement similar to the original Virginia mast ie. a sort of tall pyramid/mack style

Thank you, Burce. I appreciate it. The idea behind that is survivability. If the helo hanger gets hit I hope the solid structure of the mast will aft as a barrier to protect the forward SPG-62 illuminators from sharpnel and concussive damage.

[carr]

..

[navydavesof]

CGN-42 comes along.

A big challenge I am going to address today is how to connect the forward super structure and aft together. They can't just meet. They have to angle in toward each other.

More in a little. I have to go meet a skirt for the afternoon.


EDIT:
Here is a picture of the hanger. After much fighting and scrap left over, I have the aft array house built and ready for finishing. The CIWS chair will be integrated into the side to block off access to the aft most deck.

[johndon]

Looking great David, I prefer the one with the Harpoons though...

John

[Bill Liebold]

Very nice! You've been putting a lot into this job. It's fleshing out well, I like the fashion plates by the hangar, nice little touch there. Congrats.
To fill the gap between the deck houses, I would suggest this if you don't mind. Get yourself a divider that has a very slim design so you can get in between the forward and aft deck houses. Use the divider to measure the gap at the bottom and again at the top. Transfer those to a sheet of plastic to make wedges to fill the gap on both sides, do the same for the upper deck.

Bill

[SumGui]

BZ. Great work.

[navydavesof]

BZ. Great work.

Thanks, SumGi! Did you notice the Mk71s? . The ship would be heavy on weapons. After all...it's a warship.

[SumGui]

BZ. Great work.

Thanks, SumGi! Did you notice the Mk71s? . The ship would be heavy on weapons. After all...it's a warship.

Of course! Someone really needs to make 1/700 Mk 71s.... I guess I'll have to learn to make them for my conversion projects. Your 1/350 looks much better that 1/700 would, but I have too many vessels I want to work, so I need to conserve display space.

[navydavesof]

SO LOOOOOOOONG since my last update! I am so sorry!!!

My partner in this project must be pulling his hair out saying, "what is taking this goofball so long?!" Well, work amongst other things...but here is progress!

Here we have an over-view of the recent work in general. I rebuilt the aft radar deckhouse. The hanger is done...

...and now I just have to figure out how to properly join the forward and aft super structures together. Of course it will have to be done with sheet styrene, but the execution is a little difficult!

If there are any suggestions for how to build these structures together, they are very welcome!

Thanks, guys! I look forward to your suggestions and getting it done!

[GTDEATH13]

Why join them? You can exploit the gap to place the ras stations and other equipment.... After all, the main corridor should be a deck below, in the hull...

[SumGui]

The gap would be a great place for an expansion joint.

[navydavesof]

Not letting the joint hold me up, I am moving to build up the SPY-3 portion of the AMDR arrays. As you can tell I already have the large SPY volume search radar (VSR). Now I need to build up the horizon search SPY-3 deck houses.

The general shape of the SPY-3 deckhouse can be seen in this Lockheed AMDR-S video. While it's built on a Flight IIA re-start bridge, I can adapt it to fit CGN-42's super structures pretty easily.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... DofE#t=77s

So, there are two ways to build this deck house. I can either cut base and roof pieces out of sheet styrene and then build up a little structure with many little angled pieces (which I may very well do) or build up some blocks of styrene and sand them down to the appropriate shapes.

I have begun with sanding down the styrene shapes. So to start that I began with two different sizes of block building up to the approximate deckhouse height.

Then some good gluing with Plastruct's Bondene cement. This stuff HOLDS styrene together. My gosh, when they talk about "welding" plastic...this stuff actually does it.

Now that the pieces are roughly cut to the right lengths and placed on top of the structure just to block out the general shape.

I am going to mess around with sanding these pieces down, but having spent about 30 minutes working with it already (and getting a bunch of plastic dust all over my keyboard) I think the way this is going to really be successful is by building it up with styrene sheet.