Hi to all - while largely an aircraft builder I am contemplating a future build.
My late Father in law served on the Maddox DD 731 from the time of the Kamikaze hit off , Formosa I believe, until post war occupation at Yokosuka.
Thinking of Converting Dragons' Gearing into a Summner by sectioning the hull .
Am I correct in understanding that Gearings were stretched Summner class ships by approximately 14 feet for additional fuel tankage ? I have all the Squadron Destroyer books to aid in this. I am looking for input / opinion on this from you guys who are more well versed in this genre.
Also looking for time appropriate paint schemes for the Maddox - my very minimal investigation of this aspect indicates that the Maddox was painted in Measure whatever ( dazzle or confusion scheme) but perhaps repainted in straight haze gray
or such after repair in Ulithi ? Please pardon my ignorance regarding terminology as I am primarily into Japanese aircraft.
Interesting enough In the small universe thing after marrying my wife I discovered that my father's younger brother served on Maddox 's sister - ( Mansfield? ) in company with the Maddox at Yokosuka post war.
Thanks in advance for any input - viability , reference , paint schemes etc .- that any may offer .
Richard

Bump

Hi Richard,
I can't really provide much in the way of response to your questions about the Maddox as 'm just getting into model ship building myself. What little I've been able to glean so far is that the Maddox is considered a "late" Sumner class so the bridge structure is different from the "early" Sumners. But I haven't found out what changes were made. There's a website, I believe it is navsource.org, that has a lot of official photos of USN ships. It might be a starting point for you. You may want to check Wikipedia too. I know a lot of information on that site is questionable but if you look at the end of the article for the Maddox it lists the reference sources for the entry. Those may also give you some places to check. I'm in the same boat as you, my father-in-law served on an attack transport in 1945 and I haven't found a kit even close to use as a starting point. I wish you luck.
John

Hi Richard,
I don't know anything about Sumner class destroyers other than they made a lot of them. For your build, you can buy a post war Sumner class destroyer in resin from Iron Shipwright. I think the main difference between WWII and 1950's were the armament but you could always raid the Gearing kit for the war fitout. The resin kit would allow you to avoid having to do the hull stretching exercise. I will be honest in that IS models are challenging. I have only built one and can say the hull and main superstructure and turrets were fine but the rest pretty much needed replacing.

cheers
Michael

John & Michael -

Thank you both for your input - There is a large scale resin Summner class available but it is too big - in 1/350 shortening the Dragon Gearing seems to be the only option but a quick serch of the major retailers and e bay seems to indicate they are getting scarce - no worries as I'm sure they will make another batch one day and this project is well into the future.

Thanks again - Richard

Well, Richard, buying a scarce copy of the kit at an inflated price now will guarantee that the manufacturer will reissue it right away!

Richard, sorry, I'm an airplane guy too so I don't know Sumners from Winters. However, you might try tracking down Steel Navy. It's a model ship building forum. I used to be part of Ship Model Mailing List but I think they've passed on. Both were very helpful helping me build some ship models.

Tim - you bet - and if I did find / buy one you could also bet that before the glue was dry on a sectioned hull they would release a Sumner Class version !

Richard