IOWA battleship to aircraft carrier conversion.

[zenrat]

Cut the bow off at a downward 15 degree angle from a point directly below the end of the flight deck.
It'll look weird but give you the required clearance.

[NARSES2]

Apologies for the delay in moving this, but I'm travelling around at the moment and don't always have access to the Net.

Chris

[seadude]

So here's another alternative to possibly putting armament (Maybe?) at the bow area. Adding two 20mm machine gun tubs which are smaller.


Port side of the model showing all the additional walkways, 40mm and 20mm gun galleries, Mk.51 GFCS director spots, and two scratchbuilt 5"/38 gun sponsons.








Scratchbuilt support structures for 40mm gun tub and 5"/38 weapon sponson.

[Crackingjob]

Wow, great gift!- he made a good start on it.  I think the gun tubs near the bow look a bit odd.  Great project!

Yeah, there's a few things that look "odd" on the model. So eventually, I will be making additional deletions and additions, one of them being changes to armament and all the weapon galleries and sponsons. I want to try and get as close to the blueprint as possible........I hope.  But whether the blueprint is a preliminary or final design, I don't know. 

I wouldn't worry...it was war time, stop trying to make it pretty as conversions were never and were hurried. Leaving it odd looking makes it more real. Also guns were what they wanted...all over the place especially as the Japanese had kamakazi? and so didn't care....the Yanks however did and had guns a plenty to prevent air attacks....go with it

[seadude]

So since some folks think putting a large 40mm gun tub in front of the flight deck is a bad idea, then what about smaller 20mm machine gun tubs? Thoughts on this, folks?

[Vorcha]

So since some folks think putting a large 40mm gun tub in front of the flight deck is a bad idea, then what about smaller 20mm machine gun tubs? Thoughts on this, folks?

You could scratch two extending constructions to the sides and still put 40mm'ers in there. WOW by the way! 

[kerick]

I'd put them on the edge of the deck just for the safety of the gun crews in case an aircraft goes off the end of the deck.
I'm sure you will make it look awsome whatever you choose to do.

[seadude]

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Not yet. I'm probably only at the halfway point of this build. Did a lot of scratchbuilding and detailing by adding walkways made from angle strip plastic, scratchbuilding two weapon sponsons (1 forward and 1 aft on the port side.) for 5"/38 guns, adding more 20mm gun galleries, adding spare floater net baskets from 1-2 extra TAMIYA Missouri kits, adding a few extra 20mm ammo boxes in some of the 20mm gun galleries from a Trumpeter North Carolina kit, adding a few spare tubs for Mk.51 GFCS for 40mm gun mounts, plus adding other miscellaneous details here and there. Still have a long way to go. My apologies for the extreme lack of photoetch detail, but I have very bad eyesight and cannot handle very small/tiny or complicated PE. Therefore, I had to "cut corners" where needed and rob parts from other kits or scratchbuild wherever necessary. It may look sh***y like that, but I had to do what I had to do.
Still have more to do such as detailing the island superstructure, the bow (Front of the ship.), the fantail (aft) end of the ship, all guns, all radars, all aircraft, aircraft elevators in the flight deck, life rafts, and so much more.

[NARSES2]

Terrific work sir 

[nighthunter]

As a consummate ship artist, along with whiffery design, I would mount two 40mm tubs along the sides of the bow, not on the deck as previously done. I'd also enclose the bow from the just below the flight deck, or create a "ramp" to the end of the bow, for failed takeoffs? Or trim the bulbous bow down and remount the anchor lower. I understand that you're trying to keep to the spirit of the preliminary design, but carrier experts would have argued the same direction about trimming down the bow. Hope this helps!

[seadude]

Kind of debating the following. Some portions of the underside flight deck on my model are a bit plain. I'm kinda uncertain if I should add extra supports (Indicated by red lines.) underneath the flight deck in certain areas. What do others think on this?

[seadude]

What part of "I am NOT adding two side by side 40mm gun mounts at the bow of the ship." do people not understand?       My modeling friend had tried that (Picture below.) when he initially started this model long ago before giving it to me to finish. I took the 40mm tubs off the bow as I did not like the look of them. STOP ASKING ME TO ADD THEM (OR SOMETHING SIMILAR) BACK ON. It won't be done.      

[seadude]

Are there any on the preliminary drawing?

None on the preliminary drawing shown back on Page 1 of this thread.

[Joe C-P]

Such tubs being extended out like that would have been knocked off by wave action in any kind of a storm.

As for supports for the flight deck I think the additional ones would be realistic, even necessary.

[seadude]

Both the Iowa carrier conversion model (Bottom) and an extra TAMIYA USS Missouri battleship model hull (Top) are both lined up and even with the aft ends of the models against the box on the right. Using available references at home on the Iowa carrier conversion, I was able to determine that one flight deck elevator would be positioned where the forward #1 16" gun turret would be, and the second elevator positioned slightly aft of the #3 16" gun turret. I used the elevator deck model parts from a Trumpeter USS Franklin ESSEX kit to mark the locations where the elevators should go on the Iowa carrier model.


Red horizontal rectangle is main side armor box/belt on Iowa class BB which would have been left as is for the carrier conversion. Short red horizontal lines and red circles indicate approximate positions of where 16" main gun turrets would have been on an Iowa class BB, but removed for the carrier conversion. Short horizontal blue lines and blue squares indicate approximate positions for 2 aircraft elevators for the Iowa carrier proposal.


After marking around the elevator parts with a pen, I then scribed into the deck with a scribing tool going around the elevator part. This is the location of the forward elevator on the Iowa carrier model.


This is the aft elevator.


Using various reference sources and pics of Essex carrier flight decks showing the starboard and/or port catapults at the forward end of the flight deck, I used Tamiya 6mm and 10mm masking tape to mark/make a straight "edge" where I wanted the flight deck catapults to go.


Using various reference sources and pics of Essex carrier flight decks showing the starboard and/or port catapults at the forward end of the flight deck, I used Tamiya 6mm and 10mm masking tape to mark/make a straight "edge" where I wanted the flight deck catapults to go.
Using the book "Essex Class Carriers of the Second World War" by Steve Backer, I learned that the starboard catapult (Top) was about 97-100 feet long. The port catapult (Bottom) was approximately 150 feet long. Using a scale model calculator website, I determined the starboard catapult would be about almost 3 1/2 inches long (Red arrow to edge of flight deck on left.). The port catapult would be approximately 5 inches long (Length between red arrows on bottom of picture.).
After studying various flight deck pictures, the port (Bottom) catapult does not go all the way to the flight deck edge. I left about 1 inch of space between the flight deck edge and the end of the catapult.


Using a ruler as best I could, I scribed the flight deck catapults. The port (Top) catapult didn't quite end up as straight as I wanted. There are some tiny "squiggles" that I may have to hide by adding a plane taking off or parking aircraft on the deck.