This was my first resin battleship. I ramped up on my resin skills with a series of smaller warships until I felt comfortable enough to tackle a larger subject such as this. It took me a little longer to build than I thought, but then again, what project doesn't?

I wanted to represent the Classic Warships North Carolina kit as her sister ship, the USS Washington (BB-56) since, as a Washington State resident, I am quite proud of what the ship accomplished during WW2, in particular, the night of November 14-15, 1942. It was then that the Japanese Battleship Kirishima felt the wrath of Washington's nine 16-inch guns during the Third Naval Battle of Guadacanal.

This early representation of BB-56 meant that I could save a lot of time on fitting small AA weapons since at this time she featured a rather modest suite AA protection. Classic Warships kits seem to have upper and lower hulls which fit extremely well, so joining these sections was trouble free. I found that the photo-etch fret that came with the kit would not suit my needs, so I opted for the Gold Medal Models USS Missouri set which proved to be very satisfactory. I also replaced the kit's metal Kingfisher Aircraft with White Ensign Models very nicely shaped resin Kingfishers.

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