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Description

My own mod of the Silent Hunter series Iowa class battleship model, using parts borrowed from the Albany class guided missle cruiser model by Lazarus Starkweather. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. I'm also making this available for download since it's my model or mod. To download, click on the little arrow icon pointing DOWN.

Most people these days don't know that there were actually six members of the Iowa class of fast battleships built for the U.S. Navy druring World War II. The end of the war found the last two, Illiinois (BB-65) and Kentucky (BB-66) uncompleted, and all work was stopped while the U.S. Navy pondered what to do with these unfinished big gun monsters at the dawn of the guided missile warship era. Kentucky was the most complete, with her hull almost finished but still lacking the addition of her upperworks and armament. Eventually she was launched out of her drydock in 1950 while still incomplete so it could be used for repairs on Missouri (which had been damaged by running aground at Hampton Roads), and it was shortly thereafter that the U.S. Navy decided to convert the unfinished Kentucky into its very first guided missile armed battleship (BBG-1). There were various proposals on how to do this, ranging from the simplistic Boston CAG style partial conversion depicted with this model to near total Albany CAG style conversions with all guns replaced by missile batteries; however, this project was destined never to even be started. She served as a parts storage hulk for the next several years while these various proposal were batted around, and then Hurricane Hazel hit the shipyard where she was being stored in 1954, causing her to break free from her moorings and running the incomplete hull aground. To add insult to injury, the bow of her completed sister ship Wisconson (BB-64) was damaged in a collision with the destroyer Eaton on 6 May 1956, and the U.S. Navy decided the most expedient way to deal with this was to remove the bow of the unfinished Kentucky and use it to replace Wisconson's damaged one. That pretty much spelled the end of any future for the poor Kentucky. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and sold for scrapping in the fall of that year. Anything salvageable was removed and either reused in other U.S. Navy vessels or passed into private hands. Thus ended the U.S. Navy's one and only effort to build a guided missile battleship. For more information follow the link below:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kent…

Now before you true naval fanatics out there start jumping all over me on this CG model, let me say this right now: I KNOW it's wrong. To be more accurate, it is not entirely correct. The aft deckhouses and radar support structures need to be totally reworked and also the way the aft guided missile systems are mounted as well. In my defense, I didn't have a lot of visual information available to me back when I did this a number of years ago, so I went with what little I had. Of the various discussed proposals for turning Kentucky into BBG-1 the Boston CAG style conversion was the easiest to do given the available resources to me at the time, so that is what I tried to do. I had only one piece of conceptual art available to me then, so I pretty much had to wing it. More information has come out in the years since, including the beautiful conceptual artwork of Wayne Scarpaci of almost all of the various proposed Iowa class conversions both in the World War II era and during the Cold War era, and he had access to better sources for his info than did I. Again, I know this not quite correct for the Boston CAG style conversion but at least it suggests it, and I"ll leave it to a better CG modeler than I to do a better one. In the meantime you have at least to use in-game or as a starting point for your own more accurate effort, so enjoy.

For non-profit, non-commercial use only.

Description

My own mod of the Silent Hunter series Iowa class battleship model, using parts borrowed from the Albany class guided missle cruiser model by Lazarus Starkweather. Preview picture posed in XNALara XPS. I'm also making this available for download since it's my model or mod. To download, click on the little arrow icon pointing DOWN.

Most people these days don't know that there were actually six members of the Iowa class of fast battleships built for the U.S. Navy druring World War II. The end of the war found the last two, Illiinois (BB-65) and Kentucky (BB-66) uncompleted, and all work was stopped while the U.S. Navy pondered what to do with these unfinished big gun monsters at the dawn of the guided missile warship era. Kentucky was the most complete, with her hull almost finished but still lacking the addition of her upperworks and armament. Eventually she was launched out of her drydock in 1950 while still incomplete so it could be used for repairs on Missouri (which had been damaged by running aground at Hampton Roads), and it was shortly thereafter that the U.S. Navy decided to convert the unfinished Kentucky into its very first guided missile armed battleship (BBG-1). There were various proposals on how to do this, ranging from the simplistic Boston CAG style partial conversion depicted with this model to near total Albany CAG style conversions with all guns replaced by missile batteries; however, this project was destined never to even be started. She served as a parts storage hulk for the next several years while these various proposal were batted around, and then Hurricane Hazel hit the shipyard where she was being stored in 1954, causing her to break free from her moorings and running the incomplete hull aground. To add insult to injury, the bow of her completed sister ship Wisconson (BB-64) was damaged in a collision with the destroyer Eaton on 6 May 1956, and the U.S. Navy decided the most expedient way to deal with this was to remove the bow of the unfinished Kentucky and use it to replace Wisconson's damaged one. That pretty much spelled the end of any future for the poor Kentucky. She was struck from the Naval Vessel Register on 9 June 1958 and sold for scrapping in the fall of that year. Anything salvageable was removed and either reused in other U.S. Navy vessels or passed into private hands. Thus ended the U.S. Navy's one and only effort to build a guided missile battleship. For more information follow the link below:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Kent…

Now before you true naval fanatics out there start jumping all over me on this CG model, let me say this right now: I KNOW it's wrong. To be more accurate, it is not entirely correct. The aft deckhouses and radar support structures need to be totally reworked and also the way the aft guided missile systems are mounted as well. In my defense, I didn't have a lot of visual information available to me back when I did this a number of years ago, so I went with what little I had. Of the various discussed proposals for turning Kentucky into BBG-1 the Boston CAG style conversion was the easiest to do given the available resources to me at the time, so that is what I tried to do. I had only one piece of conceptual art available to me then, so I pretty much had to wing it. More information has come out in the years since, including the beautiful conceptual artwork of Wayne Scarpaci of almost all of the various proposed Iowa class conversions both in the World War II era and during the Cold War era, and he had access to better sources for his info than did I. Again, I know this not quite correct for the Boston CAG style conversion but at least it suggests it, and I"ll leave it to a better CG modeler than I to do a better one. In the meantime you have at least to use in-game or as a starting point for your own more accurate effort, so enjoy.

For non-profit, non-commercial use only.