USS New York BB-34
by Paul Helfrich

1/720 USS New York BB-34 (Revell Germany kitbash)

The USS New York, along with her sister USS Texas BB-35, introduced the 14" gun (10 of them, in five double turrets) to the US Navy.

She had a long and distinguished service history, including WWI, the Atlantic Theater of WWII, and then the Pacific, for the Iwo Jima and Okinawa campaigns. She was expended as part of the Bikini Atoll A-Bomb, after the war. Her sister Texas is preserved as a museum ship.

My model is a kitbash of the Revell-Germany 1/720 Arizona. This is a harder kitbash to make them some others I've done - it's easier to go forward, to the New Mexicos, Tennessees, or Colorados, or back, to the Nevada and Oklahoma. The reason is that the Arizona hull length and shape are pretty close to all those other classes, but for the New York and Texas, it's noticably too long. Another reason is that all those other ships carried four turrets, like the Arizona, but the New York and Texas carried five. So that's another major change you have to make in kitbashing BB-34 or 35.

I made a number of cuts in the hull and deck to get the right shape. The result has a bit of a Frankenstein's monster quality if viewed up close, but it's OK from a distance. The model is mostly kit parts, sheet styrene, and bits from my junk box. Q turret is scratchbuilt, the other four are from the kit.

I painted her in the camouflage she wore in 1944, immediately prior to her transfer to the Pacific.