by Michael Poirier
1/350 USS Montana BB-67 (Tamiya Kitbash)
Depiction of USS Montana BB-67 as she would have appeared in the summer of 1945, raiding the Japanese Home Islands. The ship is painted in modified US Navy Measure 32 camouflage pattern and shows minor battle damage from Kamikaze attacks.
The Montana-class battleships would have been the largest and the most heavily-armed battleships put to sea by the United States. The five ships of this class (Montana, Ohio, Maine, New Hampshire, Louisiana), the last battleships to be ordered by the Navy, were to be designated BB-67 through BB-71. Changes in wartime building priorities resulted in their cancellation in favor of the Essex-class aircraft carriers before any Montana-class keels were laid.
The primary armament of a Montana-class battleship would have been twelve 16 inch/50 caliber Mark 7 naval guns, which were to be housed in four 3-gun turrets: two forward and two aft. The addition of the #4 turret would have allowed Montana to overtake the Japanese Yamato as the battleship having heaviest broadside overall; Montana and her sisters would have had a broadside of 32,400 pounds vs. 28,800 for Yamato. Contrary to popular belief, the ships would not have moved sideways noticeably when a broadside was fired.
This 1/350 scale model is based upon US Navy archive plans and constructed from Tamiya 1/350 Missouri kit components, with many scratchbuilt hull and superstructure parts. Also incorporates GMM and Tom’s Modelworks photoetch parts.
I would like to thank my good friend Matthew Scott for his excellent photography. Also, I would like to thank my wife, Suzanne, for her patience and my children, Nathaniel, Berit and Jared for their help in building and painting the diorama seascape.
