USS Oriskany (CV-34) 1950 (1/700)
The USS Oriskany (CV-34) was the 24th and last Essex-class aircraft carrier to be commissioned. Construction on her was stopped in 1946 and she was completed in the fall of 1950 to a new design, SCB-27A, which better accommodated the newer and heavier jet aircraft that were coming into service. Numerous other carriers of the class were modernized to SCB-27A (and SCB-27C) standards, and all but one later received the hurricane bows and angled flight decks of the SCB-125 program.
I wanted to model a SCB-27A ship as part of my research into the program so I could see what the physical changes made to the class were. I chose Oriskany because she was the first, and her "as commissioned" appearance included a suite of sixteen 20mm twin mounts that didn't last long. By 1952 many of the mounts had been removed, and within a couple of years they were all gone. In addition, the SCB-27A ships originally had a simpler pole mast arrangement without the prominent "X" structure at the top that would become a feature by the mid-1950s.
My model started with Dragon's 1/700 Princeton (CVS-37), a mid-1950's unmodernized Essex. The first step was adding the 6' wide blister to both sides of the hull, as well as an escalator and island from Model Monkey (I also used their 3" gub tubs, port crane sponson, lift raft baskets and Mk 56 gun directors). The bow was reworked to add the secondary conn, and all the gallery deck catwalks were removed and replaced with thinner sheet plastic after the gallery deck itself was thickened up. All flight deck structures (gun mounts) were removed, and new sponsons for the 3" twin mounts built from sheet plastic and putty. Although photos sometime described these as the tubs for the earlier 40mm quads, they are actually significantly larger.
I also added the bracket on the hull for the ship's pole mast. Carriers using the Brooklyn Navy Yard (where Oriskany was built) had a bracket on their hull to hold their masts so they could pass under the East River bridges.
Late in construction I added the removable underwater hull after I added the partial blister to it. Unlike the later conversions, Oriskany's blister was more of a belt and went only partway down the side of the hull underwater, which I thought was worth modeling.
The aircraft are Dragon's early jets from the Bon Homme Richard (CV-31) kit, which also donated the twin 20mm mounts. The 3" twin mounts are from an old Skywave/Pit-Road USN parts parts set, along with the corresponding pieces from two CVL kits.
The photos include comparison photos with the class' original appearance, as shown in the May 1943 Essex (CV-9). The three bows featured in the class - short hull, long hull and long hull w/SCB-27A additions are shown in the photos as well.
Build album is at https://www.scalemates.com/profiles/mate.php?id=48557&p=albums&album=61373#56
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- 1. Essex (CV-9) on the left is in her original appearance as of May 1943, showing the difference in seven years.
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- 1. The "short hull" "long hull" and SCB-27A bows are shown here. The center and right ships have the same "long hull" bow, but the SCB-27A ship has the larger 3" mounts and tubs and the new secondary conn.
Nice result to what was obviously a lot of work.
I think this ship was used in the movie “The Bridges at Toko -Ri “and was called the USS Savo Island...
Beautiful model.
Great looking ship, Michael (@mcsmith1964). It's hard to realize the amount of really detailed work it took to get this result. Nice job.
An awesome build, you did your research and then some! To bad no model company has done the later designs of the Essex's.
This is a fantastic model, Michael!
Checked your build album at Scalemates. I was amazed by all that quality work you put into it!
Nice work. I’m a fan of these ships too. Did the SB2C crew survive the accident onboard the Ticonderoga?
Good catch! I need to pay more attention to CV-14 - I stopped work when it was almost finished, um, 26 years ago and I really need to neaten it up and organize the aircraft.
I followed this build along on FB, a great result with all that extra attention to applied to the build to make the SCB-27A Oriskany.
I'm starting on a SCB-27C/SCB-125 ship - the Bon Homme Rochard, and the differences from the 27A are really interesting.