Posted by Don Murphy on December 31, 2011, 16:33:38
Not too much going on. Just tying up some loose ends. Finished a 1/700th scale Spruance Class ASW destroyer. Not sure who this one is going to be. The "building part" is done. Now I just need to add the photo etch railings and huge SPS-40 radar. PE of course. Oh yeah, by the way, all the builds in this post are going to be 1/700th scale. She is painted in Med scheme from 1989 so I'm thinking she'll be USS Deyo. You can see some photo etch stair cases on her already. She is one of the superlative Skywave kits from Japan.
And here's another 700th scale Spru-can but this time from ARII corporation. This one is getting some mods added to her and then she'll get photo etch railings and also a photo etch radar set. She's going to be a Desert Storm ship with extra Tomahawk and also some extra Harpoon tubes. I've done some partial railing forward. She will probably be USS Hayler.
And rounding out our modern Cold War fleet, we have a Dragon Arleigh Burke Class DDG (anti-aircraft missile destroyer). She is going to be USS O'Kane. She is completely built (construction wise) and I've added all the photo etch except for the flight deck safety netting. I prefer the Skywave kits to the Dragon ships.
Here's a look at some of her railing. O'Kane is named for Richard O'Kane, the highest scoring American submarine skipper (commander of the USS Tang). In this small of a scale, modern warship etch isn't that time consuming and I easily cranked this ship out in a day. Well...most of a day cuz I'm not doing any more P.E. today...
Here's all three destroyers lined up. In Cold War days, the Spruance's were tasked with anti-submarine defense of the carrier battle group. Two of them would travel with each carrier. Anti-aircraft defense would fall on the DDG's which were normally Adams or King Class ships. As those ships got old, the Burke Class replaced them and brought double the missile load to the party. Of course with the Spru-cans being retired with no replacement, helo decks were added to the Burke's to give them the old ASW role as well.
Back in 1942 however, things were different. Here's USS Washington preparing to do battle at Savo Island. Actually she is a Trumpeter late-war USS Washington. So what I've had to do is back date her by scraping some gun positions off and scratchbuilding other pieces here and there. Here you see two aft gun tubs (courtesy of my spares box) and the photo etch crane and cats. The photo etch set is the WEM set for USS North Carolina or USS Washington. I need to do three Kingfisher float planes as well.
Here's some empty 20mm positions and also a good view of the photo etch quad 1.1" ("Chicago Piano") anti-aircraft gun mounts. All railings, ladders and stairs have been added except the main deck railings. I've backdated her to the pivotal third battle of Savo Island where she sank the battleship Kirishima.
And speaking of Kirishima, here she is. She is actually the Fujimi kit of battleship Kongo but I likewise, backdated the kit to be her sister from 1942. All photo etch is from the spares box. Contrary to legend, she did not have any float planes onboard at the time of the battle.
Right now she is fully constructed. For photo etch I have some railing sections here and there to add and I'm in the middle of doing the rigging. Once that's done, I'll touch up the paint.
She came with decals for windows, but I just sawed out the neccessary areas and put brass ladders in there instead. The ladders are bigger 1/350th scale ladders. I had to do a ton of work on her as she depicted Kongo in 1944 which means tons of AA.
Some assorted gear. We have a 72nd scale resin twin 20mm gun mount for a Revell Gato submarine and some quad 40mm guns for an Essex Class carrier. Then we have some American and British birds. The British birds are Gannet ASW and Seafire birds from HMS Victorious 1948. That is the Fujimi kit. The American birds are Dragon and Tamiya from the Independence and Bogue kits.
Here's Washington showing her Savo Island scheme and her scratchbuilt masts. The scheme is Sea Blue, Haze Grey and Weatherdeck Blue for the deck.
At this point I am unbelievably at 75% done. I have all the fire control radars, drilling out port holes, float planes, life boats and a ton of 20mm guns left to do. And then a paint touch up.
Not shown: Hasegawa A-4 Skyhawk (1/48th scale), Dragon USS San Diego (1/700th scale)(actually it's the USS Atlanta/USS Juneau kit but I'm forward-dating her to be late-war USS San Diego.
Well, maybe not much "going on", but certainly something's BEEN goin' on - because those are some AWESOME progress pics, Donny!
Once again, I am amazed at how HUGE "destroyers" - those SpruCans and Burkes - are, nowadays! They look like a trio of light (if not even heavy) cruisers, in my book. Originally named for "torpedo-boat destroyers", their erstwhile prey the torpedo boat doesn't (except for the submarine kind) even exist anymore! On the other hand, with all their missiles - AND guns and torpedoes - they have become truly "Anything-that-Flies, -Swims or -Floats Destroyers", so maybe today the name is even more fitting than ever! Either way, excellent work as always, buddy.
But of course what I'm REALLY jazzed about is your Washington and Kirishima - I have plans to build that pair, respectively in 1/570 (Revell) and 1/600 (Bandai) scales, myself - and will shamelessly use both of yours as references, I guarantee!
Regarding which, your Washington is the first I had ever seen of that type of large, curved-bedspring antenna on a MAIN Battery FC director before. So I just visited NavSource, and of course found them shown - both fore and aft, just as on your build - in the following pic, dated 8/21/42 and captioned "...This was the rig that she was in at Guadalcanal when she took on Kirishima..."
Note this pic clearly shows the forward Main Battery FC antenna now to be the squat, wide curved-bedspring (Mk8, IIRC) - and the aft Main FC antenna appears similarly squat, if not identical.
Obviously, either the caption on the first is flat wrong, or the second is highly misleading - and it was taken SIGNIFICANTLY "AFTER" the battle. In its defense, the background landscape in this second pic does indeed look like a remote SoPac anchorage - where it's difficult to believe such heavy FC antennae could already have been swapped-out, absent any (re)visit to Pearl, or Australia, and their decent dockyard cranes. Unfortunately, neither pic has a date actually scribed into it - though the following one clearly proves the taller-type curved bedspring was installed - at least, on the foretop - as of 8/14/42.
Note in that last pic disruptive-type camo remains on (at least) the Mk37 director and wind deflector, at its base. Was this still in place when she shipped out to meet Kirishima - and if not, could a further dockyard stay for repainting also have included swapping out the above Main Battery FC antennae (and again the first caption, above, is just flat wrong)? The mystery only deepens - as The World Wonders... Or at least, I do!
And I am highly motivated to get at the definitive answer now, as YOUR Rusty-W build is inspiring me to (at long last) start my own, Donny! GREAT update, and Happy New Year, buddy!
Glad you like everything. As to Washington, the second photo is definately AFTER Savo Island cuz there's a quad 40mm in the photo. She didn't get any 40's until 1943. Noumea was possibly the anchorage. Or Espiritu Santo maybe? Can't remember.
Destroyers were pretty general purpose at the end of WW2. Then the USN decided to do away with light and heavy cruisers and make the destroyers do the tasks. They also added a new role: ASW. At the apex of Cold War organization, there were ASW destroyers (DD), anti-aircraft destroyers (DDG) and light cruiser sized general purpose ships (Destroyer Leaders [DL]). The goal was for each one to do it's own taskings.
With the USN's success with TV-guided munitions and anti-radar weapons, the line was blurred and it was planned to mount the new guided weapons (Harpoon) on every ship. This gave every ship - regardless of role (ASW/AA, etc) - the ability to do multi-tasking. This was a force multiplier as the Soviets had religiously followed our example and created their own families of destroyers for ASW, AA, etc.
Funding (then as now) was based on fear and it was widely believed that the only chance the Soviets had was to saturate us. As the USN's SM-2 missile system could only engage six targets at once, this put the USN at a disadvantage. If the Russians could launch seven aircraft, they'd conceivably swamp a USN ship. The DL's (Coontz/King Class and new nuclear California Class) would mount the new extended range (ER) SM-2. This went from a range of 75nm to 150nm.
The Russians responded by adding more aircraft to their fleet. The USN was back to square one. It was actually the Australians (not the Russians) that first came up with vertical launch. This meant that a DDG could now throw all of it's SAMs in the air, defeating any swamping tactic. Since the reds could swamp us with planes, why not subs as well?
So ASROC was configured to be fired from the vertical launch MK-41 system. As a "trial" one was mounted on USS Spruance. The problem is that the MK-41 bank held 64 weapons. The existing ASROC launcher/magazine held 24 weapons. This meant that a Spru-can could conceivably go to sea with 64 weapons. Problem is - the USN didn't have 64 ASROCs for each Spru-can. So the other 40 slots tended to be filled with Harpoon, Tomahawk and SM-2ER's. But Don, the Spru couldn't launch SM-2. Correction: the Spru couldn't *guide* it. It could launch them all day. Just couldn't guide them.
So your friendly Coontz/Tico would order a launch from the nearest Spru and then once the birds got in the air, the ship giving the order would take control of guiding them. At that point, the Spru's became cruiser-like in their firepower. With the emphasis on the ER version of SM-2, the Adams, Sherman and California Class ships had no use. So a more capable replacement was sought. Enter the Arleigh Burke.
Now that they have embarked helo's and full ASW dipping sonar, they are the true replacement for the Spru's and also for the Tico's as they retire.