Abram,
You're right. None of the AGPs had this pattern.
I hope that I'm not going to scare you away from an AVP build.
As far as the USS Bering Strait, the following would need to be addressed for the most accurate portrayal:
From bow to stern...........
The two 5" gun turrets are good.
The curved area on the front part of the main deck house has changes: Remove the mooring line hawses, fire hose and portholes and then add a door on the port side and relocate a porthole and add two vent ducts on the starboard side with an oval hatch between them.
The bridge windows need to be changed; i.e. 11 of them instead of nine that the kit has. I failed to notice this on my USCGC Bering Strait.
The windscreen in front of the bridge is too, short on the kit and needs to be replaced along with the 20mm sponson and bulwark just aft of the windscreen. A fire control shack, atop the pilot and navigation houses, needs to be added with a MK51 or MK52 director.
Along with this area is an arch supporting the top 20mm sponson on the O3 level that needs to be added and is not supplied in the kit. (The USCGC Bering Strait had no 20mm tubs on the O3 level.)
No torpedo splinter shields/air castles/companionway enclosures are supplied with the kit and need to be scratch built. (I have some ready to go, however.)
The 20mm gun tubs on the O1 deck existed on the Bering Strait and are on the model but, the model has a squared/flat side on the outboard of the tub and these should be round on the BS.
There are too, many portholes on the main deck house (p&s) and these need to be filled in and the portholes and doors relocated along with removing the life rings, there, and the fire hoses which are too, high off the deck, for me, and there weren't that many throughout the whole ship.
The signal flag bags need to be relocated and the O2 deck house extended farther aft, and thusly the O3 deck.
I would scratch build a mast, too.
The area around the stack has some features that should be removed and redone includiing the addition of the forced draft blowers.
The galley vents or "mushroom vents" aren't in the right position and usually aren't completely molded.
There are catwalks around the stack that lead to the two Twin 40mm gun tubs that need to be added.
The engine room vent stack amidships, forward of the crane, is of an improper shape and should be replaced along with some of the square, flat features (bolted or flush water tight hatches) should be removed and redone.
The BS had a Quad 40mm aft of the crane and the ISW kit has a crude tub for an open mount 5" gun. The Quad 40mm tub would be smaller and there are sky lookouts and surface lookout platforms just forward of it along with a Mk51 director.
And there is the compartment below this Quad 40mm tub that needs to be changed.
The fantail is pretty good on the kit but, there was no wooden decking, here, on the BS but, is on the Mackinac and the smoke screen generators on the kit usually aren't a very good casting.
It is because of all of these configuration changes for this flight of AVPs, and the other flights, that I have been working on the custom parts. This is so that I, and others, won't have to keep scratch building these modifications.
