Model Fleet: Section V: PORT BOW

Section V: PORT BOW

Posted by Matty on November 8, 2009, 15:35:19, in reply to "FLIGHT DECK-Edge PIERCINGS"
4.254.135.194

OK so I lied when I (wishfully) said these analyses would all go much faster now - in fact I'm discovering just now that really decent results demand a much more painstaking, mind- and butt-numbingly (assuming there is any difference ) intensive procedure - far more work than I would originally have "signed up" for - but, halfway into it, with decent results coming in of course I'm going to follow through on it now!

To wit, consider this port-bow Section, one of the most clearly-photographed areas of any ship, as it is right up front. Again, we can use (to even better effect now) all four of our best relevant LPH/CVS pics - three out of four depicting Valley Forge:

Click on Image to Enlarge At top left and -center, Valley Forge in March of 1956 and undated from the late '50s, respectively; at top-right, Princeton as an LPH, in January, 1967. And at bottom, Valley Forge after conversion to LPH fit, on 5/30/64.

Also as usual, the greatest amount of the best coverage was for WWII-fit Essexes:

Click on Image to Enlarge At top-left, Franklin in the spring of 1944; center-left, Yorktown on 7/17/44; at center- and far right, Bunker Hill in January, 1945 and undated circa 1970, respectively. At bottom-left, Bon Homme Richard on 1/9/45, and at right a "boneyard" of decommissioned Essexes, in 1948, from which the first and second carriers back from the foreground, respectively Essex and Ticonderoga, provided two examples.

Note, however, that the number of WWII-fit examples is now down to 7 - while the selected SCB-27 examples (below) is now increased to 5 - because of the postwar removal of extensive port-bow 20mm galleries wich often greatly obstructed the view.

Thus, some very clear views are provided by the selection of SCB-27 examples included:

Click on Image to Enlarge At top-left, Oriskany on 12/6/50; at center, Wasp in November, 1951; and at top-right, Lake Champlain in September, 1952. At bottom-left is again Wasp in November, 1951; and at bottom-right, Hancock in March, 1954.

All the above, subjected to the improved analytic technique now adopted, produced the most definitive results so far:

The "smearing" of non-matching features, while remaining substantial, no longer looks so random (evenly-spaced), meantime the instances of strongly-repeated "hits", from perfectly-matching features from different ships/pics, are more pronounced for all three groups (top).

Because of these clearer findings, I allowed the WWII and SCB-27 results - particularly the former - to influence my generalized "average" layout (middle) perhaps more than in earlier work. Again, the precise shape of each opening remains very difficult to estimate, and all the patterns are erroneously sparse, no doubt, where the view was routinely blocked by gun batteries - again, the 20mms in WWII pics but particularly also the 5" and 40mm mounts, in almost all cases. However, for exactly the same reason these areas are the least critical for the modeler to worry about detailing, as well.

Cheers,

-Matty