by Paul Helfrich
1/2400 USS Arkansas BB-33 (GHQ)
This is the six-turreted Wyoming-class battleship USS Arkansas, BB-33, in the 1/2400 pewter model by GHQ.
USS Arkansas was commissioned in 1912. She served with other American battlewagons attached to the British Grand Fleet during World War 1. She was modernized in 1925 and then again in 1942. Her 12 inch guns supported American troops storming Omaha Beach on D-Day, and she later supported amphibious operations in Southern France as well. Transferring to the Pacific, she supported the invasions of Iwo Jima and Okinawa. That's quite an impressive war record, for a ship that was basically obsolete before the war even started. Along with many other great old ships, she met her end as part of the Bikini atoll A-bomb tests in 1946. She survived Shot Able, an airburst, but the submerged burst of Shot Baker (this is the one you always see pictures of, with the gigantic water column dwarfing the surrounding ships) was almost right under her keel, and she sank within minutes. Along with other ghostly warriors like the German cruiser Prinz Eugen, the Japanese battleship Nagato, and the USS Nevada, she rests to this day on the bottom of Bikini Atoll. Apparently it's now safe (at least in terms of radiation) to dive on these wrecks, for the truly adventurous....
The model depicts her 1942 configuration. The GHQ line has allowed me to add a good number of the more obscure US battleships to my collection without spending a fortune.
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