Shipbucket

While perusing Karle94’s USS Lexington-Class Battle cruisers I realized that their progression mirrored that of the Tennessee and Colorado-Classes. However a drawing of Lexington with mid-war refits was missing. I contacted Karle and obtained his permission to post.

CC-1 Lexington Class
During the first two decades of the Twentieth Century, battle cruisers were built by Great Britain, Germany and Japan, initially as an expansion of the armored cruiser type and later as a kind of fast battleship. The U.S. Navy had avoided the type until the great "Preparedness" movement of 1916 spawned a program to built six ships.

The six battle cruisers of the Lexington class, authorized under the 1917-1919 building programs, were the only ships of their type ever ordered by the U.S. Navy. Intended as fast combat scouts for the battle fleet, these large ships had a prolonged development history. Their original 1916 design was to displace 34,300 tons with a main battery of ten 14-inch guns, relatively light armor and a speed of 35 knots. By 1919, the plans had been recast on the basis of World War I experience to produce larger ships armed with 16-inch guns, better protection and a slightly lower speed of 33.6 knots for the 44,973-ton vessel. .
Construction of the Lexington class ships was held up by other priorities during the First World War, and none of them were laid down until mid-1920. The following year's naval limitations conference in Washington, DC, had these expensive battle cruisers, and their Japanese and British contemporaries, among its main targets. Following adoption of the Washington Treaty, their construction was stopped in February 1922. The treaty allowed the conversion of two of the battle cruiser hulls to the aircraft carriers Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3). The other four were formally cancelled in August 1923 and scrapped on their building ways.

Taken from: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... p/cc-1.htm

Depicted bellow are:

1) Lexington as she might have appeared as commissioned.

(Wikipedia gives her stats as )

Ship Type: Battlecruiser

Displacement:43,500 long tons (44,200 t) 44,638 long tons (45,354 t) deep load
Length:874 ft (266.4 m) overall
Beam:105 ft 4 in (32.1 m)
Draft:31 ft (9.4 m)

Installed power:180,000 shp (130,000 kW)16 water-tube boilers
Propulsion: four shafts Turbo-electric drive
Speed: 33 knots (61 km/h; 38 mph)
Range: 10,000 nmi (19,000 km; 12,000 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)

Complement: 1297 (1326 as flagship)

Armament:
4 × 2 – 16-inch/50cal (406 mm) guns
14 × 1 – 6-inch/53cal (152 mm) guns
4 (later 8) × 1 – 3-inch/50 (76 mm) AA guns
8 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

Armor:
Belt: 5–7 in (127–178 mm)
Barbettes: 5–9 in (127–229 mm)
Turret face: 11 in (279 mm)
Turret sides: 6 in (152 mm)
Conning tower: 12 in (305 mm)
Deck: 1.5–2.25 in (38–57 mm)




2) Lexington as rearmed with 5in/25cal AA guns (ca 1931):


3) Lexington as rearmed/refit (ca 1943/1944).

The following features were effected In the 1943/1944 refit:

1) The Conning tower walk-around has been enclosed and windowed as with the USS Missouri .
2) The aircraft catapult has been removed, along with the stern crane.
3) The search light scaffolding was removed from the after funnel.
4) The 5in/25cal AA guns on the boat deck were replaced with 40mm Bofor’s guns in quad mounts.
5) The 6”50 casemate guns were removed and their hull positions sealed up.
6) 5in/38 dual purpose mounts place closely to the 6” emplacements.
7) 64/20mm Oerlikon Anti-Aircraft Guns place fore, aft and amidships.
8) The Mk-19 Fire Control Directors where removed and Bofors 40mm emplaced in their tubs.
9) Mk-34 Fire Control Director installed atop the foremast.
10) The main cage mast removed and replaced with an anti-aircraft and after director tower.

_________________
My Avatar is
French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

Christ she's a big barge

_________________
“Close” only counts with horseshoes, hand grenades, and tactical nuclear weapons.
That which does not kill me has made a grave tactical error

Worklist

Source Materiel is always welcome.

Yup, nearly as long as an Iowa-Class and a tiny bit broader.

_________________
My Avatar is
French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

Cool, I really like the plan views especially.

A lot of the parts you've used are sadly very out of date and could use a refresh (though I hate to be the guy who says this). Check the sheets in my signature. Same goes for the colors, I think you've used the old camo colors that are still on the old drawings in the archive.

A cool "penultimate" version might be a mid-1945 drawing at Buckner Bay off Okinawa, complete with Measure 21 or 22 and some of the newer radar countermeasures antennas, an SP height finder on the mainmast, and maybe some of the advanced (for the time) Mk.63 GFCS-equipped 40mm mounts for anti-kamikaze actions.

Maybe CC-1 ends her career at Bikini atoll in 1946 painted bright orange.

_________________
USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Awesome!

_________________

MS State Guard - 08 March 2014 - 28 January 2023

The Official IJN Ships & Planes List

#FJB

Nice

I have a suggestion. Wouldn't be better for AA-guns firing arcs to remove the boat cranes and fit another -longer- pair more inboard, closer to the superstructure (something like the cranes of the USS Alaska) on the 1943/44 version?.

_________________
My Worklist
Sources and documentations are the most welcome.

-Koko Kyouwakoku (Republic of Koko)
-Koko's carrier-based aircrafts of WWII
-Koko Kaiun Yuso Kaisha - KoKaYu Line (Koko AU spinoff)
-Koko - Civil Aviation

That is what I did for my 1943 version of the Lady Lex. The US Navy seemed quite happy to ditch lifeboats in favour of life rafts.

David, here are some pointers I have picked up looking at the Colorado, and Lexington class evolution.
I find the lack of torpedo bulges somewhat distressing.
You should add a lot more liferafts, both on the superstructure, top of the turrets and on the sides.
The Lexington would have had 4 torpedo tubes close to the waterline on the stern, not on the deck.

If you want the right colors for that measure, look at this drawing:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/17nj06fotbtnv ... 5.png?dl=0

Nice work, its good to see what these ships may have looked like if they had been completed and refitted during their lives.

Would any more work have been done on them during the 1930s?

_________________
Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

_________________
My Avatar is
French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.

Yes most likely the changes between 1933 and 1944 would have been the product of successive refits keeping pace with technological advances, etc.

But that's Karle's story to tell

_________________
My Avatar is
French Vice-admiral Louis-René-Madeleine Le Vassor de La Touche, comte de Tréville
The original spelling of my last name is: LaTouche.