In the early 1880s it came as a shock to many that the USN
ranked about 19th in size, and probably less in power, in a list of
the world’s navies. Newspapers thundered that this condition was deplorable.
Like so many Chicken Littles, they agonized that
Brazil
could send their armored cruiser Riachuelo to stand off
New York City
and demand tribute from the worthy burghers of that metropolis. Likewise
Chile
could send one of their cruisers up the west coast to
San Francisco
to demand that her citizens hand over all of their sour dough. The Civil War
relics of the USN were powerless to stop them. Something had to be done to
correct this manifest imbalance. The result was the new American Steel Navy. The
first group authorized consisted of three protected cruisers and a dispatch boat
but in three years the
US
was ready to try her hand at armored warship construction.
In 1886 Congress authorized the first
two armor plated warships of the steel navy. As the
United States
had no warship designers with experience in large warships and very few with
experience in designing any type of warship, the USN relied on foreign designs.
The USS
Maine was an enlarged version of the Brazilian Riachuelo, a British built
cruiser. In fact the
Maine
was described as an armored cruiser when laid down and launched. It was only
before commissioning that she was rated a 2nd class battleship. The
Texas
was designed by a Englishman working for Armstrong and was rated a 2nd
class battleship from the start. Since
America
lacked the infrastructure, forgings for production of large guns, armor plate
and machinery were purchased from firms in
Great Britain
and the USN was in the warship construction business in earnest. Clearly these
two ships were inferior to the world’s standard battleship. They were of
limited displacement and capability. One reason for this was the lack of
construction experience but a more compelling reason for their 2nd
class nature was politics.
Congress did not like the term
battleships. To many of the legislators the word battleships represented empire
as best epitomized by the
British Empire
. Far-flung holdings controlled by the overwhelming power of large battleships.
Some politicians thought of American as a Jeffersonian ideal of gentlemen
farmers tilling the soil with their sinew and sweat in an enlightened agrarian
society. Of course that idea was long dead, as the American Civil War had only
increased industrialization of the country. Some saw the country as Yankee
Traders to the World’s Markets and failed to see the need of a navy to protect
trade. Others were afraid of antagonizing foreign powers into an expensive arms
race. The building of small 2nd class battleships for self-defense
was acceptable to these groups.
The first true group of American designed and
built battleships was the three ships of the
Indiana
class BB-1 through 3, authorized in 1890. To get these past Congress they had
to be described as “Sea Going, Coast Line Battleships”.
They were given low freeboards and limited endurance. Congress was
mollified with these caveats, as worries of foreign adventures dissipated with
ships designed to stay close to the American coasts. The device that Congress
used as a governor to restrain and constrain battleship design was displacement.
By mandating the heaviest armor and armament within a limited displacement, the
sacrifices had to come in machinery, endurance and size. A small authorized
displacement hamstrung the navy and its designers. The next design was USS
Iowa
BB-4. The
Indianas
were limited due to their very low freeboard and short range so for the
Iowa
of 1892 the navy convinced Congress to authorize “Sea Going Battleship No.
1”. The
Iowa
was designed to take to the open seas as a true deep-sea version of the
Indianas
, although the phrase “sea-going coast-line battleship” had crept back into
her description. Before being finished it was decided that there would not be
separate numbering systems for sea-going and coast-defense battleships and
Iowa
was renumbered battleship #4. At first glance, the
Iowa
appears to be a slightly larger version of the
Indianas
. The armament dropped to 12-inch guns instead of the 13-inch guns to free
weight for machinery, coal capacity to increase range and for most importantly,
raising the forecastle one level higher than on the
Indianas
. The high forecastle deck ran to the end of the superstructure and made the
Iowa
a much drier and infinitely superior deep ocean battleship over the
Indianas
. Displacement increased by 1,000 tons and
length by 24-feet over the earlier design. These were the ships with which the
USN fought the Spanish-American War. As a result of naval victories over
out-matched Spanish forces, popularity for the navy in Congress as well as the
public leaped. With the acquisition of distant territories the new
Imperial
Republic
now had to worry about defending them and talk of limited coast line
battleships disappeared.
Profile, Plan & Quarter Views |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
However, before the victories of 1898
spurred the big battleship for the USN, there were two more classes approved by
Congress. The Kearsarge
class of 1894 and the
Illinois
class of 1896 were both of constrained design. Both of these designs still were
limited by small displacement limitations, significantly lower than those of
foreign contemporaries. In December 1894 President Grover Cleveland asked for
three new battleships and the House of Representatives agreed. The Senate
however, was suspicious of naval spending and would only authorize two. They
were still called “sea-going coast line battleships” but allowable
displacement was increased to 10,000 tons from the 9,000 tons allowed for
Iowa
. Earlier in 1894 the wooden sloop of war Kearsarge,
which had sunk the famed Confederate raider CSS
Alabama in 1864, had run aground and wrecked. The Secretary of
the Navy asked for permission to name one of the new battleships Kearsarge.
Federal law mandated that battleships be named after states, so Congress had to
pass an exception to the existing law. USS Kearsarge BB-5 was the
only American battleship not named after a state. The second ship was USS
Kentucky BB-6.
Even with an increase of 1,000 tons,
USN designers still had more features that they wanted to fit than could be
accomplished in 10,000 tons. One design called for an enlarged
Iowa
with the same arrangement of 12-inch main and 8-inch secondary turrets but with
the addition of 5-inch guns for defense against torpedo boats. However, another
group were unhappy with the lighter 12-inch guns of the
Iowa
. They wanted to revert to the heftier 13-inch ordnance of the
Indianas
. To mount the larger gun and keep other improvements, the turret mounted
8-inch guns would have to drop from eight to four. The use of the 13-inch gun
finally was accepted and designers had to figure out how the new design could
obtain the same broadside fire of 8-inch guns as had been achieved with the Indianas
and
Iowa
. Clearly both 8-inch gun turrets had to be on centerline as did the main
13-inch turrets. How could this be accomplished and keep the ships at 10,000
tons? This quandary and solution thereto created the most distinctive feature of
these two ships, the double story turret.
From the start the placement of the
main turrets and 5-inch battery had been decided. The entire fervor came with
the placement of the 8-inch intermediate battery. For weight savings the guns
had to be paired with two groups of two and for protection of this substantial
ordnance they had to be placed in armored turrets. Wing positions were out
because that would halve the broadside of the earlier two designs. Two different
solutions were explored, championed by two different Bureaus in the navy. At
this time the USN consisted of a number of different bureaus each run by a flag
officer reporting to the civilian Secretary of the Navy. There was no overall
naval staff for operations or synchronization of the different bureaus. Each
bureau was more or less a semi-independent fiefdom protecting its own interest
from other bureaus. So decisions were determined by committee and consensus, as
the Secretary had to rely on the advice of his bureau chiefs. The Bureau of
Construction and Repair championed a super-firing arrangement in which the
8-inch turrets would be placed higher and behind the main gun turrets. This of
course was the arrangement that was eventually adopted worldwide. However, the
Bureau of Ordnance wanted superposed 8-inch turrets. If you break down the words
the difference is immediately apparent. Super-firing means guns firing over
other guns, while super-posed means guns positioned or “posed” over other
guns. Because the blast effects of super-firing guns were unknown at the time,
the majority of the committee whose mission was to chose the 8-inch gun
positioning favored the superposed gun arrangement. As it was, it was not until
the French Henri
IV that super-firing guns were tried, however, the USN did
finally did get back on the right path with dreadnought construction, as all USN
dreadnoughts used the super-firing arrangement. It is interesting to speculate
the “what ifs” if the super-firing solution had been chosen for BB-5 and
BB-6 in 1895. Would the USS
Michigan come about five years earlier?
There were advantages to the arrangement. The
8-inch turrets had a far greater arc of fire than the wing mounted turrets in
the earlier designs. They sat higher and had a better field of observation.
Because of their height they were considerably drier. There was no blast
interference with the crew of the 13-inch guns below. Weight was saved since the
13-inch gun barbette protected the 8-inch guns as well, eliminating the weight
of barbettes as well as separate machinery for the 8-inch gun turrets. Fire
could be concentrated as one officer
controlled the fire of the twin 13-inch and twin 8-inch forward and one officer
controlled the aft fire. All of the advantages were there but there were very
significant disadvantages to the superposed arrangement. There was always the
old argument against putting all of your eggs in one basket, or in the case of Kearsarge,
two baskets. One lucky shell strike or even machinery failure could disable half
of the heavy and intermediate guns. The superposed 8-inch guns were fixed atop
the main turret. They could not train on targets independent of the 13-inch
turret below. The weight of each combined turret at 728 tons was almost twice
that of the main turrets in
Iowa
at 463 tons. This great increase in weight meant that the turret roller paths
and supports would have to be substantially improved, which ate into the weight
savings argument of the common barbette. If all four guns of the arrangement
were fired at the same time, the rearward pressure at 506 tons was more than
twice as much as in
Iowa
at 220 tons. Shock to the hull and ship’s machinery and fittings was also
increased. Because of this general support requirements had to be increased,
using up more of the weight savings. Probably the worst disadvantage came with
the increased height of the 8-inch battery above the water line. Although the
guns had a much better field of fire by being placed so high, the ship’s
center of gravity was significantly increased, making the design much less
stable. To reduce the center of gravity and increase stability the freeboard was
lowered to a level not far removed from the
Indianas
.
The Kearsarge and
Kentucky
had not even been laid down when design work on the following
Illinois
class was begun. In March 1896, three months before congressional
authorizations for the class, a special board was appointed by the Secretary for
the Navy to examine the best plan for installing the main armament and other
design features of battleships to be authorized that year. The board visited the
USS Indiana that had just been
completed in November 1895, the incomplete USS
Iowa that had just been launched that March, and studied the
design characteristics for the Kearsarge,
which was not laid down until June 1896. The board recognized that any
battleship design of a set displacement was a series of compromises and that any
feature could not be emphasized without taking away something from other design
features. The three major features were armament, armor and speed, as
characterized by machinery. Two other intertwined features were seaworthiness
and habitability.
As a starting point the board assumed that the displacement for the new
design would be the same as with the Kearsarge
design and that the required speed of 16-knots and same range would be approved.
The board departed from the previous three designs in recommending that the
eight-inch intermediate guns not be mounted. Their view was that a new 6-inch
gun with increased rate of fire could make up for the deletion of the 8-inch
ordnance and that the intermediate weapons complicated ammunition supply.
Further, the weight saved by deletion of 8-inch turrets could be employed to
enhance other features. However, the board wished to employ the same 13-inch
main guns as was to be fitted to the Kearsarge class. The main gun turrets were to be placed
as close together as the design would allow in order to limit the area to be
covered by the maximum width of armor. The secondary would be a new model of
6-inch rapid-fire guns, which promised far better performance from the slow
firing model found on the
Indiana
. Seven were to be mounted on each broadside in such a way as to allow four to
fire ahead and two behind.
An innovation in this process was to change the trial displacement and
requirements. With
Indiana
the location of the waterline and placement of the belt armor was determined
upon the assumption that the ship would carry only one-fourth of her total
capacity for coal. Even with the
Indiana
at half capacity, much less full load, the armor belt would be far more
submerged than as designed. For
Iowa
the calculations were based on one-third coal capacity. For the
Illinois
design the trial standard would have the coal capacity at two-thirds full
capacity. This decision placed the armor belt at optimum position for the most
likely scenarios in which the class might engage in combat. It is interesting to
note that post World War One Japanese designs also adopted a similar 2/3rds
capacity rule for their new warship trials. The board emphatically recommended
that no feature should significantly detract from the seakeeping qualities of
the design.
President Grover Cleveland called for two new
battleships but Congress authorized three. Congress further authorized an
increase of 1,000-tons in the new design from the preceding 10,000-ton Kearsarge
design. However, in large measure because of the board recommendations and
contrary to normal design practice, the three ships of the
Illinois
class actually were of almost the same displacement as the Kearsarge.
The
Illinois
design had exactly the same length and beam as the Kearsarge
but because of the closer placement of the turrets, the superstructure length
was shorter. As
Iowa
had addressed the low freeboard of the
Indianas
, so too did the
Illinois
address the low freeboard of the Kearsarges.
As with
Iowa
design, the
Illinois
design was given a high forecastle that ran to the aft end of the
superstructure. Some authorities have stated that the
Illinois
design was a copy of the British Majestic
class design. This is based upon the fact that the
Illinois
had her two stacks side by side, as in Majestic,
rather than the traditional one behind the other layout. This stack placement in
fact had more to do with the design requirement to have the main gun turrets
placed as close together as possible, rather than any deliberate copying of the Majestic.
To shorten the space, the machinery area had to be reduced in length. One way to
do this was to change the internal arrangement of the machinery. Two boiler
rooms of two compartments each were arranged back to back with the rear of the
boilers meeting at centerline. Instead of taking up length, the new boiler
arrangement took up width, shortening the length of the machinery spaces. It was
anticipated that this arrangement would also increase the efficiency of the
fire-rooms. Boilers were inboard of the fire-room working spaces with
coal-bunkers aligned along the outboard sides of the fire-room. This allowed
coal to be brought to the boilers over a shorter distance. The two rows of
boilers placed back to back along centerline determined that twin side by side
stacks would be fitted to vent the fumes from the boilers. Although the navy
hoped that the machinery layout for the class would be more efficient than the
traditional tandem design, the
Illinois
class never fulfilled this prediction. Their speed was not increased and they
proved to be coal hogs.
Another obvious external difference from proceeding designs was the shape of
the main gun turrets. All eight of the earlier battleships had the vertical side
pill box turret designs. In this feature the USN may have copied the Royal Navy Majestic
design, which had introduced the style of turret employed by the
Illinois
. The sides of the counterbalanced turrets still had a slight curve but the
forward face was angular and slanted back at a sharp angle. The USN had
recognized the ballistic benefits of slanted armor from before the time of the
American Civil War. This benefit was one reason that Confederate iron clads were
given slanted armor casemates, however, it was not until the
Illinois
design that the USN returned to employ the concept. Rather than cluster the
secondary guns together as in Kearsarge,
the
Illinois
spaced them out so that large numbers would not be disabled by a single shell
strike. Four were on each side amidships with another pair one deck higher in
sponsons on each side. The final pair was located in sponsons on main deck near
the bow. These two, along with the forward two in the upper deck sponsons
provided the required four-gun bow fire. The aft pair in the upper deck sponsons
provided the required two gun rearward fire.
Up to this point US battleship designs had two stacks
and a maximum speed of 16-knots but for the
Maine
class of 1902 a very harmonious three stack design was chosen. A much larger
power plant was incorporated jumping the shp from 10,000shp to 16,000shp
creating a maximum speed of 18-knots. The
Maine
class has one peculiar distinction that sets it apart from other
US
designed battleships, Russian cousins. The
Maine
BB-10 was the lead ship, laid down February 15, 1899 at the Cramp Yard in
Philadelphia
. Cramp had also designed and built the Retvisan
for the Imperial Russian Navy, which was laid down nine months earlier and still
under construction, so both ships were being built at the same yard at the same
time. Both shared many design features, had three funnels and used Krupp armor,
which was a first for a
US
battleship. As a further refinement of the
Illinois
class, the
Maine
class,
Maine
BB-10,
Missouri
BB-11 and
Ohio
BB-12, continued with a six-inch secondary armament. They inaugurated submerged
torpedo tubes for USN battleships, a rather dubious distinction, since
battleship launched torpedoes never scored a single hit in the history of the
world’s battleships. They were also very wet in any seaway. With the contract
for the
Maine
’s, there was a developing chorus lamenting the six-inch secondary armament.
Always emphasizing armament and armor at the expense of speed, the chorus
demanded the return to the eight-inch secondary gun armament. The next design
did indeed revert to the 8-inch gun secondary but also was a heretic to the
US
battleship design theory by also providing for a higher speed. This was the
lucky (for the modeler) BB-13 design known as the
Virginia
class.
Prior to the
Virginia
class, previous US designs with eight-inch secondaries had four gun broadsides
but for lucky 13 the American admirals wanted more eight-inch firepower with a
broadside but the question was how to provide another eight-inch gun turret
within Congressional appropriation requirements. Fortunately for the USN Teddy
Roosevelt was President and the USN was the darling of Teddy and the Congress
and there were very limited constraints on USN battleship designs. To provide
for a six 8-inch gun broadside, a big jump in machinery power and to maintain
the same protection standard of previous designs, some compromise had to be made
somewhere. The double turreted Kearsarge
had been a failure but maybe this time, designers could make it work. So, it was
back to the future with two story turret. Both main gun turrets had a fixed
8-inch gun house placed atop them with a separate twin gun 8-inch turret placed
on each side. Unfortunately it was old wine in a new bottle and the double story
turret of the
Virginia
had all of the drawbacks of the double story Kearsarge.
Since the eight-inch position was fixed atop the 12-inch turret, these secondary
guns had to train wherever the 12-inch guns were training, leaving only the
amidship twin 8-inch gun turret on each side to engage independent targets. The
turrets provided too much top weight and had a higher center of gravity, an
inherent threat to stability. As a result they rolled badly in any seaway and
thus made a poor gun platform. The gun crew of the lower 12-inch guns also
suffered concussive effects from the firing of the upper 8-inch guns and four
heavy guns could be knocked out with one lucky hit. The
Virginia
class had incorporated 8-inch guns but had kept the heavy 6-inch battery from
the
Maine
class with twelve 6-inch guns and twelve 3-inch guns.
There was a huge leap in displacement from the 12,846-tons of the preceding
Maine
class. The
Virginia
class tipped the scales at 14,948-tons, clearly placing the design in the
competition with the designs of the rest of the major navies of the world, once
and forever ending the latent coastal or limited battleship proclivities of
Congress. Part of leap was of course the increased firepower but another part
was a further leap in machinery weight. The
Virginia
’s power plant provided 19,000shp providing a top speed in excess of 19-knots,
which was a fast battleship for the time and with the limitations of triple
expansion coal fired steam plants. Twelve large tube Babcock and Wilcox boilers
provided the steam. Krupp steel cemented over
Harvey
nickel steel provided the armor with a belt of 11-inches maximum tapering to
4-inches at the ends. The main gun turrets had 10-11-inch armor and secondary
turrets 6-inches. The conning tower had 9-inches in armor. They were 441-feet
3-inches (134.5m) (oa) in length, 76-feet 3-inches (23.25m) in beam and had a
draught of23-feet 9-inches (7.24m) mean.
Previous battleship designs had been built in twos and threes but for the
lucky 13 class, five of the battleships were ordered,
Virginia
BB-13,
Nebraska
BB-14,
Georgia
BB-15,
New
Jersey
BB-16 and
Rhode
Island
BB-17.
Virginia
was laid down at
Newport News
on May 21, 1902, launched April 5, 1904 and commissioned in May 1906. All five
battleships were laid down within a span of five months from April to August
1902 and commissioned within a span of eight months, February to September 1906.
The class is sometimes called the
Rhode
Island
class as although numbered last was the first to complete in February 1906.
They completed with the then standard military masts but in 1910 these were
replaced with cage masts. With the introduction of USN dreadnought designs with
the
Michigan
class and with more and more of the all big gun battleships joining the fleet
in the building frenzy leading up to World War One, the battleships of the
Virginia
class were soon relegated to second class status. In 1917 when the
United States
declared war against Germany Virginia was in reserve and under refit at the
Boston Navy Yard but her skeleton crew provided a boarding party to seize a
German merchantman in
Boston
harbor. Upon completion of the refit, including removal of the 6-inch gun
battery, in August 1917 Virginia
joined the 3rd Division of the Battleship Force, Atlantic Fleet, She
was a gunnery training ship from 1917 into 1918 and had two stints as flagship,
in December 1917 as flag 1st Division and from December 1917 to
September 1918 as flag 3rd Division. In September 1918 the Boston
Navy Yard carried out another quick refit to make her ready for convoy escort.
She escorted two convoys before the war ended in November and the following
month served as troop transport bringing the Dough Boys back home from
Europe
. She served in this capacity until July 1919 but stayed in service for another
year until being paid off at
Boston
in August 1920. With the conclusion of the Washington Navy Treaty of 1922 Virginia
was caught up in the rush to scrap obsolete and obsolescent battleships and all
predreadnoughts fell in this category, Three of the five Virginia
class battleships were scrapped in 1924 but Virginia
and sistership New Jersey went out with
style, as both were sunk September 5, 1923 providing targets for Billy
Mitchell’s bombing experiments.
Niko
USS Virginia
Niko Produces two models of
Virginia
class battleships, the
Virginia
shows the design as built with the original military masts and the
Rhode
Island
shows the design as modified with cage masts. The
Virginia
kit is fantastic with superb casting, which is packed with incredible detail.
The hull casting represents Niko at
their best but there are some problems with the armament castings. With any
predreadnought, most of the detail comes with the hull. Unlike boring
featureless hull sides of later battleship Lucky 13 has hull sides festooned
with detail. You can start with the two anchor hawse placed low near the water
line with distinctively different horse collar shaped hawse. Just behind the
hawse, at deck edge are characteristic angled anchor washboards, as anchors with
stocks were cated up to the washboards as designed and only later were stockless
anchors raised to the hawse. Just aft of the washboards is a protruding 3-inch
gun sponson followed by deeply incised 3-inch QF tertiary gun position. Aft of
the A turret area the 6-inch gun positions appear. They are larger but just as
finely incised as the 3-inch positions and are clustered two forward of the
amidship 8-inch turret and four aft with a shelf on each side. The amidship
8-inch gun positions are on sponsons going outboard from the tumblehome sides.
At the stern are two more incised 3-inch QF positions on each side. The
Virginia
is bristling with guns like a porcupine, The
armor belt runs the length of the ship at the waterline but there is no
diminishment in width from amidship to the ends. The 01 level of the
superstructure as well as fore and aft conning towers are part of the hull
casting. You’ll find the same attention to detail with the superstructure
bulkheads as with the hull. Detailed access hatches
and equipment lockers abound, as well as two 3-inch QF slits. Another
nice feature is the hemisphere curve inwards at the amidship secondary turret
positions. The forward conning tower at the 02 level has incised vision slits.
If hull side detail is excellent, the deck detail is even better. The wooden
deck planking detail includes butt ends, which clearly places this Niko
kit above the common. Right at the top of the cutwater the detail starts with
support gussets for the forecastle bulkhead. Anchor gear detail is excellent
with detailed deck hawse and the characteristic USN square chain locker with
side protruding windlasses. Another proof of excellence for a 1:700 scale model
of a coal fired design is the presence of coal scuttles and these are in
abundance on the Niko Virginia.
Other forecastle detail includes fine deck access coamings and the standard twin
bollards. On each side of the A barbette are the first skylights with glass
detail and more access coamings. Amidships at the 01 level the parade of
skylights continues. There is a metal square deck surrounding each of the three
stacks so that will make an interesting contrast against the wooden planking.
Additionally there are large ventilator openings or skylights on the front side
of each stack metal deck, as well as circular base plates for J ventilator
cowls. Even the quarterdeck is littered with detail with an assortment of
windlasses, access coamings, skylights, bollard plates and other fittings.
Smaller Resin Parts
First and foremost is the armament. There is no getting around a double story
turret and these happy jacks on
Virginia
, both real and in kit form, really make a statement. The angular and curved
turrets of the
Virginia
are much more attractive than the rounded double story turrets of the Kearsarge
class. The 12-inch and 8-inch turrets share a common face, which expands
outwards before curving to the rear. Both positions have gun commander cupolas
and the aft crown of the 8-inch position has an access hatch. The flat apron at
the base of the turret has excellent support rib detail. The separate secondary
turrets have a different crown design with three cupolas and three hatches for a
very busy top. It appears that Niko
is in error for the crown of the 8-inch position on the double story turrets, as
photographs indicate that these crowns also had three cupolas just as appears on
the separate turrets, not two as presented in the kit turrets. This can be
corrected with cutting a slice of an appropriate plastic rod to add a middle
cupola. Another error are the muzzles of the 12-inch guns. Niko shows some sort of disc at the end of the muzzle, which
photographs clearly show was not there. At first I thought this was some sort of
resin pour remnant but that can’t be the case because the smaller guns don’t
have them. You’ll use eight of the nine 8-inch barrels provided. Oddly, these
barrels were all not of an equal length, so take the best eight and pair them up
with equal length barrels. The cure is simple enough with some gentle sanding.
The 6-inch casemate tertiary guns are very well done with a one piece circular
casemate with barrel fit within each hull recess and therefore can be trained at
any position desired by the modeler. The QF guns come in two patterns. Part 42
has taller 3-inch guns than part 43. Both types of QF guns are well detailed but
only part 43 is used, as they are inserted into the hull bow and stern
positions. Part 42 is apparently for the late career version of the Niko
Rhode
Island. There are two problems with the QF outfit. There are
eight hull QF positions but Niko only
provides seven mounts. Since the guns fit inside niches, a very simple answer is
to sand down the base of one of the part 42 guns. The guns are the same between
42 and 43 and only the pedestal height/design is different. A second easily
fixed problem is the absence of barrels for the four QF guns located at the 01
level, two per side. The
Virginia
design had twelve 3-inch/50 QF, eight in hull positions and the other four in
the 01 level superstructure. Niko
provides the positions but not the gun barrels. Again the
unused part 42 guns come to the rescue, as you can remove the barrels
from four of those for the missing 01 level guns.
There are six major superstructure parts. Two are the forward bridge with
levels 02 and 03 and the aft 02 level bridge. The 02 level forward bridge,
continues the conning tower from the 01 level and has an enclosed cabin behind.
The top navigation level is open, except for a photo-etched brass face. The
other three parts are identical funnels with aft face steam pipes, flared base
aprons and reinforcing bands. They are good parts that accurately depict the
minimalist approach of USN battleship bridges of the era. There are four large
gooseneck boat cranes, which were paired two forward and two aft. The forward
pair were landed during the refit for cage masts, but all four were fitted as
built. The cranes are nice pieces with crane engine and pulley detail. Both for
and aft military masts have a two part lower structure with the shielded
circular and open oval tops cast onto the mast parts. Platform supports are also
integral to the castings. Three resin runners contain mostly J ventilator
cowlings of various sizes with excellent base ring detail. Also included with
these runners are six two part searchlights, and four cable reels. Two more
resin runners round out the fittings and equipment with anchors, deck winches,
flag lockers and a few other fittings. Five resin runners provide a variety of
ship’s boats of various designs, including two different steam launches.
Brass
Photo-Etched Fret
As usual Niko provides a full brass
photo-etched set. There are some very nice relief-etched parts on this fret.
Some of the nicest parts are the bow crest, open navigation bridge face and roof
and shutters to show the 6-inch hull positions closed up. There are a lot of
braces for the forward and aft navigation platforms. Other nice ship specific
parts are boat chocks, yard arms, boat davits, small anchors, bow and stern
staffs and supports, accommodation ladders with platforms and trainable treads,
stack grates, stern platform, light QF guns with separate gun shields, block and
tackle, stern hull side life buoy racks and boat oars. Generic parts include
anchor chain, vertical ladder, inclined ladders, three runs of two bar railing
and five runs of three bar railing, each of which has a bottom gutter.
Instructions
Instructions are competent but nothing special. They consist of four pages and
the first page has resin and photo-etch parts lay-downs. Page two concentrates
in the bow assembly with two sequential modules and a separate inset of the
bridge assembly. Page three covers the amidship portion of the ship with two
sequential modules. Of course page four finishes up with the stern with two
sequential modules and an inset of the main mast assembly. At the bottom of page
four is a painting guide profile.
Verdict
The Niko USS
Virginia BB-13 1906, as built fit, has a beautifully cast hull
with superb detail with a good cast of supporting smaller resin parts and full
relief-etched brass fret. There are some minor, easily correctible, problems
with armament parts but the uniquely American double story turrets will come
through with all of their magnificent glory and splendor. Teddy Roosevelt would
be beaming with this baby.
The Niko Virginia BB-13 is
available from Bill Gruner of Pacific Front Hobbies, along with
all of the other models from the extensive Niko lineup. For that matter Pacific
Front has a full line up of about any model warship line produced anywhere
in the world.
 |
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
|
