You have good taste.
A small word of warning.
$76 buys you something about 12" long and 3" wide.
I suppose that doesn’t really matter but I am a little surprised at the cost.
I guess I’m a bit confused as to the appelations of ships of war. I note that the Russian cruiser Varyag was laid down in 1898 and its lengh was 425’ 2". The Russian battleship Tsarevich was laid down a year later in 1899 and was shorter in length at 388’ 9" than the cruiser. Can someone elucidate a bit about the relationship between war ships’ classifications and their size? I’d be grateful.
The above sizes would translate into 14.577" and 13.328" respectively.
Mike
There have been plenty of exceptions, but in general warship types are identified on the basis of their function - not size. And in pre-WWI days, the most obvious clue to function was armament. The Varyag had a main armament of 6" guns, and thus a cruiser. The Tsarevich had a main armament of 12" guns, and thus was a battleship.
Sometimes things do get confusing. The modern US Navy’s Spruance-class destroyers have the same hull form and dimensions as the Aegis-class cruisers. Some sources call the WWII Scharnhorst and Gneisenau battleships; some equally good sources call them battlecruisers. Some WWI British battlecruisers were longer, and had bigger guns than some battleships. And the Weimar Republic built three warships that it called “Panzersciffe,” which had no English equivalent, so the British coined the term “pocket battleship” to describe them.
But if you base your description on main armament gun caliber, you’re uhnlikely to be far off - unless you’re talking about the post-WWII period, in which case all bets are off.
John,
Thanks for the edifying information. I had a feeling that the armament might be the determining factor in what these ships are called. It just seems a bit strange to me since I’ve always thought of battleships as the largest (excluding aircraft carriers and submarines) warships with cruisers next followed by destroyers. Always like to learn something new.
Mike
For the 20th Century (even with the aberration f the Washington Naval Treaty years) a handy Rule-of-Thumb is that Cruisers have main batteries under 10"/250mm on caliber. Battle-cruisers and Battleships have larger main batteries, typically starting about 12"/300mm.
“Light” versus “heavy” cruisers split at the 7"/175mm dimensions; smaller being “light”, and larger being “heavy.” USN dimensions were 6" for CL’s, and 8" for CA’s.
To split the Battle-cruisers (some folk do not hyphenate, and use “Battle Cruiser” to reflect the “BC” designation some use) from BB’s, one can look at the armor belt thickness. If the armor belt thickness approximates the main battery caliber, it’s safe to call the vessel a battleship. If it’s closer to ha;f the caliber, it’s probably a BC.
All that being said, the correct term is what ever the ‘owners’ call it. We saw this in the Cold War times when USN called ships smaller than Destroyers “frigates.” While at the same time, the Royal Navy was calling vessels larger than DD’s but smaller than CL’s “frigates.” This water was muddied even further when the navies created dedicated (mostly) “flagship” versions of Destroyer and Cruisers and called them “Leaders.” Since these were ship classes of their own, it meant the “Leaders” were mismatched to the ships they were to “lead.”
The closes we have come to commonality was with ships our good Professor mentions above. Where the stock Spru-can destroyer hull had one more hull section added (mostly, sorta) to make into a Ticonderoga-class cruiser. This made the Tico’s very much a “destroyer leader” in having a similar suite of sensors and weapons. All of which changed when we needed to add Aegis to our cruiser fleet to better serve Carrier Battle Groups
Or some such thing.
Gentlemen,
Don’t forget about the designation by the British and Soviets of the Invincible and Kiev class aircraft carriers as “Through-Deck Cruisers”, a most disingenuous designation to get these ships around budgeting and treaty limitations.
Mac to clarify things in the USN’s WWII fleet you had two different cruiser designations CL was for Cruiser Light and CH for cruiser Heavy. We never had Frigates or Battle Cruisers take the Atlanta class for instance it was armed with 8 5" turrets but had less armor protection than a Helena class Heavy Cruiser. Now in todays Navy we have destroyers cruisers and frigates all the same size and with the same armament which makes it all confusing as all get out.
Mike,
The designation for heavy cruiser in the USN was “CA” not “CH”. Also, I have never seen the “BC” designation for battlecruisers, only “CB” for the U.S. Lexington class.
Gentlemen,
To add to the list of upcoming new models, Brandon Lowe at Free Time Hobbies has listed a preorder for a new USS Intrepid in 1/350 scale in her SCB-125 configuration to be released soon, and he has informed me that Dragon will be releasing a 1/350 USS Pennsylvania in her 1944 configuration later this year. What a time to be a ship modeler!
Bill
Having the Intrepid in that configuration will definitely be cheaper than taking the Trumpeter Intrepid in WWII configuration and converting it to her current configuration.
That’s good news about the angled-deck Essex-class kit - though the price is out of my range. Why on earth are the manufacturers taking so long to do one in 1/700?
Just to keep things straight, the U.S. Navy did operate a big class of ships called “frigates” during WWII. They were officially designated “patrol frigates” (PF). They were built by the Maritime Commission (which normally was responsible for merchant vessels). Many of them were manned by the Coast Guard.
The closest that the manufacturers have come in 1/700 is the USS Antietam, which is an interesting configuration by itself, but is not the SCB-125 conversion. I believe but am not sure that the SCB configuration can be found in resin in 1/700.
Now, if the Intrepid is followed up by a Midway in any configuration, I will be a happy man!
Bill
I forgot to add that Trumpeter has listed a 1/350 USS New York, BB-34 and a 1/350 USS Texas, BB-35 for release this year. However, with the delays in releasing some of their other 1/350 kits, I am not really sure if they will come out this year or not. I would like to build one of these battleships in the near future… Heck, I would even volunteer to do a kit review for either of them!
Steve
To my understanding the usually definition “battleship” has more to do with armor than armament. it’s a ship meant to have a chance at surviving an engagement with it’s own ilk.
The Washington Naval Treaty defined the term “Capital Ship” as having 10" guns or greater. The treaty made no mention of armor, including both battleships and battlecruisers as capital ships.
Bill