Here is what I did now. And I didn’t particularly like that wooden base. It took up too much room on the mantle along with other models . This way I can display it from either side. This is only a temporary place. The mantle is full of Christmas decorations. And I only had the name on one side along with the Navy seal.
Almost looks like a skull and crossbones from that mast, if you blow it up. But now that I look harder, I think not.
Well done! I remember building this kit back in the day. The one question I've always had is what's with the odd scale (1:426) ?
Yes, good question as to why Revell designed it to be this scale. There was a Trumpeter model of this also but it was 1/200 scale instead. He is another view…….
The planes are supposed to be painted differently as I have seen them yellow with either a blue or gray fuselage but it was easier for me to do them in all yellow. I also saw them in all gray. And for the mast tops, I have seen some models, even in museum photos, painted in white, but in actuality, I understand that they were light gray. Some say that number 1,2 and 4 turret tops were red to be accurate with the number one division, which she was part of at that time, and that they were painted that color just prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor so our aircraft could distinguish them from battleships in other divisions. I believe there were five. But then I have read where years ago some survivors said they didn’t recall ever seeing them in red. Controversial.
That appears to be correct. Here is the organization at the time of Pearl Harbor: RADM Walter S. Anderson Battleship Division 1 RADM Isaac Campbell Kidd † Arizona (BB-39) (Pennsylvania class) (sunk) — Captain Franklin Van Valkenburgh † Nevada (BB-36) (Nevada class) — Captain Francis W. Scanland Oklahoma (BB-37) (Nevada class) (sunk) — Captain Howard D. "Ping" Bode Battleship Division 2 RADM William Satterlee Pye Pennsylvania (BB-38) (Pennsylvania class) — Captain Charles M. "Savvy" Cooke, Jr. Tennessee (BB-43) (Tennessee class) — Captain Charles Edwin Reordan California (BB-44) (Tennessee class) (sunk, raised, and repaired) — Captain Joel W. Bunkley Battleship Division 4 RADM Walter S. Anderson Maryland (BB-46) (Colorado class) — Captain D. C. Godwin West Virginia (BB-48) (Colorado class) (sunk, raised, and repaired) — Captain Mervyn Bennion † Colorado (BB-45) (Colorado class) — Puget Sound Navy Yard undergoing overhaul. The Pennsylvania and Nevada classes were very similar, including the tripod masts installed during their modernizations in the late 1920s. BatDiv 4 comprised the three 16-inch-gunned Colorado class. BatDiv 3 had the three New Mexico class BBs; it had been transferred to the Atlantic Fleet earlier in 1941 to beef up our "neutrality" patrol. BatDiv 5 had our oldest battleships, sisters Texas and New York and the slightly older Arkansas.
US dreadnoughts were generally built in pairs, from South Carolina and Michigan through Pennsylvania and Arizona, but circumstances gave us a couple of sets of triplets. The pre-dreadnoughts Idaho and Mississippi - also a two-ship class - were sold to Greece in 1914, and the proceeds allowed a third ship to be added to the New Mexico class at a time when we were seeking to expand the Navy. That expansion also led to the Colorado class being planned to comprise four ships and the following South Dakota class six. However, the Washington Naval Treaty led to cancellation of the SDs and one of the Colorados - ironically, USS Washington (BB-47).
"Idaho and Mississippi" were the first US battleships* to be sunk in WWII. *Technically they were Greek at the time, but it's more fun this way.
Just nitpicking, sorry. ComBatDiv-2 was RADM D.W. Bagley. VADM Pye was ComBatFor and CTF-1. BatDiv-3 was sent to the Atlantic ostensibly as the covering force for seizing the Azores or Martinique. Both plans were unrealistic, more so the former, and they ended up in LantFlt’s TF-1 as the heavy escort for troop convoys and TG-1.5 out of Iceland - sometimes called the White Patrol/Denmark Straits Patrol. Division was ordered back to the Pacific on Dec 8, 1941.
When I was in school the "Denmark Straits" confused the bleep out of me. A librarian sorted it out for me. Both Iceland, which was green, and Greenland, which was icy, were owned by Denmark at one point.
