Saur's big bunch o' Stuff - now featuring more than ships! Black Eagle/Harrier!

[Sauragnmon]

Thanks for the praise on the Arrowski, CA.

Yeah, Zipang, Japanese for "Future Shock" or similar, is a series of anime.  I also happen to like the way it sounds on the tongue, thus it sits in my mind a lot.  In hindsight, that's not a bad idea.  There was a guy who did one much much more insane than simply the Zipang Yamato concept, to be identified here.  For the record, the concept in itself is from Warship Gunner 2, based on the "Super Battleship" Haruna.

http://blog.roodo.com/gf13_001nhii/archives/6497483.html

Interesting, weaver, on the facts of the Spruance - I'll have to look up that 8" gun mount concept, I might take advantage of that for my Ticonderoga that I have unstarted as yet.  Build it up as a follow-on design with 8" guns installed in the mountings.  Worth a thought, thanks for that.

Yeah, that was pretty much the rule - I'll make it work.  The glove seams still need a little fixing, and the right rear join needs some taming as well, but so far, so good.  I have the main gray coat on, the Camo will come soon, with pics to follow.

[Sauragnmon]

Alright, production update - I slapped on some of the camo, the elevators are installed but unpainted.  The glove vanes gave me an impulsive thought, of a modified fit with canards off a pair of bulked out glove vanes.  I also puttied the engine bays and the glove joins, the fit was... less than happy.  The canards are... liberated... from my Scap Fullback that I have, the same one that donated engines and the bombs for this build.  Pictures that I almost forgot.

[sotoolslinger]

Very interesting work on those canards Saur. Thanks for the link to that super battleship that is effin hilarious

[Weaver]

Saur, know what I meant to ask you: is the Super Alicat based on a 1/100th scale Tomcat? If so, what brand is it? The reason I ask is that the mouldings look familiar to me from the one that I bought for butchery (canopy on the Super Magister, wings going on a Grumman Tiger at some point), but mine's in a nameless Chinese box and I wondered what the origin of the moulds was.

Re the Spruance, IIRC, there's only room/strength for the 8" in the forward position, although you could always whiff it different, of course. How about building up that low quarterdeck to main deck height and using it differently: 8" gun? UAV launchpad with hanger beneath? Or, the USN decides that it still needs the range of Standard ER, so keep the quarterdeck how it is, remove the aft Mk.26/VLS and replace the aft 5" with an updated Mk.10 launcher so it can still fire Standard ER. The Mk.10's horizontal magazine rings would go where the Mk.26 was, with a handling room/strikedown facility immediately below deck, so you couldn't have any weapons in that area, except maybe two harpoon clusters on the edge somewehre. With a 61-round VLS forward for MRs and 44 ERs aft, it would still have an awesome capability....

[Sauragnmon]

Nope, it's 1/72 Weaver.  I only plan to do 1/72 or 1/144 scale, with the latter being for bombers, just so I have some damn space to show them off.  Mold is Hasegawa.

Thanks for the comments on it, STS, yeah the superbattleship is pretty interesting, it's primarily from a game, so it does look humourous, but it could show concepts to add for the build of the Zipang Yamato.

As to the Spruance, I have that plan already in the works, I was thinking of a rebuilt Ticon with the 8" guns fore and aft, I realize it's designed the same hull, but it would give me something to make it not a standard issue Ticon.  I have no VLS available, they're all on Mightier Mo, but if I could get somebody to cast them I might do that.  That and I was thinking of doing the CSGN eventually, thus a Long Beach is in the cards if I can gather the funding.  The Ticonderoga with 8" and Standard ER capacity is appealing to me.  If we can brainstorm some concepts, I would enjoy the rebuild.  Maybe as a concept, hear me out - build a second missile magazine in under the bridge, horizontal feed onto the mk26 launcher for the forward mount, and extend the flight deck area back a little, put horizontal feed reload into the aft mount as well.  That would free up magazine space for the 8" mounting's magazine aft?  Was it a single mount concept, like the mk45?  I have yet to look it up, so I don't know.

[Weaver]

Nope, it's 1/72 Weaver.  I only plan to do 1/72 or 1/144 scale, with the latter being for bombers, just so I have some damn space to show them off.  Mold is Hasegawa.

Thanks for the comments on it, STS, yeah the superbattleship is pretty interesting, it's primarily from a game, so it does look humourous, but it could show concepts to add for the build of the Zipang Yamato.

As to the Spruance, I have that plan already in the works, I was thinking of a rebuilt Ticon with the 8" guns fore and aft, I realize it's designed the same hull, but it would give me something to make it not a standard issue Ticon.  I have no VLS available, they're all on Mightier Mo, but if I could get somebody to cast them I might do that.  That and I was thinking of doing the CSGN eventually, thus a Long Beach is in the cards if I can gather the funding.  The Ticonderoga with 8" and Standard ER capacity is appealing to me.  If we can brainstorm some concepts, I would enjoy the rebuild.  Maybe as a concept, hear me out - build a second missile magazine in under the bridge, horizontal feed onto the mk26 launcher for the forward mount, and extend the flight deck area back a little, put horizontal feed reload into the aft mount as well.  That would free up magazine space for the 8" mounting's magazine aft?  Was it a single mount concept, like the mk45?  I have yet to look it up, so I don't know.

IIRC, the 8" gun was called the Mk.71. It looked like a cone with a bustle on the back, and it reloaded vertically, i.e. the gun elevated to 90 deg and lined up with a hoise on the centre axis of the turret.

Thinking about it some more, I suspect that the issue about gun magazine vs missile magazine might be a matter of bulkheads. That is to say, the deep bulkhead between the forward turret and the missile launcher might be further back than the 5" needs in order to make space for a decent quantity of 8" ammo, thus restricting the size of the missile mag. Trying to change that on a re-build would be seriously difficult, although a new-build could be modified on the drawing board, of course. This implies that you probably could put an 8" gun in the rear turret position, but it's ammo supply would be restricted because it wouldn't have the extra space that the forward one does.

My idea for the Mk.10-armed Tico was that it would have a 61-cell VLS forward and a 44-round Mk.10 launcher aft. It would provide the "specialist" services of AEGIS and Standard ER, whilst accompanying Spruances with VLS would provide extra Standard MRs to be guided by the Tico's AEGIS system using datalinks in a co-operative engagement system. AEGIS is only worth fitting if you can generate a high fire rate for a reasonable time. the Mk.10 is very slow to reload, so the forward VLS would be needed to compensate. A Mk.26 forward with just 24 rounds wouldn't be much use, so I presume that you're adding the horizontal mag below the bridge to increase that capacity? As far as I know, Tartar/Standard MR rounds were always carried vertically, so the horizintal magazine would have to be designed from scratch. There's also the issues of what you're displacing (I doubt the area below the bridge is empty), and damage control: big magazines are usually deep down in the ship.

As an alternative, you could sacrifice the forward gun (why an air-defence ship needs such a gun is beyond me) and replace BOTH the gun and the Mk.26 with Mk.13 single arm launchers, which have 40 rounds each and fire at 8 round/minute. Re-arrange the internal layout between the bulkhead so that the forward Mk.13 is as far back as possible, and you might be able to squeeze in a 3" OTO-Melara gun right forwards.

[Sauragnmon]

I looked up the mk71 this morning actually, and was looking things over.  It looks like it's substantially larger than the mk45, so I was thinking, since I have Oto 5" guns kicking around, of sanding the mounts and making them look more like the mk71 mounting, the only question becomes - where do I get the 8" 55cal barrels?

I've seen images of standards seemingly in a horizontal position on wikipedia, so I don't think the concept of horizontal loading would be too much of a problem.  You could still store the majority of the rounds in standard low position, with a few rounds ready in the deck house, at which point you just slide them out the hatch, onto the rail, and kick it into position for launch.

Another thought could be to delete the helicopter position and put a VLS in there.  Complete random thought, as I sit here warming up from a few hours out in the bloody cold (it's -24C, -6F damnit).  Or if you mount the missile magazine, expand it backwards so the stored missiles are sitting towards the helipad, keep the loading vertical and you have a number of missiles ready to use that way perhaps.  I should imagine you could manage to squeeze a fair few 8" rounds in the aft position if it were optimized for that design.  I'm not sure of the exact how right now, but it strikes me as possible, perhaps by expanding the below-water section of the aft area and altering the shaft layouts and the like.

[Sauragnmon]

Alright, a little more of an update on my Super Alicat.  I got the canopy down, painted, the lines are trimmed - I use acrylics, no mask, with a fine brush and then use my pin vise to scrape back the overpaint off the lines.  Camo's down, cleaned, the engine bays and the wing tags are done.  Gears painted, bays painted, doors uninstalled yet.  Glove pylons are on, Bombs, Phoenixes, Alamos are in place.  I'll clean up the Phoenixes, which in images I have seen are pure white on the Alicats, the Alamo fins haven't been painted - R-27ER's that I've seen aren't bearing of black bands on the body, just the gray trailing edges on the butterflies and solid gray tail fins.  Alright, enough gab, time for pictures.

[Sauragnmon]

Alright boys, I've been busy today.  I put in a little tinker-work on the Mightier Mo earlier this week, putting in some up-close guns, and mounting a radome in place of the aft 5" director.  I also put in the forward gun tubs, which will be splinter guards for the RAM mounts.  The RAMs on the Fantail were mounted a while ago, just never hit a picture, so I took that today.  Here we go, Mightier Mo.










There's the Mo down and done.  Let's move on to what I've been doing Today - the USS Black, with serious modifications.  Hedgehogs on the forward mounts in place of the twin 40mm guns.  The two quad 40's replaced with twin 3"/50's.  The Upper structure has a single 3"/50, and I put a twin 3" on the Fantail.  One more 3" gun than the 4-gun config, plus a 5" gun to boot.  It's almost done, just a little final stuff to add, and some painting - I puttied over the K-Gun holes.







As always - questions, comments, queries and rude remarks welcome.

[Taiidantomcat]

Sick!!  nice job with the new SAM missiles where the AA guns use to be on the Aft of the Mo. Talk about an upgrade 

[ChernayaAkula]

Mightier Mo' is looking better and better! 

[Sauragnmon]

Thanks, guys.  The old tubs provide nice splinter shields as well, protecting the mechanical assets and such.  It also keeps the mounts nice and low to the waterline for intercepting sea-skimmers.

[Sauragnmon]

Alright, 2AM and I have finished the USS Black!  I just had to get the dome on the torpedo rack, the boats on, the barrels on the oerlikons, the radar dish, the side walls, and she was good to go.  The Numbers on the bow are hand painted, so yeah, they can be a little crooked in some places.











There ya go, boys.  Next thought tickling my mind is a Super Gearing, with 54" mains and 3" guns, all decked out for No-Fly-Zone concepts.

[Brian da Basher]

Outstanding detail work, Saur! Looks like a real man-o-war!

Brian da Basher

[Sauragnmon]

Thanks, Brian.  She turned out quite nicely, and as I said when I first started the build, I chose the model for the hull number.  It screamed "Build Me!" when I looked it up, and the Fletcher, a Trumpy Sullivans, happened to be sitting in my LHS at the time.  I'll admit, I wasn't a Fletcher Fan until I realized just how sharp of a set of teeth I could put on this puppy.  The 3" mounts give it some real attitude.