(Editor's Note: This analysis was REDONE 11/8/09 - due to discovery of a potentially major error-inducing misinterpretation of the base drawing, now of course rectified in the end graphic, below. Surprisingly, these new results are described about equally well by everything originally written about the earlier, highly suspect result! )


--Originally Posted 10/11/09--

This is the relatively short (but prominent) segment between the portside elevator and the forward 5"/AA-gun sponson. Again, there were 4 high-quality pics of examples (mostly Valley Forge) in the straight-decked CVS/LPH fit:




Click on Image to Enlarge At top-left and -center, Valley Forge, with ASW air complement (indicating CVS fit), 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 per usual, the bulk of the required 16 reference pics came from the set showing WWII-fit examples:






Click on Image to Enlarge At top-left, Franklin on 2/21/44; top-center, Yorktown on 7/17/44; and at top-right, Bennington on 12/13/44; at middle-left and -right, Bunker Hill in January, 1945 and undated, circa 1970, respectively; while at bottom-left, Bon Homme Richard on 1/9/45, and at right a "boneyard" of decommissioned Essexes, in 1948. From the latter pic, two examples were utilized; Essex and Yorktown, the 1st and 3rd carriers back from the foreground, respectively.

The remaining 4 of 16 references depicted SCB-27-fit ships:




Click on Image to Enlarge At top-left, Oriskany on 12/6/50, and at both top-right and bottom-left, Wasp in November, 1951; finally, at bottom-right, Hancock in March, 1954.

Surprisingly, clear interpretation of such a prominent segment - particularly towards its midsection - was relatively difficult. And the clearly-indicated result (below) was fairly unexpected as well:


Note the typical "smearing" - as well as clearly repeated "hits" - are both evident, as are the differences in pattern between the different sets (fits). And yet, the reconciled "average" betweent them - again, emphasizing the CVS/LPH pattern, as always - resulted in a generalized pattern (middle) in which the piercings look about evenly spread over the entire section! I had real trouble believing this, but a random re-check of the references proved this indeed was often the appearance in this Section.

Moreover, my interpretation of the above followed exactly the same methodology as for all the others - so there really is no valid basis to "tweaking" it - or even to decide how. Interesing...(IMHO )!

Cheers,

-Matty