Anybody know of some decent side-view drawings of the USS Enterprise after her October 1943 refit? All the sources I can find are either grainy as hell or the wrong angle or something just doesn't seem 'right' with them (usually they're missing several anti-aircraft guns or other things).
Since it's my first-ever attempt at making a full-sized ship for the bucket and we seem to be lacking any late-World War Two U.S. aircraft carriers, I thought I'd try and kitbash the Big E out of Midnightnova's Yorktown posted on the site. Any tips or advice for a first-timer?
The two models are rather promising, though I wish the first one would give me a view of the starboard side around the island. The second model is also helpful, though still seems short a few 20mm's. I think there may a platform the modeler missed just aft of the quad 40mm to the rear of the bridge that accounts for that, but some sources date it to her '43 refits and others to her '45 so I'm not certain. The number of 20's on the catwalk on the island also seems in doubt: 8 or 12 seem the most common cited, though I've seen everything in-between.
Unfortunately the 3-view Russian one isn't really accurate: too many 20s to be her September 1945 refit and too many quad 40s to be any of her other refits.
I must confess that I'm glad to find that looking at models for a reference isn't something that only new guys do. For such a famous ship, though, I'm a bit surprised at how little there is about her.