Micronaut Only Thread

[battlewagon]

I have been doing some research on the USS Arizona for a 1/700th scale kit I am about to build and ran across some "new" information (new to me anyway) about the Arizona and the other battleships on battleship row being painted in a blue color instead of the dark gray and had painted turret tops for scout plane recognition. The Navy Department memo from September 1941 was "rediscovered" and made public in December 2006 with a new model of the Arizona in the USS Arizona Visitor Center painted in a shade of blue with Insignia Red turret tops on turrets 1, 2 and 4. (It would figure that I visited there earlier in 2006 and saw the old model with the Measure 1 scheme...timing is everything)

I have a 1/2400th scale USS Arizona that I am currently painting up with this scheme. I will provide photos soon. I will also look up the links I found regarding this and I will post them shortly. One of the links has the turret top color schemes for many battleships and cruisers.

[battlewagon]

Here are a couple of photos of my USS Arizona under construction. I have put a USS Pennsylvania kit in the traditional Measure 1 scheme next to it for comparison.

Here is low angle shot that shows the blue next to a dark gray paint job


This is more of an overhead view - note that the boat deck amidships is teak decking on the new kit. I scored lines with an Xacto knife to simulate decking on the kit


I am using the following Model Master paints:
1720 Intermediate Blue FS35164 - hull and superstructure
1733 Camouflage Gray FS36622 - tripod masts above the level of the funnel
1705 Insignia Red FS31136 - turret tops for turrets 1, 2 and 4
1735 Wood - foredeck, quarterdeck and boat deck
Flat Black for the funnel cap
I haven't selected the color for the float planes yet.

There has been a lot of debate about this. You may find the links below to be interesting reading. I will post pictures of my finished product soon.

Research Links:
http://archives.starbulletin.com/2006/1 ... izonax.jpg

http://www.researcheratlarge.com/Ships/ ... kings.html

[sam scott]

The US Navy is sending a few ships to the battle for the Pacific.



The USS Salt Lake City and USS Richmond heading out from Mare Island.



The light cruiser Richmond is an old girl of the Omaha-class. Launched in 1921, over half her 6" guns are mounted in old fashioned sponsons.



The heavy cruiser Salt Lake City, or "Swayback Maru", was typical of the American treaty cruisers: too much ship packed into too small a hull. Not really a match for the big Japanese 8"-gun heavies.



Like the IJN Tone, for example. Big, fast, well armed and well designed, the Tone was designed to escort the fast fleet carriers.



The light cruiser Jintsu shares the old-fashioned look of the Richmond, but is actually a much more modern vessel.



The Jintsu and Tone headed for the Solomons.

-Sam

[pmskaar]

Hi Battlewagon

That is a very nice job on the Arizona and Pennsylvania as well. I have both of these ships in my collection as yet unpainted. It always amazes me how new research turns up new information that totally changes things. Is the paint scheme applied to Arizona true of all the other battleships at Pearl Harbor or was it only applied to Arizona? I do know that ships painted in Measure 21 which was overall Navy Blue would see a fair amount of variation depending on how long they had been at sea. Thanks for showing us the pictures and the information.

Hi Sam

Great job on the Richmond and the Salt Lake City. Very nice detail work there. The picture of the Detroit in the catalog is one I did a few years back. It is in overall Navy Blue. I always enjoy seeing other people's work on the forum. Thanks for sharing.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

[Mickel]

Rumour seems to have it that Arizona's ends were still grey because the crew hadn't finished painting her by that weekend! As one who ties themselves up trying to match a scheme to a ship to a date, I've almost come to the conclusion that you can't win so do one she (whoever you choose) wore that you happen to like. But not quite.

Mike

[dragon6]

hmm, I meant the other to go into the micronaut thread. If it could be moved by the moderators that would be great.

UK Type 23 Duke class

This is a model I really wanted. It's in White Strong Flexible
You can really see the layering in the picture, but not in person.

I believe the Frosted Ultra Detail is much better. I was told it had twice the resolution
that the WSF does and it makes a smoother model. Also the FUD is heavier. I put them
all in warm soapy water to soak anything off, then brushed them down with an old
toothbrush. The FUD dropped straight to the bottom of the jar, the WSF floated.

So if you do want to play with your toys in the bathtub... the WSF would seem the way to go

Tarantul in FUD

I was really impressed by this one

INS Godavari

Frosted Ultra Detail. Nice model

INS Delhi in FUD

um, sorry, the photo is a bit fuzzy

The models are nice, not as good as GHQ but GHQ doesn't seem to want
to do "modern" naval. I'm just grateful they continue to make available the
models they've already produced.

The Delhi has several problems, the main pyramidal mast isn't tall enough. The radar is
the wrong shape. The Aft mast has no radar. I had purchased, some while back, a
couple of GHQ Slava main masts to use in scratch building a Delhi. I may cut the top off
and graft it to the model. Maybe use the aft mast from a CNC Kashin and a GHQ SH-3
on the heli deck.

Plus I'll need to see how to put barrels in the turrets.
I wonder if plastic model cement is best or if superglue is better?

I've asked him to do a Lupo, and provided him with plans. He says it's on the "list" along
with an Italian corvette and a French one too.

Oh, costs. The WSF is cheap, the FUD is expensive. That's relative to GHQ prices

[battlewagon]

Hi Battlewagon

That is a very nice job on the Arizona and Pennsylvania as well. I have both of these ships in my collection as yet unpainted. It always amazes me how new research turns up new information that totally changes things. Is the paint scheme applied to Arizona true of all the other battleships at Pearl Harbor or was it only applied to Arizona? I do know that ships painted in Measure 21 which was overall Navy Blue would see a fair amount of variation depending on how long they had been at sea. Thanks for showing us the pictures and the information.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

Thank you for the kind words. From what I can tell there is no definitive account of how much of the Arizona was painted this color by December 7th 1941. It appears that the entire battleline at Pearl was either painted or being painted in that sea blue color. I also read that these early blue paints would wash out quickly. On a larger scale model you could airbrush the weathering...but on 1/2400th scale...no thanks.

I just got back from my second trip to the USS Texas BB 35 in La Porte, Texas. I took the hard hat tour with a friend of mine. I highly recommend visiting the ship and taking the tour. Nothing like it anywhere afloat!

Broadside view


Looking aft from the bow


View from just outside the pilot house (bridge)


Inside the number one 14" turret (#1 gun - right hand side)


I have a lot more pictures if anyone is interested.

[dougeagle]

Been browsing through the thread and the AAR section looking at the ships...this definitely makes me want to get into the WWII war at sea theme. Very nice looking ships on here

[sam scott]

I happened to be adding the USS Washington to my 1/2400 naval forces so I thought I would post up a tutorial of my method.

I'm using the GHQ model USN20, which is of a North Carolina-class battleship ca. 1942. Like all the GHQ ships, it's a terrific model absolutely packed with detail.

I start by researching what the ship looked like during the Solomons campaign. These are 2 great resources for USN ships:
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/camouflage_database.htm
http://www.navsource.org/

Navsource turned up this picture of the USS Washington shortly after the Fourth Battle of Savo showing her in the Measure 22 graded scheme.


OK, so I know what the ship looked like in my period. Let's get started. I assemble the ship completely except for parts that will make it hard to paint the deck- in this case, the main turrets and some of the cranes and catapults. Then I prime the whole thing black. If I don't let my impatience to get started get the better of me, I usually base the model before priming. Not in this case.



Next I painted the decks in a dark sea blue- standard for USN ships for most of the war.



Honestly, sometimes I wait to paint the decks until after the drybrushing is done. In this case, I wanted to be sure to get some of the hard to reach decking areas before the lighter colors went on. I use a 10/0 brush for this.

Then I drybrush the superstructure in a mid-gray- in this case Vallejo's Basalt Gray



The mid-gray is followed up with another layer of drybrushing in a lighter gray. You can see that the decking around the superstructure is going to need to be retouched after this.



Now, the rest of the parts get added and painted. I glued and painted the forward main turret before adding the one that overlaps it.



Lastly the sides of the hull and final details are painted. I picked out the aircraft in blue and put on tiny dots of white for the wing insignia. The funnel tops are washed with black.



Another final detail is to touch of the dual 5" mount amidships. GHQ casts these with a thin flap of metal joining the 2 5" gun barrels. If you paint this flap black, it disappears and the gun mounts look much better. Light gray is also used to pick out some of the hatches and bollards on deck.



Here's a shot of the Washington with the fully-based South Dakota. I use a polystyrene strip painted blue. The wake is stippled on with white paint.



I'll emphasise that there's nothing technique-wise that's particularly difficult about this method. Really I'm just playing up the detail of a great casting. If you have a good sharp-tipped 10/0 brush on hand for some of the detail work, you should have no trouble.

-Sam

[El Grego]

Battlewagon & Sam, those ships are great !

[sam scott]

A couple of Japanese heavy cruisers for the Solomons, the IJN Atago and IJN Furutaka.





The Atago and the other 4 ships of the Maya-class were absolute ** CENSORED ** kickers. Armed with 10 8" guns in 5 double turrets, Long Lance torpedoes and a powerful secondary armament, these big ships were a giant F U to the Washington Naval Treaty by Imperial Japan.



The Furutakas were more modest ships, but deadly in the night actions in The Slot.



The addition of the Atago and the USS Washington posted earlier now gives me all I need for the November 14th night action near Savo Island.
(US ships in back sailing to the left and the Japanese in front.) In the box top it looks heavilty weighted in favor of the Japanese, but their force was broken up into 3 smaller groups that were encountered seperately.

-Sam

[DAVIDNOLA62]

Fantastic job!! What paint do you use for your "ocean"?

[pmskaar]

Hi Sam

That is a really excellent job on all the ships including the bases. About a year ago I painted up GHQ's Washington for a living veteran of the Washinton crew who asked me to paint him one. It was quite an honor to do that. Thanks for sharing.

Pete - Binpicker, Out!

[Mickel]

Having just received two of the lovely Duke of Edinburgh models, were the ships of the 1st CS based in the Med in 1914 the same dark grey as the Home Fleet, or a more suitable light grey? I can see going toe to toe with Goeben in their future.

Curious as to how the Takaos weren't in (at least loose, but probably no looser than anyone else) compliance with the Washington Treaty. They paid dearly in armour for that firepower. (great paint jobs, by the way)

Mike

[sam scott]

Fantastic job!! What paint do you use for your "ocean"?

I use a craft paint made by Deco Arts from their Americana range named Uniform Blue. This gets painted over a strip of styrene base-painted black. The white around the hull is stippled on. This can be done before or after the model is put on the base.

Curious as to how the Takaos weren't in (at least loose, but probably no looser than anyone else) compliance with the Washington Treaty. They paid dearly in armour for that firepower. (great paint jobs, by the way)

They were too big. The Treaty limited heavy cruisers to 10,000 tons. When all was said and done with their refits, the Takaos were over 13,000. This game them a LOT more room for engines and extensive compartmentalization that made them fast and survivable in battle. There's a very good article comparing US and Japanese surface doctrine here:

http://fireonthewaters.tripod.com/DOCTR ... RTICLE.pdf