my grandfather sailed on the porter in WW II and has recently expressed his wishes to me that he would like to have model of the ship.since i do models i thought i would give it my best shot.he is 85 and in relative good health(thank god) but i haven’t been able to find one of the porter.i believe the 356 is the sister ship but not sure any and all help is greatly appreciated.thanks and have a good one
There is no specific kit of the Porter but you could get a kit of a Fletcher class destroyer and mask the 800 on its hull or make your own decals. Tamiya makes a Fletcher for $9 and Tamiya also makes a 1/350 scale for $27. You could mask the 800 or make your own decals. Make sure that you modify the kit if it needs it to represent a late war destroyer because the Porter DD-800 was commisioned on June 24, 1944.
Here is a link to Great Models which has the two kits
http://www.greatmodels.com/index.cgi
And one too wikepedia which has some useful info on the Porter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Porter_(DD-800)
David
David
The PORTER was a square-bridge Fletcher. The Tamiya 1:350 Fletcher is a round-bridge variant. Trumpeter makes a 1:350 square-bridge Fletcher as the Sullivans, but it is rife with errors and would be a rough place to start. If you choose to go the 1:350 route, your less expensive and less aggravating route may be to go with the resin offering of the USS Johnston by Yankee Modelworks. Pair that with a set of hull numbers from Iron Shipwright.
To get an ‘accurate’ square-bridge Fletcher out of the Tamiya 1:350 kit, you will need to buy the Trumpeter Sullivans kit for the superstructure. Tom’s Modelworks made a resin conversion set, but it is OOP. L’Arsenal is supposed to be coming out with a set of replacement guns, stacks, and PE. You will also need a copy of the Floating Drydocks Fletcher-class plan eBook for all the details you will need to add.
you could just buy the tamiya kit 350th scale and build oob. at 85 even in good health 700th is too small for old eyes. and at 85 memories are a little fuzzy around the edge, so round or square is too close to call in the twilight of life.
I’m interested in this thread because I have my own Fletcher Project coming up (DD-670 USS Dortch). There’s a bit of a family connection in this build too. I have the Tamiya 1:350 Fletcher kit, which I’ve already messed up. I also have some Tom’s Modelworks PE and White metal pieces for it, which haven’t been touched yet.
My question is, what are the inaccuracies in the Dragon 1:350 USS The Sullivans?
Semper Fi,
Chris
It is the Trumpeter Sullivans, not by Dragon.
To begin with you need to replace ALL the armament; 5-inchers, 40mm, 20mm, and torpedo tubes. They are either overscale or underscale. The Tamiya 5-inchers are also underscale. You don’t have enough 40s or 20s in the Tamiya kit to kitmingle them. My choice would be L’Arsenal.
Not a requirement, the roll-off depth charge racks arn’t too bad, but the waist throwers are just lumps on sticks. When you replace the waist racks with PE the stern roll-offls look bad - do them too.
You need to replace the stacks. They have a big honkin’ misshapen grille on the side of them. If you have the left overs from the abortive Tamiya - use them.
The main decks need to be scraped and sanded to remove the molded on walkway. Ditto for the superstructure decks. The searchlight/pelorus bases on the bridge need to be sanded down. Replace lost details; bollards, cleats, hatches, anchor chain, etc.
On the plus side the painting directions are pretty good - just don’t use their recommended color selection.
Thanks for the info,
It sounds like the most useful part of the Trumpeter kit would be the square bridge Superstructure. The Tom’s Modelworks set has the components to adjust on the Roll off depth charge racks and waist throwers. I can use the Tamiya stacks. I know I have white metal for the 40 and 20mm’s. However, I don’t know about the torpedo tubes. Thanks for the info. You’d figure that an accurate square bridge Fletcher wouldn’t be much to ask for from the manufacturers, but it’s not the case.
Semper Fi,
Chris
Oh, and there’s really four “patterns” of stack, so you have to research which ship you want.
IIRC, the east-coast built ships have two heights, but with ellipitical sides meeting circular fore & aft sections; the west coast ships use a different base, with an elliptical f&a section, exceptign San Diego, where the stacks are slab-sided.
Which is probably why none of the kit makers is very definitive–just too many choices.
the main problem i’m coming across is that there is almost no pics of the porter and trust me i have searched,the only ones i’ve been lucky enough to find are either so out of focus that you can’t see any detail or their so small same problem.
Don’t know if you’ve seen these but they are OK.
The above pic is ice that formed on it during a patrol in the Kuriles
Hre is the link where I found some most of the pics.
Hope these help.
David
ww2modeler thank you so very much for the pics . no i think i might have seen the top pic once but it was half the size you found it .may i ask as to where you were able to find those.
p.s. thanks for the photos my grandad said his (ship)was definetly sea camo when he was aboard
Here’s the link, you scroll to the bottom and click on photos for more pics, also, google USS Porter DD800 and you’ll find lots more.
http://www.destroyersonline.com/usndd/dd800/
David