- Florida -
USS Florida – Tyler
4.0 units, 28 seconds, American Dreadnaught battleship
The USS Florida (BB-30) was commissioned 1911,
modernized in the 1920s but ultimately scrapped in the early 1930s as required
by the London Naval Treaty. The design was a stage within the long series of
progressive improvements of US battleships being built two at a time in that
era. Her sister ship the USS Utah (BB-31) was re-designated as a result of the London
Navy Treaty as a target ship and later used as an anti-aircraft training ship
leading up to WW2, and was famously sunk by Japanese aircraft at Pearl Harbor
being mistaken for an active duty battleship.
The attractiveness of the Florida in terms of combat
viability within the hobby stems from the heavily casemated and bulged hull,
and the five turrets allowing for a myriad of possible armament configurations
(two of the turrets lie extremely far towards the stern). The ship like all
similar American ships has 2 viable drive shafts and only 1 rudder, and as such
may not turn as briskly on average as the German 3 screw, 2 rudder similar
sized contemporaries. The ship is very beamy especially with the very wide
bulge. This bulge when modeled correctly makes me somewhat weary of ram damage.
The hull is from Model Ships Ahoy and is very high quality in terms of accuracy
and thickness of fiberglass especially along the sides. This ship is
disadvantaged in that it is 28 seconds and 4.0 units rather than 4.5 units
which would allow for either an additional ½ pump or 75 round magazine, or the 5.0 units that the otherwise very similarly
designed USS Arkansas would get.
I float tested the ship to see where the water line
would fall, it is visible in pencil in this picture just below the step of the
bulge. The painter’s tape is a flexible way to lay the ship’s ribs out without committing
to cutting until you have it how you want it. I didn’t have 1/8
inch tape so the stringer and a few other areas are a bit wider with the
tape but ultimately will be cut to correct size. There are casemate gun turrets
at multiple places within this hull in areas that get to otherwise be solid.
This is a rough cut for the hull, I will trim I tup
later. I wanted to try fiberglass board decking. It is fairly heavy and I’m
still not sure what I think of this method. Both the deck and subdeck are 1/16
inch thick to save weight.
This picture is showing the various deck sections and
the ways I chose to subdivide it. I am trying magnetic strip for deck seal,
again this is fairly heavy so hopefully the ship doesn’t become to top-heavy and imbalanced. The superstructure is fairly
minimalistic so that should help keep the weight low. I placed the shafts and
motor mounts and epoxied them in, these are ABS 3D printed modeled after the
now unavailable Traxxas Villian mounts I have used
for years. It will run twin 1.5 inch cast props. You can
see black abs plastic rib backers in a few locations, this is where I will
screw on the internal armor. The bow and stern water channeling is accomplished by tacking in a thin sheet of plastic and
filling in foam blocks to take up most of the space followed by a 2 part liquid
plastic mixed with micro-baloons to fill the gaps. Similarity the midships
water channeling is a ¼ inch tall strip of ABS plastic, in this situation you can
kind of see where the underlying gray foam blocks are sitting. The pump will
sit between the motor mounts.
Turret locations with barrels and barrel mounts in
place. I will start with stern sidemounts on either side, the notch in the deck
allows the stern most one to get to nearly 20 degrees depression, the other is a
bit flatter. The elevated funny gun will have below water line potential. Superstructure
is Abs plastic for the most part. There are some stainless
steel piano wire parts and some brass parts as well as the cage mast
which I ran string through pre drilled holes and cris-crossed them, later
coating it with epoxy to hold form.