Calling all US Navy Pre-Dreadnought (Great White Fleet) fans

[kennylibben]

Vic, i understand what your saying but it GRAY. Gray is the color, grey is well, i forget. but i remember having arguments in the past and its always with an A for the color. you crazy brits cant even speak your own language!

[Victorious]

Vic, i understand what your saying but it GRAY. Gray is the color, grey is well, i forget. but i remember having arguments in the past and its always with an A for the color. you crazy brits cant even speak your own language!

What the hell, Gray is Grey and Grey is Gray as long as it sounds right

[dick wood]

Kenny:

I love this era of American and world history. I have several ISW Pre-Dreadnoughts on my to build pile, and next up is the 1/350 USS Kearsage.

Zack: you have to remember that compaired to the RN the USN had just started building it's steel navy only about 20 years previous. In fact We had to first find a factory that could make harden steel plate to produce the ABC ships.

This era is of intrest to me as how techenology influnced naval design, and how the US started to emerge as a world power. Plus TR is one of my favorate past Presidents.

When I was on vacation last year I visited T.R's home in Oyster Bay L.I. ( I am from Long Island myself) and on the wall in the upper hall way was a water color painting given to him by the Kaiser of all the ships of the Great White Fleet. The tour guide was suprised that someone knew what it was! I guess he never ran into a ship modeler !!

Here is an intresting link as well http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/

So Kenny please by all means put me on the list.

[kennylibben]

Dick,
thanks for the link.


Will someone post some pics of their builds? in progress, completed, or not started?

[Zach P.]

Yes well the GWF may have only included the USN's BBs but the American navy of the time was overall visually impressive.

Though I always look at the pictures of Kearsarge's visit to Great Britain and I am Always struck by how small and puny she looks next to the RN Pre-Dreadnoughts. They seem to tower over her and look out and out much more powerful. admittedly the Kearsarge was 5 years old by the time she made this trip (1905) and there were much newer ships in the US Fleet but the images always made me wonder how good relative to other navies the Americans were in the days of the GWF.

Anybody have a good answer?

Well Kearsarge was only 375ft the largest was the Connetticut Class at 456ft, were as Dreadnought was 520 ft , so the difference between Kearsage and Dreadnought was 145ft that would make it look punny, thats why they were called PRE-DREADNOUGHTS, ARH

Gee thanks ron for that rather mocking answer. Especially since I was looking for a sense of relative strength of American and RN PRE-DREADNOUGHTS..... You might have noticed that Kearsarge visited the Home fleet in 1905 a year before DREADNOUGHT entered the scene and though known about the fighting ships of the RN at this time would as I understand it still PRE-DREADNOUGHTS. But don't worry I won't ask anymore stupid questions.

[kennylibben]

i smell a mutiny afoot!

[Timmy C]

Kenny, one of the reasons why you Americans have such different spellings of English than, well, English English, is that back during your independence, y'all didn't want to be like Britain, and so changed parts of the language to your own liking >.< (Someone correct me if this isn't true)

[Victorious]

Thanks for the link to the Great White Fleet site. Absolutely Brilliant

[kennylibben]

Kenny, one of the reasons why you Americans have such different spellings of English than, well, English English, is that back during your independence, y'all didn't want to be like Britain, and so changed parts of the language to your own liking >.< (Someone correct me if this isn't true)

yeah i know timmy. English English has also changed since then.

And whenever someone corrects my speech, and tell me i didn't use proper english... i tell them to go to hell, we are in America and i speak American. which technically is different than English, which is different than English English. you get the point, kinda like how Mexican is a tad bit off the pole of Spanish, but so close you can still communicate easily by only speaking one.

[Chris E.]

Well, being that I am partly responsible here, having provided the plans and turrets for Kenny's undertaking, I can truthfully say that Predreadnought vessels, of all nationalities, catch my attention.

I would love to build a representative of all classes of American Predreads, although the Connecticutt class is, by far, my favored class. Now, my only quandry is this; Do I scratchbuild them in 1/192 or do I build them in 1/350 using ISW kits?

[kennylibben]

Chris, it would be much much much more efficient to scratch them. If your building all (or many) of them, you could make molds of most of the things (which you seem to be good at) and use them on the ships.

[Chris E.]

Chris, it would be much much much more efficient to scratch them. If your building all (or many) of them, you could make molds of most of the things (which you seem to be good at) and use them on the ships.

Thanks for the compliment, Kenny. I have thought about that. While a fleet of 1/350 Pre-Dreads from ISW would be impressive, a fleet of 1/192 ships would be REALLY impressive. Besides which, I could probably sell some of those fittings to offset construction costs... OK, you talked me into it, 1/192 it is!

[kennylibben]

wait, is the scale of the plans you sent me 1/192 or 1/196? in a pm you told me 1/196.....?

[Chris E.]

wait, is the scale of the plans you sent me 1/192 or 1/196? in a pm you told me 1/196.....?

I did??? If I did, it was a typo, they are 1/192.

[kennylibben]

alright! sweet... now i can buy PE for it!

[Paul Helfrich]

I've recently ordered the Glencoe USS Oregon kit (and the Tom's Modelworks detail set for the same). I've seen it built up with white hull and buff upperworks, and also in an overall white scheme where only the funnels are in buff.

Is the latter all-white scheme correct for any part of the ship's history, and if so, what years?

Thanks in advance!

[Gary Kingzett]

Paul, Oregon is shown in many pictures in what they refer to as her "original configuration". As nearly as I can determine that means before her stacks were raised and before the pilot house was removed. The stacks were raised in 1898 after Santiago so the "original configuration" has to be pre SpanAm war. The pictures which show her "all white" would be for the period from christening until early 1898. Note that the "all white" scheme includes buff stacks, as you noted, but also buff foremast, all black gun barrels and a bright varnished pilot house. Deck was planked, holystoned. I don't know specific dates when her upper works were buff during this same period, the only picture I can remember which was specifically dated was during a yarding period at Bremerton in 1896, she was "all white" then. I built her as in 1905, with the raised stacks, buff upper works and turrets, and white barrels.

Gary

[Paul Helfrich]

Thanks Gary! This is very helpful.

Now if I can just get hold of the Glencoe Oregon kit. Squadron had it as a "special" in their May flyer, at a ridiculously low price. You know what they say about, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is...I ordered one the day I got the flyer and no luck - they're all gone. I see there are a few on e-bay right now, though...

[Kevin]

Any advice out there? They are the same class, the very limited photos I have seen show few apparent physical differences, but this is my first dive into this era of ship modeling. TIA for any opinions or info.!

[kennylibben]

Kevin, what do you need advice on? what are you looking at?

I'm hoping to get a "Great White" going in the near future.....