Ok, a strange hobby for me: model ships
With all normal routines shot to hell of late by the virus this year, I, like many people, have found new or resuscitated old hobbies. A dozen years ago, on a trip to Massachusetts for a wedding, we happened to drive past the WWII battleship USS Massachusetts moored in Falls River, Massachusetts and ended up touring it. On the way out of the museum shop, I bought a model of the ship on a whim, thinking I'd build it. Buying and building it rekindled interest in a hobby I thought I put aside forty-something years ago. I've built almost two dozen ships since, of varying difficulty and quality, the frequency of building depending on work and other commitments. As much of my life outside of home has shut down during the pandemic, such as singing and volunteering, I've had time recently to build a couple more models.
A model of anything is built to a specific scale, essentially the ratio between measurements on the model and measurements of the object being modeled. Most common model ships range in scales from 1/72 scale, basically one inch inch = 72 inches or 6 feet, to 1/1200 scale, one inch = 1200 inches or 100 feet. The first ship I bought was modeled in 1/720 scale, one inch = 720 inches or 60 feet. I've built a number ships in that scale because they tend to be small, a foot or so in length usually, a good idea in a small Capitol Hill row house, but also so I can see the history of ship design as well as ship model design. All of the models shown below are built to the same scale so they can be compared.
One of the most famous ships in US Navy history is the battleship USS Arizona. Built in 1915 in the midst of the First World War, it was bombed and then sank during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. When it was built, its design reflected the current features of a battleship, featuring 14 inch guns in turrets, with other smaller guns on the sides to defend against attack by smaller boats that eluded fire from the large guns as well as aircraft attacking with bombs or torpedos. Floatplane launchers were added so the ship could launch small floatplanes to scout for enemy ships. Below is my model of the ship, about 10 inches long.
After the First World War, nations with large navies, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, signed treaties limiting the number of and size of battleships, as the prevailing view was that there would be no more major wars and that expenditures on large fleets would be superfluous. In the late 1930s, the United States Navy ordered several new ships that fulfilled the treaty limitations. Military technology had advanced in the intervening decades, so the new ships were faster, had larger main guns, 16 inch instead of 14 inch, smaller guns that could shoot at planes as well as ships, and an assortment of smaller guns to shoot at attacking aircraft which had become more of a threat in the 1930s. The USS Massachusetts was one of the ships ordered and built, and my model is shown below in front of the USS Arizona to show the increase in size.
As international tensions increased in the late 1930s, it became apparent that even the new ships like the USS Massachusetts may not be strong enough to do battle with the growing Japanese Navy. Another class of battleships was designed with similar armament but with more armor and greater speed. The USS Missouri was among this class of ships. It is famous for being the site of the official surrender of Japan in 1945. I recently built my model of the ship and it's shown below, in front of the other two battleships I built 10 years ago to see the increase in size of battleship design over two dozen years and two world wars.
After the war the wreck of the USS Arizona was kept as a memorial to those who died on board. The USS Massachusetts became a museum ship, allowing people to see what a now 80 year old warship was like. The USS Missouri and her sister ships had a second service life beginning in the 1980s during the expansion of the Navy during the Reagan administration, with most of the small guns being removed and replaced with new missiles. It was finally retired in 1998 and is a museum ship berthed near the USS Arizona memorial in Pearl Harbor. I visited one of the USS Missouri's sister ships, the USS New Jersey, berthed across the Delaware River from Philadelphia a couple years ago. I enjoyed the seeing the juxtaposition of 1940s technology, analog computing devices and switches, with 1980s technology, digital computers, now relatively ancient, on the ship. Also after visiting the USS Massachusetts, whose crew were WWII draftees, with cramped and rudimentary spaces for the crew, designed without much emphasis on crew comfort, the crew spaces of the USS New Jersey seemed much more comfortable, renovated and upgraded when reactivated reflecting the reality of serving the needs of an all-volunteer crew.
In addition to the comparison of the ships from a naval history view, it was interesting to compare the ships as models. The first two models were first released in the late 1960s. The third model was released in 1983. Technology and modeler skill had changed over time. In the 1950s and 1960s, the models were essentially toys for boys, so there was sometimes not a lot of detail. By the 1980s, model building had become an adult male hobby, so there is a tendency to upgrade everything. Below is a photo of a model of the USS Arizona by an skilled modeler, complete with rails, replacements of the model pieces, parts made from scratch, and even fake water and a mooring quay. Though my efforts today are better than what I could muster as a teenager, I could never do something like this.
When the USS Arizona was built, battleships were the most powerful ships of any country's navy. In the 1920's and 1930's, the navies of Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States started experimenting with and designing aircraft carriers, floating airports for warplanes. One of the larger aircraft carriers when the Second World War began was the British HMS Ark Royal, one of eight British aircraft carriers afloat at the time. It fought in several naval engagements during the first two years of the war until it was sunk by torpedos launched by a German Submarine. My model of the HMS Ark Royal is below, with some aircraft on the flight deck.
At the end of the Second World War the United States Navy was the largest navy ever built, with 23 battleships like those shown above and over 80 aircraft carriers, many larger than the HMS Ark Royal above. As the Cold War intensified, the United States explored the uses of nuclear power beyond the destructive potential demonstrated with the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. The first nuclear powered ships were submarines like the USS Nautilus which travelled under the polar ice cap to the North Pole in 1958. Larger aircraft carriers were built following the war to carry jet aircraft. The first nuclear powered aircraft carrier was the USS Enterprise, launched in 1960. It was retired from service in 2012 after 51 years of service. I finished my model recently and it is shown below, with the HMS Ark Royal I built 10 years ago behind to show the difference in size. The Ark Royal weighed 22,000 tons. The Enterprise weighed over 90,000 tons.
So far I've built seven Revell 1/720 models, the five I've described above and two others, the British destroyer HMS Zulu which came with the Ark Royal model kit and the German cruiser Blucher. They are pictured below, from smallest to largest, the smallest about 6 inches long, the largest about 18 inches long. There are links below to Wikipedia articles about the ships if you've grown curious about their histories.
The USS Arizona was built over a century ago. It was among the first American warships to burn oil rather than coal to provide power. Fifty years later the USS Enterprise was built with a nuclear reactor to provide power. The ships above were home to tens of thousands of sailors during the over the 100 years of their cumulative service lives. Many died onboard the ships. The ships are an interesting link between centuries. Most of the crew members of the Arizona when it first sailed during the First World War were born in the 19th century. Many who served onboard the Enterprise still serve in the Navy today in the 21st century.
There are a handful of Arizona survivors of the Pearl Harbor attack still alive today, and when they die there will be no doubt stories in the news stating that part of our history has died with their passing. Well, as long as I have the models above (and probably make some more), some of ships that sank almost 80 years ago, some of ships that can be visited today, I'll do my small part to keep their history alive, as you have by reading this and, perhaps, clicking on the links on the list above to read about them on wikipedia.
Comments
Post a Comment