Calling all Buckley-class/Captain-class (DE/APD) fans

[Timmy C]

Ah, thanks Tracy.

Also, is it practical to try to convert the kit into DE-173 Eldridge of Philadelphia Experiment fame?

[Tracy White]

Depends on your definition of practical. Technically, she was a different class (Cannon), but the main difference was the type of engines used, which made for a different stack. Otherwise they're very similar based on the quick look I took at her on Navsource.

[Timmy C]

Oi, I took the same photo-foray through Navsource too. So basically just the stack then...interesting. Oh, and a twin 40mm...phooey.

[Tracy White]

There might be some aft superstructure differences but I'm at work sans good references for the next couple of hours.

[Tracy White]

OK, England's pattern is either based or inspired by Pattern 3D, but it looks more like a Benson/Gleaves pattern on the starboard side and there are significant differences between it and all of the 3D patterns I could find. No idea what the port side looks like, if it's based on the same pattern or a different one.

England painted in to Dazzle out in the Pacific so unless you can find a good couple of photos of her in operation or at anchor the exact placement of the pattern is going to be a crap shoot.

[Timmy C]

Any chance that the photo of England may be flipped when it was printed, so that we might be actually looking at her port side?

[Timmy C]

20mm Oerlikon Mk 14 electronic gunsights - were these implemented throughout the entire fleet, including DEs, by mid-1944 to early 1945? I speak specifically of the England, but am willing to use examples showing the manual sights if they were still around then as an excuse for using up more of GMM's PE fret

[GTDEATH13]

This is for timmy. This is HS LEON (lion in greek) ex USS Eldridge sometime in the early 90's

[GTDEATH13]

And one more, this time HS IERAKS (hawk in Greek) about the same period...

[Tracy White]

20mm Oerlikon Mk 14 electronic gunsights - were these implemented throughout the entire fleet, including DEs, by mid-1944 to early 1945? I speak specifically of the England, but am willing to use examples showing the manual sights if they were still around then as an excuse for using up more of GMM's PE fret

I don't think you can say one one or the other for the entire fleet.

One of the problems I run into as a "primary research" researcher is the location of records. For ships that had major work done, say, at Puget Sound or Mare Island, I can say that the records (If kept) are either held in Seattle or San Francisco if they weren't sent back to the main branch of the National Archives.

What about for work that was done by destroyer tenders? Would that be sent back to DC or perhaps the home yard for the vessel? I'm not sure that anyone has tried to determine this.

[Timmy C]

Ah, perhaps I should ask, "Were there examples of ships in late-'44 to early '45 whose 20mm did -not- have electronic gunsights?"

[Timmy C]

Here's the link to my current build of the England, DE-635:

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=35469

[Grant]

Hi All,

I am planning a RN Captain class and am unsure as to what colours I should use.

I have been on Navsource and quite like the "wavy" scheme that most of them seem to have (if this makes any sense).

I'm thinking AP507A and C, but any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Gordon Bjorklund]

I started working on my USS England again after 22 months of working on other projects. I decided to waterline my kit and I cut off the lower hull. I then moved on the the guns. I'm using Gold Medal Models PE on my build. I finished the 1.1'' gun that I had started on earlier and the worked on the 3" guns with no problems. I then turned my attention to the 20mm guns. I cut off the barrels and replaced them with .015 plastic rod. I think that .010 rod would have been a better size to use but I had a hard enough time using the larger .015 rod. I then cut off the shoulder supports and replaced them with GMM's PE parts. I decided to mock up the ship to see what it looked liked and that's when I found a problem. The 20mm guns are too long for the gun tubs.

kit gun and reworked gun.

You can see in the picture that the kit gun and the reworked gun are too long. The only way they fit in the tub is to turn them at an angle. The bridge guns have the same problem of not enough room.

Paul Champigny's "Building the USS England" in the November 2008 Fine Scale Modeler shows this problem with better pictures than what I have posted. Paul used the GMM PE also on his build.

I don't know if the aftermarket guns would be a better fit. Maybe someone who has replaced to 20mm's with aftermarket guns could let us know how they fit.

I will finish this ship in the mean time with the 20's the way they are and move on to something else.

[Timmy C]

I had the same problem, Gordon, hehe. None of my guns fit normally either, a problem exacerbated by my choice to use the kit shoulder rests as Mk14 computerized sights.

[Tracy White]

Granted I haven't copied & rescaled my plans, but is the sense that the guns are too big or the tubs too small?

[Timmy C]

Guns too big. They're 2/3rds the length of the 3"...

Comparing them to Dragon's 20mm makes it very obvious the size inconsistency.

[Gordon Bjorklund]

I took the time to break open my DD boxes and check the size of the 20mm guns. I took four different kits by three different manufactures and set the guns side by side. (Trumpeter:England,Tamiya:Flecther, Dragaon: Buchanan and Trumpeter: Sullivans) The first three are very close in size but the Sullivans has 20mm's that could only be used by a twelve foot tall man. They a huge compared to the others. I then looked at the size of the gun tubs on all four kits and the England's were smaller in size.

The solution to the four bridge guns being too big is simple. Just move the four 20mm bridge guns forward. Remove the raised locating points, fill in the holes with plastic rod and mount the guns forward to where they look right.

The easy soultion for the midship and strern 20mm mounts is the positon the guns at rest with the barrels pointing upward covered with canvus (tissue) or rebuild the tubs bigger from scratch.

move guns forward

move these guns forward

modify these 20mm guns with barrels pointing up

This is all hind site for me now but if I ever do another Buckley Class ship, this is what I'm going to do.

[DanCinSD]

Maybe posting here will spark my interest again in my USS England build. I was doing good, but stalled when I encountered the 20mm gun problem. I like the gun elevated solution!
Here is the link to my "work in progress".....
http://sdmodelclub.proboards55.com/index.cgi?board=wip

A bit rough looking! Boy do taking pictures show you errors that middle-young aged eyes miss!

[Gordon Bjorklund]

Dan, You have great looking build going, I enjoyed seeing your USS England.

Here's a couple of pictures of my wip England. I still have to put the hose reels on, add the ship's boat and paint the water.