I think you may be (ie., probably are) correct. Take a look at this area on pg. 36. The diagram clearly shows a longitudinal bulkhead with a hatch and firehose running forward right up to the classroom/radioroom/signal shelter.
False alarm on my part.
But now I know what the oval-ish deckhouse is called
Re: the mysterious slits, note that on my plans the forward "corners" of this 'house are round fillets (is that redundant?) while the aft corners are chamfered. Are the slits only on the forward -curved- areas?
I'll look next week but I'm pretty sure BB-64 has slits on the forward and aft bulkheads. I'll see about getting inside and trying to find anything that might elude to their use.
Drawing Board:
1/700 Whiff USS Leyte and escorts 1984
1/700 Whiff USN Modernized CAs 1984
1/700 Whiff ASW Showdown - FFs vs SSGN 1984
Slipway:
1/700 Whiff USN ASW Hunter Killer Group Dio 1984
I have several photos on bb63 in this area. Yes there is an open awarthships passage here. Currently bb63 has a wedge shaped locker to the aft end of the longer fwd compartment. There is an internal passage aft of the flag bridge coning tower, but this area is enclosed by windows and doors. I can supply photos if necessary. The after "oval" compartment is at least armored against splinters as it has armored slits with covers. The corners are actually 45 degree flats with slight rounding.
Note that the area of the flag bridge is not planked and appears to never had wood covering. I believe that Pontos and some drawings have this incorrectly.
The oval structure is was called the armored signal shelter.
It's original design was to protect the men sending up the signal flags in combat.
The big round hatch was were they sent the flags out of the shelter and up the yardarm, it's nickname is the toilet seat.
The triangular shape room attached to the room forward of it is called a light locker.
It doesn't look like they included it in the kit. That room was orginally armored radio room.
These rooms have no port holes because they are armored.
Fliger747 wrote:Note that the area of the flag bridge is not planked and appears to never had wood covering. I believe that Pontos and some drawings have this incorrectly.
T
We also had noted that half of Flag deck is not covered on the museum era before releasing this class set.
And some wood areas have been varied(added or removed) based on their eras.
But some photos of BB-63 (on the role) seems like she had covered.
Also at Iowa and Wisconsin (NJ not checked yet) have fully covered with wood deck.
So we added the wood with fully. But for modelers who believe there is no wood on that area they can cut this area and would not apply wood as an option.
I am basing this supposition about the flag deck wood by examining the transition between the wood and steel decking on BB63 which is more or less the same level and without a step as one would have going from a planked area to one that was not. If one cut off the wood decking on the model it would in my opinion be proper to add a thin shim here to bring the steel up to the approximate level of the wood decking.
Of course error is possible here as additional steel could have been added here to protect the combat center located below. My ship is in the modern configuration so the steel is correct for my era. I spent some time aboard BB63 when she was in the reserve fleet in the 60's but have no recollection of this areas configuration.
As always many surprises and mysteries with these long lived ships. Hard for one of them to slide in and out of a shipyard without some changes.
Here is a detail of the above photo. Note the flushness of the wood and steel and the step in the waterway at the top of the ladder from the 02 level. Will look, I think I have a photo of the ladder to the stbd bridge wing.
That's what it looks like as the welded plates are fairly small which implies some thickness. Question is whether or not internal compartments had deck armor added? Certainly the bulkheads outboard appear to have armor added, not super thick but something like 40 lb STS.
Were the small partial splinter shields running awarthships at the end of the somewhat enclosed flag bridge added at this time or present during WWII?
Getting more interesting. I started the print job for the three sections of aft hull shell this AM. See the photo below. Yes, I understand it's not an ideal photo, but if you try, you can see some fun things going on. The three sections are each sitting on a white substrate. The (current) tops of each section have been crudely outlined in red. Moving from front to back are the forward-most section, then the next, then finally the stern section. Each piece is a 0.020" thick shell.
You can see on the front piece the start of the tunnel. If you try, you can see on the next section the skegs... and they are actually looking really good. So I'm very interested in how these parts will turn out.
Here's the bad news: the print job is scheduled to end tonight at 7:00. I'm heading out of town this afternoon (moving the daughter home from school for the summer) and won't be back until Saturday. So my next report won't be until next week, unless I sneak in to take another photo later today.
This looks quite revolutionary in some ways. Cheers from all around for tackling this project!
Another not so obvious modification to the ships on late refit was the addition of about another inch of plate around the combat center area. You can see the plate added on in this photo of the Port side from the 01 level.
