Guys and Ladies I have a problem. I want to build a support fleet for a “Bird Farm”
So there are two types of Oilers I need . a Tanker for the ship’s appetite and another for Avgas! You see there’s a problem with all my tankers. They are 1/160 or 1/87 in scale. yeah, Big !
I have all types Except any that served in the Navy in the wars or after. The only Collier I have ( Yeah the Navy burned coal too ) is in paper and it’s 1/325 ! So converting it won’t help.
It’s like freight carriers. You Can find the U.S.S. John Brown and other " Liberties" but where’s the Victories? The Revell Haskell and others can be modified sure enough, still doesn’t solve the problem.
Oh, the " Bird Farm " will be the U.S.S. Midway. I have the Gearings both in WW2 fit and the Fram Versions. I also have a " Turner Joy ."( The Newest Ship in our group.) I believe she was what they called then a "destroyer leader ". Sure didn’t look anything like us. We bristled with guns ( Before Fram) and she had these weird round topped singles and not very many either!
Her, ( the Turner Joy ) had almost what was called a Yacht Sheer. The Curve fore and aft of the deck. Shoot, with a bone in her teeth she looked downright mean, in a sparse sort of way.
But back to tankers, Will I have to do my battle group in the varied scales that Revell put out? I really don’t want to do it in 1/700. I can’t see those well enough to bother.
Now remember this. In a previous post I mentioned I have a severe allergy to resin dust . If I build anything in that, it’s full breathing gear and a tyvek Moonsuit !
I assume your Midway is post SCB-110. What kit will that be?
Otherwise, straight deck Revell, at 1/540.
In which case the Lindberg Kennebec class fleet oiler will serve well. The claim is that the scale is 1/520. One of our forum mates recently built the Round2 reissue.
i have about 4 of those Lindberg oilers with 1 built as is, 2 being kitbashed into 2 different classes of oilers & the 4th waiting to be kitbashed into a ww2 Cimarron Class Fleet Oiler.
So you want something in a bigger scale than the Lindberg kit.
You didn’t mention the Revell Mission Capistrano/ J.L Hanna, so I’m guessing that is already a part of your solution. It seems to me that a couple of them could be worked together to get a jumbo-ized T-3 like Passumpsic as modified in the 1960’s. (Just suggesting that makes me want to break out of my normal 1/700 world and give it a try)
Also, Heller made a 1/400 kit of the French tanker sisters La Seine and La Saone. Those ships were smaller than the USN fleet tankers, and might be sectioned a bit more to represent a Patapsco class AOG.
BlueJacket Ship Crafters has a T2 world War II era tanker at 1/16th scale, that can be either converted for navy service, or commercial civilan use after the war.
I have a similar plan. I will build a task force of one carrier, one battleship, one heavy cruiser, one light cruser, two destroyers, one T2 tanker and one submarine. All in 1/350 scale
The T2 will be made from scatch in styrene and maybe wood, using plans I found on-line.
Are you going to do Waterline or Full Hulls on yours? I have decided on Waterline with a refuel op going on in Moderate seas. Tin Can on one side and Carrier on the other. This will probably be my last Diorama too. T.B.
I will be building all full hull to be displayed on stands, however, I have played with the idea of a diorama which, being from Idaho, the T2 tanker Idaho Falls refueling the USS Idaho to port and the USS Boise to starboard.
