Our first project is the conversion of CinC's Brooklyn class CL into the St. Louis variant with twin 6 inch/45 caliber mounts. Designed and built during the late 1930's, the Brooklyn class light cruisers were to be America's answer to the Japanese Mogami class. The Mogamis were built with 5 turrets of three 6-inch guns each. The Mogami and Brooklyn classes shared a similar layout with three turrets forward and two superimposed aft. The world had no knowledge that the Japanese ships were planned to exchange their triple 6-inch turrets for twin 8-inch turrets in the late 30's. In the meantime, the USN realized the value of increased AA defenses and simultaneously recognized the new 5 inch/38 twin mount for the high quality piece of ordnance that it was. As a result, the last two of the class, USS St. Louis and USS Helena were chosen to be rebuilt with an O-1 deck on which to place four of these twin mounts, two to each side. Two additional ships, Savannah and Honolulu were later also converted to the same design. However, none of our 1/2400 modeling companies seem to produce the subclass Brooklyn with the twin mounts. At this point, the music comes up and we cue in our project for this issue, conversion of the CinC Brooklyn to the St. Louis variant. REMINDER As with any of our projects, reference to Conway's Warships of The World 1922 to 1946 or any other scale drawings of St. Louis will greatly assist you in achieving the proper appearance in your model. The first element in this project is to acquire four identical twin 5 inch/38 turrets from either CinC or GHQ. You will also need four quad 40mm gun mounts in tubs. Check your spare parts inventory as both manufacturers provide these turrets and mounts in several of their kits. The other item to get is a CinC Brooklyn, preferably not built. Kitbashing is much easier with new kits, or kits from which all paint has been removed. One very effective way to remove paint from metal models is to obtain a can of acetone from your local hardware store. Use an old metal tray (plastic will melt) such as an old ice cube tray. A wide mouth baby food bottle works well for microarmour while a long olive bottle does well for ships. Use metal forceps to handle the mini. Place your mini into the container with just enough acetone to cover it. After soaking for a minute or so, gently scrub the mini with an old toothbrush. Acetone will strip everything off including not only paint, but also any glued-on parts. Have fun retrieving all loose parts from the acetone with your forceps. WARNING: WHEN USING ACETONE, PERFORM YOUR PAINT STRIPPING IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA, PREFERABLY OUTSIDE, AND AWAY FROM ANY LIGHTED FLAME OR CIGARETTE. ACETONE IS HIGHLY VOLATILE AND WILL EASILY IGNITE. Using a sharp scraping tool, such as a dental chisel, carefully remove the 5 inch/25 single open mounts and the after 40mm mounts from both sides of the vessel. Plane or file the decks flat in the midships region. Try not to leave any grooves or gaps in the deck line as these may come back: to haunt you later. On the bridge superstructure at the old O1 level, you will find a single open mount on each beam. Carefully remove these with a vertical cut set at 45 degrees from the center line. The bridge superstructure can now be cemented in place. In your supply of Evergreen modeling plastic, locate two sections that when laid out flat are the same height as the O-1 level of the model where the stacks arc located. These two pieces should span the distance from the old O-1 level to the side of the ship. These two pieces will have a beginning length of 7/10ths; of an inch. Make a 45 degree cut across each end so the pieces of plastic will be trapezoidal in shape. These two pieces become the extension of the O-1 level out to the beams. The forward end of these two pieces will be under the bridge with the after end approximately half way between the after stack and the aft end of the O-1 level. The after superstructure on the converted vessels closely resembles the top two decks and directors above the forward superstructure of a Cleveland or Baltimore class vessel. Check your spare parts box for one of these and make a flat cut horizontally just under the top two decks. Cement this piece in the center of the O-1 level half way aft of the after stack. If you don't have this piece, find a piece of plastic the same thickness as two deck levels. Cut to a length of 1/4 inch and trim to the same width as the center O-1 level. Cement into place half way between the aft stack and the aft end of the O-1 level. Two pieces of plastic dowel rod the same thickness as the two forward directors can be cut, trimmed, filed, and glued into position to represent the two after directors. Note that they are staggered in height. Glue your four acquired 40mm mounts onto the main deck. Two gun tubs should be located one at each side at the base of the bridge structure and immediately forward of the new O-1 levels. The other two should be port and starboard on the main deck level just below the aftermost gun director. The four 5 inch/38 twin mounts arc installed two on each side of the vessel at the fore and aft ends of the new O-1 level. For appearances, a CinC open launch or work boat should be cemented on the deck between the two 5 inch/38 mounts on each side. Spray paint the base coat on your miniature, then finish in the appropriate camouflage scheme. Enjoy the looks of your friends when your new modified Brooklyn appears in your next battle. Incidentally, I would be delighted to learn of your experiences in kitbashing. Larry Bond seems to believe I'm a one of a kind, being the only person with enough insanity to try kitbashing on this scale. That's not so. To paraphrase a line from Star Wars, "There are others!" Right, Jeff K in Cleveland and Brooks R. in Indianapolis? (Jeff and Brooks, thanks for your input and project suggestions.) If you have any "pet" projects you'd like to hear about, please write to me care of the Naval SITREP. Please be sure to enclose deck and side views of your prospective project. You may find it detailed in a future issue. Happy Gaming! Kitbash Corner: Part 1: Basics of Kitbashing BT Back to The Naval Sitrep #3 Table of Contents Back to Naval Sitrep List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1995 by Larry Bond and Clash of Arms. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history and related articles are available at http://www.magweb.com