The Ship Model Forum

After reading all this, I just happened to be watching the PBS story on building the Alaska Highway:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/alaska/
Near the end, there's about a 2 second overhead clip of a battleship- just saw it out of the corner of my eye, no idea what ship- but it DEFINITELY had dark colored forward turret tops!
Anyone else see this?

Pat M

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Pat Matthews
Get your boats wet!
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OK, I watched the DVD and got a screenshot:



This was the clip I was thinking it might be; it was shot pre-war as the Arizona passed under the Golden Gate Bridge. I don't have the exact date but it's way pre-war; no later than 1940 as she's still got the 5"/51 mounts forward of the boat deck and no splinter shields around the boat deck guns. Most likely the color is deck gray as the metal decks on the superstructure are.

*Edited by Tracy* - documentation discovered later proved me wrong; turret tops are red.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

okey dokey.
If nought else, might it indicate the likely extents of a red top?

PM

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Pat Matthews
Get your boats wet!
Blog: [redacted]
Shapeways Shop: [redacted]
MWS Gallery: http://www.modelshipgallery.com/gallery/users/Pat-Matthews/user-index.html

Tracy, nice screen shot! You especially can see the periscope and vent detail in the top of the armored conning tower. Glad I build my model circa 1936 back when everyone knew what color ships should be and Kimmel was still climbing the ladder of success!

No. We don't need this for that, and it likely indicates the extend of another color turret top as the order in question wasn't even issued until February or so of 1941.

Charles: up until a couple of months ago we "knew" what color Arizona was during the attack!

That said, I'd like to do a pre-war Arizona as well, I just need to figure out what time period appeals to me the most.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Hi all!
There were some posts of a new revised color scheme of the Arizona at the time of the attack and that the new model was at the AZ Memorial. Does anyone have photos of this "new" color scheme? I am hoping to go there on this spring while on vacation but I was hoping someone would have photos already.
Charles Landrum-
When will we see a Part 5 on rollmodels.net or have I been missing it? I keep checking on occasion but the website still says "Part 5 Coming Soon". I am looking forward to the next set!
Right now I am VERY slowly working on my Revell AZ and I am using some of you techniques and photos as a guide. Your detail is AMAZING! Maybe next time I will try for a larger scale.
Aloha-
Jeff Seeling

Jeff, Roll Models has part V and I am waiting for it to post as well. Thank for your interest.

Honolulu Star Bulletin does. You might try e-mailing Burl as he took some photos of the model and posted them to his site... I don't have the exact URL handy and he doesn't seem to have linked to them from the front page.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

I recently took delivery of a set of "Chesley" plans for the 1921 Arizona from The Floating Drydock. Notice anything wrong here?

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Jeff, Don will be finishing up the model this month, so you would be better off to wait until she's done anyway before asking for photos.

Avery, that should answer your boat question

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Nothing, if you are planning on building a 1921/1941 hybrid!

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Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

To be fair, I was just looking over the catalog page and it only lists the plans as having an outboard profile, not an overhead, so I guess it's a "bonus" of some kind.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

No Tracy, they really are the same . . . it's just that they are headed in opposite directions, that's why they look different!!! Really, Trust Me!

Go ahead and built the model as drawn . . . using both plans. Oh, and good luck.

O'C

Sorry guys, I've been out of the loop for a while. Has the contentious issue of the Arizona's colours been resolved as yet? Was she painted blue and red as suggested?

Just curious.

Thanks in advance.

Bill

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Keep The Faith Gentlemen and Watch the Offside

You missed a big brouhaha over on SteelNavy.

Ron's burnt out on it now and has put Pearl Harbor research on the back burner for the time being. The research backing up the assertion is out there, has been found, has been scanned/photographed, and has been partially collated and assembled. The goal was to be able to talk about all of the ships, not just Arizona, and the work was to be released on that topic.

You can thank flamebabies, trolls, "The Archon," and the moderator of SteelNursery for the delay. The continuous snide cracks about blue battleships over there don't really help, but we can't expect people to act maturely I guess. I'm hoping we'll see some progress soon enough, but there's no schedule now.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Hi all-
As the Iowa class thread guys know, I just visited both the USS Arizona and USS Missouri memorials at Pearl Harbor. I saw the new "blue" and "red" Arizona model which has a significant amount of detail compared to the previous model located there. I took quite a few pics of the model but was not sure if it was acceptable to post them since I had not seen any posted previously. If it is ok, then I will post some of them once I figure out the rules on posting photos and size limits (my photos are about 1 Meg each).
Let me know.
Thanks-
Jeff Seeling

Hey Jeff; I don't know if the model's finished yet. Don was going to wait until he had it all together before shooting it.... if I remember correctly it's just a couple of boats to finish it.

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman

Tracy-
I think all the boat racks were full so I am assuming it is done. Will have to look the pics over again to be sure. I hope to be posting some yet this week.
Jeff Seeling

I've been following the discussion of turret colors for Arizona and other US battleships, and I thought I'd drop a note on the subject.

The US Navy was experimenting with turret colors as a means of identifying individual ships as early as 1927. By the mid-1930s (probably 1934 or '35) there was a system in place for cruisers, but all the evidence I've seen so far suggests that battleships did little more than paint the hull number on the B turret before 1937. It was at that point that the fleet began using a BATTLESHIP DIVISION color on one or both forward turrets, with a section color on the after turret. I'm still missing the orders for 1938 (hope to pick these up on Tuesday), but the 1940 orders certainly make the turret colors mandatory for the entire fleet. (There were no special marking orders issued in 1939.)

What this means is that the 1941 Kimmel order wasn't introducing a new system, it was simply the last order continuing an existing system. Why was it issued? The colors were keyed to the float plane colors, but in 1941 the float planes went to low-visibility schemes.

Hope this helps!

Cheers,


Dana
(Normally an airplane guy, but I've always loved ships!)

Well, now that the cat's outta the bag.. Patmat... I'm pretty sure the turret tops we discussed before were red.. I just couldn't correct myself when I found this out later.

By the way, Pleased to have you aboard Dana... I started out as an airplane guy too

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Tracy White -Researcher@Large

"Let the evidence guide the research. Do not have a preconceived agenda which will only distort the result."
-Barbara Tuchman