The Ship Model Forum

Very good, will have to pick one up. Just need someone to do a 1/350 Hiei now to complete the class.

The Aoshima 1/350 retake Kirishima kit will come back into stock in October: https://www.1999.co.jp/eng/10320868

[quote="Dan K"]Given Fujimi's penchant for endlessly marketing their kits, I would agree that it seems strange that they wouldn't just add one small sprue for the upper two bridge levels. That's all that really distinguishes an early war vs 1944 version, aside from windscreens, radar, and AA. See below.

I also wonder why they haven't released a NEXT Kirishima, for that matter. Particularly since Fujimi would likely just re-use the Kongo hull, as with their regular kits. Which would be inappropriate with its sealed scuttles, but would be worth it for the improved casemates.[/quote]

They would need a Sprue for the 5th Bridge Level (Above what I think is the Navigation Bridge (or is that the Comm Bridge??? I thought the Comm Bridge was higher, and the Nav lower??? anyway…), but it would be the deck where the Type 93 Twin 25mm Guns would be (or were they triple by 1944???)…

But, aside from all of that.

Here is the first cleanup of the images you posted (I am doing some higher-res versions as well, but curious about how to get them to be visible here without an accessible place to host them.

The greater detail drawings will allow me to ask better about the things I am confused about in the drawings vs the pre/post-41 images.

[attachment=0]Haruna_1941_Reference_Cleanups (WiP).png[/attachment]

MB

Edit: I will get all of the arrows and Japanese text translated this week and applied to this, so if others want to use it to do a 1941 Haruna they can (and know what the arrows are pointing to).

It is important in maintaining a historical record that we know what we don't know.

From the Japanese Wikipedia article on the Kongos, a clue as to why Haruna's bridge was different as originally reconstructed:

"... in September 1933, the second large -scale modernization refurbishment was carried out in anticipation of the expiration of the Naval Treaty. This time, Haruna was the first ship of the same type. In this second modernization renovation , which took a whole year , the power section was renewed and the hull and superstructure were modernized. It was reborn as a battleship (although the official classification is strictly a "battleship", since then the Kongo-class battleships are generally called this way). In Haruna, which was the earliest to modernize, the aft bridge, which was raised due to the extension of the gun battle distance, was adjacent to the aft chimney, but because the influence of exhaust heat was large, in Kirishima and others that were refurbished later, the aft bridge. It is designed to avoid exhaust heat by tilting the rearward, and this point is one of the major features when distinguishing Haruna from its sister ships."

[quote="Fliger747"]The use of AI enhancement was mentioned earlier and I have to come out on maintaining the accurate historical record of un impeached historical primary sources. I've gone and color corrected some of the really bad WWII color photos, as best I can, but I do not put these out our even them consider them as part of any historical record.

Back to the Kongo's, great escorts for the Kido Butai but not against modern Battleships. Really a Battle Cruiser and best within that venue.

Looking forward to the progress! Regards: Tom[/quote]

Maintaining the Historical Record is what the AI enhancing is about.

If we know “A Paravane Crane exists here” and the photos are “fuzzy” in that location, being able to get a Photo Enhancement AI the images of a Paravane Crane in question will allow it to not only resolve the “noise” at that location that belongs to the crane, but to also resolve other features that are likely in the same location (like a crewman coiling rope in front of it, or bollards that got confused for a Fairlead — or Vice Versa).

The “Historical Record” isn’t static.

And I have colorized more than a few images, and even used AI to detect that an image of USS Atlanta at Guadalcanal (or was it Juneau???) still had the Ms. 12 Mod on the Hull (I don’t have the computational power to apply it to the superstructure, and the regular Photoshop tools for Burn/Dodge that increase contrast, which would reveal the Superstructure pattern, are insufficient for doing so).

That becomes a “Part of the Historical Record.”

The “Colors” are something that are a part of that Record as well, where the “accuracy” is less important than knowing “It was some flavor of Navy Blue/Sea Blue/Sapphire Blue.” Or “It is some flavor of Yokosuka or Maizuru Grey.”

Given that the paints of that era were batch-mixed, the variation even by Yard could be recognizable, and varying due to photo-fading (sun), weathering, salt buildup, atmospherics, etc.

When I did Art Restoration my first time through a University in the 1980s, we had some pretty powerful tools for determining “pigmentation” (Mass Spectrometers, Diffusion Microscopes, Laser Spectroscopy, etc…)… But the Professors and professionals who were teaching us tended to use a phrase a lot:

“Given the best we can do is duplicate their production of pigments given the scant descriptions we have of it, we are not likely to ever know what the actual “color” is.” (Of course the discoveries at Isola Sacra, Ostia Antica, and Pompeii of pristine frescoes and pigment materials in the 90s/00s gave us some pretty accurate data for the “Historical Record” for these colors AT THOSE SITES ONLY… Pity that the colors began fading even while the photos were being taken — One of my later professors who teaches Classics at UCLA was at several of these as a grad Student, discovering a few of them. She recounted bursting into tears, along with even older professors, when the colors began to visibly fade before their eyes… There was a huge debate over “Historical Record” about having ready sealer to spray on such things the second they were cleared. The debate continues to this day, with more than a few fists involved in the “conversation”).

So…

At some point we are going to need to “update” the “Historical Record” again, as we began to do when people began to see the actual wrecks, or discover photos not previously seen…

Another phrase we often heard:

“The Historical Record isn’t written in Stone, even when it IS written in Stone.” (This was a reference to the mistakes in Translation we have since discovered not just on the Rosetta Stone, but many other Historical Accounts that were “written in Stone” yet turned out to have “mistakes” of some kind)

MB

Well… I hoped to reply about the “weirdnesses” in some of the components.

But in looking at them, I figured some out, and in the others I began to just re-draw a more Hi-Res version of these, and then sort-out any confusions from those.

I REALLY need to get a new Computer while I am at it.

The new M2 Mac Studios look good (and aside from the graphics card slots and “Thunderbolt” sockets, they are 1/10th the Price of a new Mac Pro at the same Memory configuration).

I wish that I could get one of the new Vision Pro sets at the same time. That would sure help with the screen real-estate problem in modeling (and Animation).

But as for these… I hope that by next week I will have three-views (with Front/Back) of the Haruna 1941 Bridge Pagoda Mast from which to begin questioning the differences between the drawings and artifacts on the existing Photos pre/post-1941 (Like the weird depiction of the lower Bridge Roof being slanted Down, front-to-back only, when the photos of 1936 look like the roof over that part sloping down both foreword, and port/starboard of the lookout stations just above it — and the windows looking like they have something to deflect rain above them at that same level the drawings don’t show).

MB

The use of AI enhancement was mentioned earlier and I have to come out on maintaining the accurate historical record of un impeached historical primary sources. I've gone and color corrected some of the really bad WWII color photos, as best I can, but I do not put these out our even them consider them as part of any historical record.

Back to the Kongo's, great escorts for the Kido Butai but not against modern Battleships. Really a Battle Cruiser and best within that venue.

Looking forward to the progress! Regards: Tom

Given Fujimi's penchant for endlessly marketing their kits, I would agree that it seems strange that they wouldn't just add one small sprue for the upper two bridge levels. That's all that really distinguishes an early war vs 1944 version, aside from windscreens, radar, and AA. See below.

I also wonder why they haven't released a NEXT Kirishima, for that matter. Particularly since Fujimi would likely just re-use the Kongo hull, as with their regular kits. Which would be inappropriate with its sealed scuttles, but would be worth it for the improved casemates.

[quote="Dan K"][quote]I have done a sketch of the suggested appearance of Haruna’s Bridge 1942 (not yet really complete, but I wanted to get an idea of it it was close enough to begin finalizing.[/quote]

See if these help. My scanner is shot, so photos will have to do.[/quote]

Well this helped a huge bit…

Thank you for this…

I see that I am almost onto these, but there are some “weirdness” between some of the views, where some parts don’t seem to be included in the other views.

But this looks to be something that should make for a not impossible scratch-build.

I will clear up the “weirdness” of the respective parts when I have slept a while.

MB

Edit:

If these drawings exist, why the F***ing **LL hasn’t a model been made of it, given its relevance in the early war?

[quote]I have done a sketch of the suggested appearance of Haruna’s Bridge 1942 (not yet really complete, but I wanted to get an idea of it it was close enough to begin finalizing.[/quote]

See if these help. My scanner is shot, so photos will have to do.

[quote="KevinD"]A circa 1942 chart of IBS shows the rather narrow entry / exits to the east, and other hazards that encircle the Sound.[/quote]

How did I miss this map for so long.

I have a copy of the second one you posted.

I discovered something else while looking at the Mountains of the Solomons and New Guinea.

They are F***ING TALL!

And, to make matters even worse, they are 8,000 to 14,000 feet tall mountains (that is Rocky Mountain elevation Mountains) that rise from Sea Level to their peaks in a matter of a dozen miles or less.

New Guinea’s Mountains are taller than every Mountain on the Continental USA, absent Alaska. Only California’s Mount Whitney and a few of the Border Peaks of the Sierra Nevadas come close by a few hundred feet.

This was HUGELY disorienting to navigators where these islands could be like a wall rising out of the ocean and disappearing in the clouds (which themselves could be rather low much of the time). Add to this the differentials of heat and cold that distort the path of the light, creating mirages and phantoms of distance, and you lose the means to depend on these for consistent navigation that can be counted on to give accurate results all the time.

I didn’t think about that until I saw these maps and remembered my first view of these Islands, just in passing. I did not then know just how tall the Owen Stanley Range is, and when I discovered it, I then understood all the more the challenges for both Japanese and Allies at getting across them.

You have first their first ⅓ of the mountains dense, tropical rain-forests. Then that transitions into alpine conditions with a temperate Rain-forest just as dense, to the upper cold regions with thin air that make for very taxing physical activity (I just got back from a trip up the Sierra Nevadas near Monitor Pass, and it took me three days to acclimate to the altitude, when in my youth I could accommodate in only hours to a day, depending on the altitude. This was roughly equivalent to the 6,000 to 11,000 feet elevations of the Eastern Own Stanleys to the west of Victoria and Albert Peaks — 13,000ft+ — and neither the British nor the Aussies tend to have a lot of experience clambering about huge mountains as a rule).

Even Guadalcanal’s “roof” at 7,600ft is daunting when you realize that most of the tallest Rockies are rising to their 13,000 feet roofs from 7,000 to 8,000 feet at their “bases.” Thus the 7,600ft peaks on Guadalcanal look like the tallest Rockies, and the Own Stanleys look like the Himalayans rising to 14,000 feet from 0’.

MB

[quote="Dan K"]All IJN capital ships were fitted with a degaussing cable in the latter half of 1941.

The photo evidence is spotty because there are few photos, particularly close-ups, of Kirishima in the late 1941-'42 timeframe.

This is the best one I know of, and it's just not close enough for that detail.[/quote]

And these are the photos I wish that we could find the negatives to, to run them through the newer generation of AI Photo enhancement.

In running a few photos of my own from old Punk shows I was stunned when I saw that the program accurately resolved much of my, or friend’s jewelry, and some of the more questionable tattoos, especially on the Skinheads (but then Swastikas and Nazi paraphernalia isn’t exactly a huge stretch to “figure-out” even if blurry).

But the one that really surprised me was a ring I had made by a Dutch Sculptor that was of a Crucifix that wrapped around my finger, with the transept of the cross being along the length of my fingers. But instead of the typical “Crucified Jesus” on this crucifix, it was a skeleton.

The AI accurately depicted it as a skeleton.

I figure that NARA has the negatives for a lot of the pictures we see on Navsource, or in the Squadron Publications.

Running those through an AI resolution enhancer would likely produce awesome results.

These programs also allow the same function as 3D Model retopologizing Apps, like Mudbox, or Topogun. You can draw on the photo details you know are supposed to be in a given location, and the program will take that into account in resolving the details. Many can also be given another photo of things known to be in given locations, such as if close-ups of directors, radar antennae, guns, etc. where the AI will then use those to produce the details in a given area.

The makers of ChatGPT make one such program, and they said they are working on adding the ability to do 3D interpolation, so that if you give the program a 3-view drawing, and say “This is rotated xº × yº × zº at this location” (where the program will have an icon that is added to a location of the photo to show where the program is to place the new detail)… It will then be able to do the Linear Transformations (technically that is the easy part) to put an appropriate depiction of the item in that location (where it gets difficult is matching the color, occlusion of or by the object/item, and in not blending it with anything else at that location).

I know the Photos of IJN ships that I have like the Nagara, or many of the Sub-Chasers are more than adequate to pull all kinds of details from the shadows of these images.

I am sure that someone will begin doing this pretty soon. I am just impatient.

MB

[quote="Dan K"]Haruna is the only sister with the unusually higher bridge. Kongo's bridge really did not change after her second modernization, save for things like adding radar, changing the main battery director deck to an AA command deck, wind baffles, some changes to AA and other equipment.[/quote]

I have done a sketch of the suggested appearance of Haruna’s Bridge 1942 (not yet really complete, but I wanted to get an idea of it it was close enough to begin finalizing.

Obviously it is missing the Type 89 127mm DP guns that would obscure the ladder to the first deck up (01???) on the bridge.

There is an older thread on the forum of a 1934 build in 1/700 that shows a lot of the supports under the different levels.

These seem to be quite at variance with the 1944 supports that run either from the Tripod Masts or the general structure under the bridge.

I suspect the answer to this is “We have no real idea,” but is there anything showing what those supports would look like in 1942?

And as far as a starting Model, The 1941/42 Kongō or Kirishima seems to be a better start than the Haruna of 1944 or the Hiei (of any year). Or would a 1934/36 Haruna be a better start?

Also… I can find nothing related to where ladders would be between the decks of the bridge, and many of these decks appear open enough that such ladders would seem to be pretty visible. Yet even in the 1934 Models, I can find nothing showing them.

[attachment=0]Haruna Bridge 1942.png[/attachment]

Here is a link to the older 1934 Haruna build by Aphres from 2013:

http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=156038


MB

Haruna is the only sister with the unusually higher bridge. Kongo's bridge really did not change after her second modernization, save for things like adding radar, changing the main battery director deck to an AA command deck, wind baffles, some changes to AA and other equipment.

Dan, thank you for the images of Ise and Hyuga posted over in the other thread. I've been back through this thread and seen the excellent bridge rendition of Haruna pre-war, a question: do you have any such renders or plans of Kongo pre-war? When her pagoda was a little taller?

I've got an idea that I might like to complete my Fujimi 1/350s as they looked sometime in the 1935-41 timeframe, and share the trials and tribulations of the kit bashes.

Most of the Pacific Ocean Areas was abysmally mapped. Thousands of unmapped atolls. One sub running along the surface at night and the OOD tastes sand grains and orders emergency astern. They just avoided impaling themselves on such an uncharted reef. Of course the vagaries of sun and star sights and DED Reckoning didn't help either. Another submarine searching out Wewak on New Guinea resorted to using a map in a National Geographic.

USS Sumner, AG 32 spent the war attempting to expand the hydrographic knowledge for the fleets employment. Nimitz "discovered" Ulithi in his map perusal, which later became an important advanced base in the Western Pacific.

As to committing fighting ships to unknown shoal waters, "When Needs Must, the Devil Drives".

[quote="Dan K"]Best map of the approaches that I've ever seen. Thx for posting, Kevin.[/quote]
And a companion piece so to speak. Enjoy.

Best map of the approaches that I've ever seen. Thx for posting, Kevin.

A circa 1942 chart of IBS shows the rather narrow entry / exits to the east, and other hazards that encircle the Sound.