Seeking ideas for a USS Arizona WHIF.

[seadude]

I picked up a 1/350 HobbyBoss USS Arizona battleship kit yesterday. I'm undecided on what to do with it.
Either:
1. Build as is straight from the box.
2. Build as if the Arizona had survived Pearl Harbor and was refitted similar to the Pennsylvania.
3. Build as a new class of battleship with some slight changes to make it different from the Pennsylvania and maybe call it the USS Hawaii?
4. Other option?

[PR19_Kit]

A 1/350 scale battleship? 

I should think you could move in and live in it, couldn't you? 

[dragon]

Space Battleship Arizona- give the Arizona the Space Cruiser Yamato treatment.

[NARSES2]

Option 2 for me

[Cliffy B]

Option 2 for me as well.  You could take it a step further and make her refit more extensive.  Remember Pennsylvania was practically undamaged at Pearl so her refits were less extensive.  You could have Arizona take more damage and refit her more along the lines of Nevada and perhaps incorporating some of the mods made to the Tennessees and Colorados.  I'm fairly familiar with these ships so if have any detail questions I'd be happy to help.

[pyro-manic]

Hawaii wasn't a state until 1959, so a battleship would not have been given that name.

What about going the other way, and building a pre-dreadnought? Midship turrets (offset to each side), secondary 8" battery, and so on. Could even paint it in the Great White Fleet scheme, with buff stacks and all the gold decoration...

[Daryl J.]

As costly as that kit is, the first thing I'd do is make certain I could bring it successfully to completion.     
4) Upgrade it to serve along with the Missouri in the later Asian conflicts. 

[sandiego89]

How about some more radical #4 sugestions?

1.  Raised and rebuilt with a new forward section.  Single triple 16 inch mount forward.  Give it a Graf Spee type look. 
2. Raised and rebuilt in the late 1950's with a new forward section as a guided missile ship- Talos forward. 12" aft. 
3. Sea plane ship with multiple catapults and cranes, like the Ise
4. AA heavy circa 1945.  Multiple 40's and 5 inch. 

[Cliffy B]

I almost forgot, you said you have the Banner kit right?  That thing almost qualifies as a whiff straight out of the box it has so many flaws.  It's been discussed at length over on the model warships board so if you care to know the flaws I'll send you a link or two so you can read up on them.

[scooter]

I like Dragon's suggestion, personally.  SBB Yamato and Arizona, serving alongside in the UN Spacy. 

[RussC]

Space battleship is great. How about a Hybrid battleship Carrier convert like the Furious or the Ise. Maybe a ColdWar convert of the BB39 hull as a ballistic missile ship with Thor/Jupiter IRBM fitting. Maybe a Amphibious depot ship for hovercrafts and hydrofoils and Sea Darts. In later versions, remove the smoke stacks as BB-39 would be running on reactors. How about a gunnery test bed ship, a single barbette with twin 30" guns, aimed by position like the assault gun type tanks. How about a captured Arizona, refitted to the standards of either the Kreigsmarine or the IJN or the Soviet navy?

[Mossie]

Option 4a, survived Pearl Harbour and never retired.  Modernise the superstucture, replace the turrets with VLS.  Deck her out for her 100th anniversary celebrations!

[scooter]

Option 4a, survived Pearl Harbour and never retired.  Modernise the superstucture, replace the turrets with VLS.  Deck her out for her 100th anniversary celebrations!

I would say convert the superfiring mounts (B & X) to VLS, and go triple 16s on the remaining batteries.  Remove the aft mast and fit additional TLAM/Harpoon launch canisters on the superstructure, aft of the stack.  Of if you're going to nuke power her, helo pad on the aft superstructure, and another at the fantail.  With, of course, CIWS batteries in excellent firing arcs.

[Joe C-P]

Triple 16" would never fit in the same space as the older triple 14". Twin 16" could.

How about an AA-barge? Remove the B and X turrets, and the old 5"/25 guns, and add a number of 5"/38 twins and singles. Use her for radar-picket duty in place of the DDs that kept getting clobbered by suicide attacks.

[Radish]

I made my HobbyBoss 1/700th Arizona as a Flying Battleship circe 1943, combining the kit with a trange angulat base and a plastic plate.
Photos on here somewhere....