Sunday, February 1, 2026

Six from six

That's six ships constructed over six days. I'm now down to 51 of 70 to go (or 63 of 82).

Constructed since Monday, from right to left: Enterprise, Nagato, Pensacola, Houston, Northampton and Kyokuto Maru.

Enterprise at centre with Zuikaku and Akagi to her right and left respectively to show her relative size, especially height above the waterline. I had not appreciated how tall the Yorktown-class carriers were until I made this model. She's not much lower than the Akagi, which, as a converted Amagi-class battlecruiser, was a towering ship.

Nagato (left) indicating her size compared with the earlier constructed (and partially painted) Kongo. This Aoshima model of Nagato was a particularly fine kit to build.

Check out those 410 mm main guns on Nagato (c.f. Kongo's 356 mm)! It will be really interesting to put Nagato beside Yamato/Musashi with their 460 mm main guns, but I'll not be building them until towards the end of the 70. By comparison, Bismarck with her "guns as big as steers and shells as big as trees"** 'only' had 380 mm main guns. 
**To my way of thinking, he had this lyric the wrong way around. Perhaps it says something about Texans and their sense of size? Or maybe it's because I think of the height and overall size of a tree, whereas he is thinking of the girth of one that has been cut down?

R to L: Pensacola, Houston and Northampton, adapted from the Tamiya kit of Indianapolis, beside the model of Indianapolis that Julian had built earlier (a Revell kit).

Pensacola, Houston, Northampton and Indianapolis (bottom to top). The differences are subtle, but significant. It took me a while to work out what to change and how to use the parts that I had. Paint will cover up that line of putty filler that I added after cutting the deck to make Pensacola into a ship with a 'level' deck. The Pensacola-class should be about 8 m shorter than Indianapolis, the Northampton-class around 3 m shorter, but I was not going to worry about 11 mm and 4 mm at 1/700!

Kyokuto Maru, first of five fleet oilers that I will be scratch-building. Not my most accurate attempt, but it will serve the purpose.

I have been enjoying this: crossing off the previous tally and adding the new total to make.

Yamashiro is currently under construction and I am also working on Kenyo Maru, top left, the next of the fleet oilers on my list.

I am working on Ise and Hyuga concurrently.

My aim for my next post is to be at or below 35 to go. I have 16 to make to get to this milestone. It should be a far simpler process than the recent ships that I have made as they will all be direct builds of the ships according to the kits. I'll make my scratch-builds as I go along, doing a bit on whichever one is 'in progress' while glued sections of the kit(s) are drying. Can I get there by next weekend?!!


14 comments:

  1. What fun! Mad, but fun! Nice work.

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  2. Very impressive speed and quality. I hesitate to ask but have you got a suitably big playing area for all these toys to be deployed historically?

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    1. The answer is simply no and yes! The ships will never all be on the table as I don't have a blue coloured tennis court handy to act as the Pacific Ocean, but my table will suffice for some of the actions fought at relatively close quarters (Battle off Endau, Java Sea, Sundra Strait and so forth) and for attacks on carriers as part of larger actions like Coral Sea and Midway.

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    2. I think you'll need to investigate hiring a local community hall, expecially if you can find one with a blue-carpeted floor!

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    3. Hahahaha! Thanks David.
      Fortunately I'm gonna do each action/bit in detail, so won't need an arena for a grand version.

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  3. Fantastic effort James and they all look great.
    You seem to be building more ships than the USA in 1943-44 😁

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    1. Thanks Ben, it would be a challenge to equal *that*!!

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  4. Definitely better organised than HM Dockyards when I knew them well! A truly magnificent effort and it will be wonderful to see them defend against all those dozens of 1/700 planes you now also have!

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    1. You are too kind Julian. If it were a mere matter of gluing a few plastic bits together, I think that HM Dockyards would have knocked 'em up super easily too!

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  5. Great looking progress, not far off now!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain. Getting to half way will be a nice point to get to.

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