Ahoy and Happy Holidays, Mates!
In less than a month, when the New year rolls around, we will be beginning the next campaign in our friend Garry Beebe's honor, the "Flattops Campaign"....are you all as excited as I am??!!?? I can hardly wait for this month to be gone to bring in the New Year with an Armorama bang! How about taking some time here to tell me about what you all have planned, so that I can get a handle on this one a little early...and Skipper, please, can you create us an album in the Gallery like the one that you did for Dreadnoughts? ...So how about it, ye salts...tell me what's up yer sleeves for this one!...arghhhh!!!
Gunny


PS...there's still plenty of room for more entrants, and also, still plenty of time to hop aboard the Dreadnoughts! campaign bandwagon and have some fun on the seaside~

As I’ve said before I’ll be building the USS Hornet during the battle of midway.
She will be the biggest kit I’ve built. The problems is its much bigger then the boxes I use as my work space so things may get interesting.

I hope to start on her as soon as the campaign starts.

I have plans to build the Soviet aircraft carrier "Kiev" as she appeared outside the coast of Norway in the mid-80s. I have the Trumpeter 1:700 kit and she will be built pretty much OOB. BTW, this is my first ship model in twenty something years :-)

Cheers
Erik

Ok!...sounds good, gentlemen...that's two project descriptions, so with 50 entrants, we should have 48 more listed here, if my math's right...c'mon mates, tell me what you have planned for this next most excellent campaign!
Gunny

I'm hoping to do a Bogue class escort carrier escorted by a Fletcher class destroyer and a Type IX u-boat in a hypothetical Battle of the Atlantic dio. In 700 scale.

I plan on making the old Revell USS Yorktown, CV 5 not the newer CV 10. I'm not even 100% sure what scale it is, just that it's been around since the late 60s early 70s. I plan on making it as colorful as possible so it will be pre-war.

I plan on making the Revell 1/700 ESSEX. Hoping someone else is too, cause I a going to need lots of help! Havn't built a ship (non counting DDD sub) since the Missouri in the early 80's.

Ive got the newish Trumpeter USS Ticonderoga with Toms Model Works PE. Building it for my grandfather, who served on it during WWII.

Regards
Matt

I'm going to do a Dollitlte Raid dio with the Enerprise and Hornet. All in 1/700 scale. I've got some TBDs from a Lexington kit that I'll use.

Kenny

Hi Mark,

I'm planning on undertaking the biggest modelling project in the 30 years I've been at this. I'm building the 350 scale Hornet (waterline), the day before the raid, I've got the B-25's and the Wildcats, I've got Devestators and Dauntless TB, but am unsure of which ones where carried aboard. I've got limited reference, and will have to rely on you experts. What sets this one apart for me, is the amount of PE I've acquired over the last couple of years. At least 6 White Ensign Model sets, I'll keep a running photo library, now possible that I've signed on as a member of the 'A' guard....can't wait to start (first I've got to finish my HMS Dreadnought)

Frank

Well I had planed on the 350th scale Trumpeter Kunze.. But due to other things going on in my life I am going to build a 1/720 Ronald Reagan.

Frank,
If I'm not mistaken, the Hornet carried it's full complement of naval aircraft. You could display the airwing in the hanger bay.

Kenny

Hi Kenny,

Considering that two of my WEM PE sets are for the hanger deck, you can be assured that all hangar doors will be wide open!

The photos I've got shows three or four Wildcats at the fore of the flight deck, with the forward elevator down and the line of B-25's tied down with tarps directly behind. The photo is useful, in that it shows a very weathered B-25 at the front of the row, with what appears to be oversprayed sections of the starboard wing.

Most of the questions I'll pose will be for the hanger deck, and for navy crew uniform colours.

Frank

Here you go Frank. This may help.

[url]http://www.mrfa.org/uniform.history.htm[/uniform history]

Kenny

Let's try this again.

[Unifrom History]http://www.mrfa.org/uniform.history.htm[/url]

Kenny

One more time.

Uniform History

To start with, I will be finishing my half-built Tamiya 1/350 Enterprise with many of those nice new Trumpeter aircraft. Ahhh, I knew procrastination was a good thing...

And for my "legit" build, I will be doing either the 1/350 Kuznetsov or the 1/350 Nimitz. I know, bold plans. Well, it's time to try on large scale ship building. (SWMBO said I can display whatever I finish on the Fireplace Mantle...holy moley!)

I just ordered the Trumpeter 1/700 USS Yorktown CV10 for this campaign.

The Lexington that I've spent 6 months researching and gathering material for.

Well my plans may not meet with everyone's taste but I plan to build a 'Z - plan' 1946 Graf Zepplin (Revell 1/720) with pe railings and up-dated AA fit together with an airwing of Me-262T's, Ar-234T's and Fw-190D-9t's from 'Pit-road' and WEM.

I will also add a Z39 class destroyer as escort.

This should be intresting as these will be my first ship kits in a very long time and also my first atempt at a water dio.

Ahhh I can taste the salt.

Ciao
Luciano

Thanks for all of the replies, Mates...
I now can see that we will be having a VERY interesting group of entries in this next campaign/group build here at the saltier side of the Big A...it's almost here, men, and I can only hope that Flattops! will go as well as Dreadnoughts! has been going...thank you all for your continued cooperation and participation...
Gunny

It's done!
You can find it here:
Garry Beebe's Flattops Campaign Gallery

As for my entry it will be Dragon's 1/700 USS Essex in a waterline dio - but that's all I can say for the moment

Cheers

Skipper

Well, now I did it. I stopped by the LHS this weekend and ended up buying the 1/700 DML USS Lexington CV-16 kit. So now I have that AND the Trumpeter 1/700 Yorktown CV-10 kit to choose from.
I will probably start out with the Lex since the paint scheme is a lot easier.

My campaign plan...is captured in this pic

Hr Ms Karel Doorman (Dutch light aircraft carrier)





Actually the ship is a WWII British carrier, the HMS Venerable:



The Netherlands used the ship with this old style deck till 1955 when it was refitted with a new deck, new tower and more self defence weapons. This was completed in 1958. The Karel Doorman served till 1968 when an accident happended: fire in the engine room. Repair would cost too much and the ship was sold to Argentina. It saw some action in the Falkland war.

I'm not sure which of the 2 versions I will built. I will probably use the heller 1:400 scale kit of this type aircraftcarrier.



If I will convert to the late Dutch version I'll have to do a lot of scratchbuilding on the tower (I think I need to replace it completely) and the deck + AA guns.

Some more pics of this beautifull ship

early:





late:







Martin

Thanks, Rui!
I knew that I could count on you again to help us out (as always! )....and about this mystery entry...how long are you gonna keep us in the dark about this one!
Gunny