Calling all USS Nevada BB-36 and USS Oklahoma BB-37 fans

[taskforce48]

Awesome Jeff! I would say by the position of the crew, this is in fact within minutes of the picture I posted. Awesome find

Matt

[cjohnson]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering if anyone knew of any kits available for the Oklahoma, & Nevada in there 1941 fits. I have been looking for a very long time and can't find anything I have tried to find old midship kits, and the old blue ridge kits but all are sold out. this is 1/700 btw. I have seen the shapeways options but have been very apprehensive because I haven't seen one built completely and I saw some older posts on here not really liking them to much. I have been looking for kits for these ships for a long time because I want to complete my collection of all the battleships from battleship row and I'm only missing Nevada and Oklahoma (I want to also eventually get Pennsylvania but completing battleship row is what I want to prioritize). Any information would be amazing! I'm still newer to serious modeling not the kits I used to make for fun when I was younger, so anything would be great!

[MartinJQuinn]

Currently, the out of production resin kits are all that there are, unless you are going to kitbash or scratchbuild. You'll have to scour eBay, and maybe post in the Trading Post forum that you are looking for them. Perhaps someone has them in the back of the closet that's never going to get to them.

[Lethal215]

Skimming through the Big 5, Nevada, Arizona and PH BB Camouflage threads got me digging in the Getty and Life sites since it seems that there are some fantastic photos that have been inserted from them. The Nevada PH Damage Report (from TW's site: http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... ageReport/) had a cropped picture, from what I believe, is from Bob Landry at Life:

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset ... 1428%7D%7D

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset ... 0003%7D%7D

RD seems to have pretty much locked down the AA installations with his King Board submissions for the BBs at PH, but I'm not sure the Navy got it right in the PH Hearings; their chart seems to be wrong on a few ships (Neosho had 3in/50's), and the format and class groupings (especially CLs) is very confusing:

And then there is this from RADM Anderson, COMBATSHIPS, from the Hart Inquiry, p.433.

Just a few more things to add to the pile.

[Jeff Sharp]

This is USS Arizona and USS Nevada at Pearl on 10/3/41 in their normal berths of F-7 and F-8 respectively. The camera found these two ships at their berths a handful of times in October.

[Jeff Sharp]

I recently received a request to help identify all of the locations of the life rafts on USS Nevada and USS Oklahoma on 12/7/41. This topic has come up a couple of times the past couple of years so I thought it's time to put it here for future reference. I'll try to do my best to show what I have found so far but I'm sure there are more rafts to be discovered on both ships. I'll start with USS Nevada first.
I think there were 3 sizes of oval life rafts used in 1941. 25, 40, and 60 man capacity rafts. Exactly which sizes are present in these photos I'll let you decide.
Starting at the bow and working my way aft, this is what I see on Nevada.
Turret #1 did not have any rafts on her sides or top. Instead, paravanes were stowed on the sides as seen in this pic.


As you can see from the above photo, turret #2 had rafts on the sides. A small raft inside of a large raft. There were also two rafts on the roof. They were placed on the starboard side of the roof.



I've been able to find only 1 raft on the superstructure as seen in this pic.


Moving aft, the vegetable locker on the starboard side had 3 rafts on the bulkhead.


Turrets #3 and #4 both had rafts on the sides. Turret #3 for sure had small rafts inside large ones. It is unclear if it was the same for Turret #4.


I suspect turret #4 only had a single raft hanging on the sides as seen in this pic.


Finally, turret #4 had 4 rafts on the roof. These rafts were painted white. You can see the crew lowering one of the white rafts into the water in this pic.


Hope this helps for USS Nevada!

[Jeff Sharp]

Found another possible location for a raft. These photos were taken aboard Nevada on Sept. 9, 1941. There is a raft stowed on the casemate bulkhead on the starboard side in between the first and second casemate guns.




I highlighted the location of that raft in this pic.

[Jeff Sharp]

This image is reversed. This is actually the starboard side of the ship showing the two rafts on turret #2.



I also found a couple of other pics showing the rafts on the signal bridge. These are post salvage pics but confirm that rafts were put in this location.

[SeanF]

The first post on page 12 of this thread has a post-attack overhead shot (from an aircraft, if I'm not mistaken) where the different lighting makes it look like turret 2 might had had 4 rafts, not just the two that are plain-as-day obvious in the shot taken from the conning tower behind them.

- Sean F.

[Jeff Sharp]

This photo suggests only 2 rafts on turret 2 top.

[SeanF]

Tough one, really grainy... but to me it looks more like two large, 5D-painted ones hanging on the turret side rather than on the top.

- Sean F.

[Jeff Sharp]

Before I jump into USS Oklahoma's rafts, thought I'd post these pics of her. Not many pics of her with black mainmast legs. Anyone know what year she was like this?

[MartinJQuinn]

This photo of Nevada is dated August 1935, also with the black on the main mast legs.

I think that photo of Okie dates from 1936.

[taskforce48]

Anyone know what year she was like this?

According my sources this is 80-G-466164 with a recorded date of 10/16/1936 transiting the Panama Canal after rescuing American nationals during the Spanish Civil War. You can just make out an American flag painted on Turret 2.

What's interesting about this image is she does not carry any 36" Searchlights. The funnel platform is empty and she still mounts 4 .50cal MG's on the Mainmast Cloverleaf but yet had them on the funnel at Gibraltar in the previous August.

This picture is dated 1937 and I believe it to show the black legs of the mainmast

Matt

[Jeff Sharp]

Ok, I'm going to try my hand at locating as many of the rafts on Oklahoma on 12/7/41 as I can. Unfortunately very few pre-attack photos of her have surfaced thus far and most are too far away to see any details. Like Arizona, she didn't survive long enough during the attack to have any photos of her prior to capsizing. There is however some info to be had.
Unlike the rafts on Nevada's turrets, I don't believe Oklahoma put small rafts inside larger ones. I have a theory that on turrets #1 and #4 she hung the small raft separate from the larger one. The small raft was stowed under the turret range finder.

Starting at the bow and working aft again, this is what I can find.

This shot of turret #1 shows one raft attached to her side. An interesting detail to note is the railing that the raft is tied to. See how the after portion of that railing has been ripped away. There are rope lines still attached to that railing. This suggest to me that another raft was in this location.


On the other side of that turret, there is indeed a small raft under the range finder.


Turret #2 appears to have just a single raft on each side.


This November photo of her seems to confirm the single raft on turret #2


That photo also suggests that there was a large raft hanging off the side of the conning tower.

Like Nevada, there were rafts on the starboard side of her vegetable locker. They do appear to be small inside of large in this area.


This November pic of her suggests that she stowed rafts on the side of her projector booth.


I can't find any clear evidence supporting any rafts on turret #3.

Turret #4 I believe had the two rafts per side like turret #1. One of the small rafts under the range finder was still there and can be seen in one of the above photos.

I am unable to confirm if any rafts were on any of the turret tops.

I'm sure there are more to be found. Hopefully more photos of her surface.

[SeanF]

There is a photo of her in the process of capsizing, grainy and taken by the Japanese. See: http://navsource.org/archives/01/043/014303a.jpg
There might be one raft visible on the starboard side of turret 2. (And it looks like one of her Kingfishers is flipped upside down on top of turret 4)

Oh, I will definitely need to pop off some rafts and add a bunch more to my recently "finished" Nevada and Oklahoma builds...

- Sean F.

[MartinJQuinn]

Working on the 1/350 ISW Oklahoma. What�s this box on the cranes, and was it really there? Seems it may be there in some pre-war pictures, but I can�t tell for sure.

Boy, after working with 3D printed parts, the cast resin parts, state of the art as they were once upon a time, just don�t compare.

Thanks,

[MartinJQuinn]

Thanks David.

[Jeff Sharp]

Hi Martin,
I think it was more of an attempt by Iron Shipwrights to replicate what they saw on Nevada's crane post.


To me though this appears to be a platform with splinter shield around it.



I don't believe Oklahoma's was like this.

[MartinJQuinn]

Thanks Jeff!! That's the clearest photo I've seen of Okie's crane.