K.S.S Grand carrier (250m long aircraft carrier) + 2 model aircraftcarriers.

[kapteenipirk]

This ship has been sitting around for far too long, but a part of this project took quite a while to complete as it came a little out of nowhere.

 

Juts like with the Sub/sea-plane fleet stuff, there are some elements on this project that are linked to one-another in such a way that it made more sense to do this as a separate. Plus, carriers have always been a bit more special to me and there's plenty to talk about this one.

So, as the title says, i will also be showcasing a couple model aircraft carriers as-well with this project. These are a 3D paper-model of the IJN Akagi and a 1:350 scale model of the Graf Zeppelin. These are the carriers that this project mixes and matches together.

 

I created this carrier to be a sort of ultimate carrier that can operate pretty-much every and any carrier aircraft imaginable...so, i made this one a whole lot more massive compared to the older carriers that where mostly built on top of my battleship-hulls (some carriers in real life where built on top of/around battleship/battle-cruiser hull's. Akagi and Lexington (CV-2) are perfect examples of this. then there's also the Independence class light aircraft carrier's that where built on hulls of Cleveland class cruisers).

Because of the size of this thing, i used tweackscale a little more heavily than usual, mainly on the hull. This increased scaling allowed me to make this the most detailed carrier, and one of the most detailed ships in general.

 

Lifeboats, lights, working doors, and other small details missing in my previous carriers are all there on this one.

The doors lead to: Hangar, flight deck, island lookout platform, aft and fore deck, and deck sides witch are walkable from end to end.

 

As you can probably make out from the picks, the ships main hull follows a similar design to the Akagi, while the island (bridge) is similar to the Graf Zeppelin. The lifeboats are actually inspired by the Yamato, witch had little tunnels from where the lifeboat could be moved out using a little crane moving on rails bolted to the tunnels ceiling.

Defensive armaments are pretty-much like they are on the Graf Zeppelin, with the turrets integrated to the aft and fore hull and the dual-purpose guns aft and fore of the island.

 

This time i wanted to try and create some actually useful lights and symbols that would help people when landing on the carrier.

And i have to say, those IJN style light show up really well during night time. Basically they are just small wing-panels with lights shining on to them.

 

NOTE: as is usual with these carriers, the aircraft-elevator on this thing likes to "sink" over time, so be careful when landing as the elevator may not be so flush with the deck anymore after a couple landings. But, the carrier should be big enough for people with the right amount of design/flying skill to operate from the remaining flight-deck.

(the bit's on the flight-deck are from the Corsair i tried to land on the deck...i kept on hitting the edge or going off the deck)

I had forgotten to strut up the four segments of the elevator (1 panel per gantry-rail), witch made landing hell (hit the edge and your done) and operating the elevator a game of chance (will it work or will it bounce me upside-down).

 

(this pick shows an older version with less landing-gears and fewer engines)

You can see that this carrier uses steerable landing-gears this time, this allows the carrier to "crab" itself off the runway, but that's not advisable as the carriers stern tends to rotate faster than the bow, so is suggest just turning like a car instead. for that you will have to click on one of the landercans on the rear (not sure) and say control from here to turn off the crab style movement.

 

One other thing you may notice, is the cleanliness of the hull, no more engines sticking out like a sore thumb or flat hull sterns. Instead the engines are inside the hollow stern and bow section, as-well as in the torpedo protection bulges.

Just like with the K.S.S midway, this one is a little lacking in friction/drag when in water (you can thank tweackscale), so because of this, speed is quite high on this one, and it can also turn on pretty-much on the spot when going slow.

NOTE: during my test's, i noticed that the faster you go, the slower the carrier turns, so keep that in mind when you need to change course.

 

 

Alright, i think it's time to show off the paper and plastic carrier models.

1:350 scale 3D papermodel IJN Akagi

Spoiler

This one i have to say is probably one of the most fun projects ever, and one of the longest. It was over 30 A4 sheets of work over few days of work from pretty much morning-till evening.

It was definetly worth it, as before this, i haven't had even a single proper model of an aircraft carrier...well, before i made the Graf Zeppelin that is.

I actually ment to do this model a long time before i actually made it, but im glad i didn't, as the result probably wouldn't have been as good...partly due to skill, and mainly due to me not using thicker paper back then.

Compared to the more professional models that you can buy in kit form or in digital form, this one is pretty simple, witch is pretty perfect as i like more simplified models.

And i mean seriously, some of the ship papermodels that people design and build are pretty insane, and look like someone took a Tamiya 1:350 ship model and gave it a paper looking texture.

 

 

A little closeup of the carrier planes i made:

6x Nakajima B5N2 "Kate" Torpedo bomber.

2x Aichi D3A1 "Val" dive bomber.

5x Mitsubushi A6M2 "Zero/Zeke" fighter.

 

Taught id also show you what the Akagi looked like originally, as you might be surprised that just how much it changed during the modernization.

Yep, quite different isn't it. The Akagi originally had 3 working flight decks, the one on top was for landing, and the mid and lower flight decks where for taking off. The carrier also had two turrets from cruisers, just in-case the carrier ended up in a duel.

The lower and mid flight decks where removed because modern monoplanes couldn't take-off from them, and the big cruiser turret's where removed when they realized it might be a better idea to keep the carriers far far away from gun-duels all together (huge, cumbersome and very fragile).

 

1:350 Trumpeter model of the Graf Zeppelin

Spoiler

This one is BY FAR the most time consuming model project i have ever done, and perhaps the one im the most proud of.

This is the part of this project that took a really long time, and also was the one that kinda came out of nowhere. I really wanted to do a 1:350 model of a carrier for a long time, but never really had the money or chance to do so, and since this is Finland, selection can be a little limited, especially now. The reason i even made this carrier, is i was looking for a model locomotive for a diorama project of mine (the BR 52 i made a post about), and while doing a search for one, i found a news letter saying the hobby store in Tampere i love to visit, was about to closer it's doors for good in the next 2 weeks, so i went there and picked up some models from what was left. Then i went to the model railroading store close to it to ask if my Crocodile locomotive had gotten fixed yet, and during that visit i learned that he was closing for good as-well, in the next 2 months, and from there, i picked up this model as i taught it was the perfect chance to get one of these carrier model at a reasonable price.

As you can probably guess, that was one of the worst days of my life .

(that's just the first batch, i went for second and even third visits to both places before they closed forever).

 

I started the model by first assembling the screws (propellers) and rudders to the hull halves so that i could get all of them cleanly spray-painted red.

After that i painted all the other parts while they where still attached to their sprues. Then it was just a matter of assembly and some light extra weathering as-well as adding of a few decals.

The planes where made by painting and decaling them before assembly. It's a lot easier when you have a proper hold and you don't need to have you fingers where the paint goes.

 

The carrier came with 20 aircraft from witch i have assembled 3 of so far, the rest are sitting fully painted and decaled waiting to be assembled.

With this model, i for the first time tried to do some weathering, some of the weathering of-course came as a bi-product of the window painting session (put black paint on a few windows then wipe off extra paint around it...rinse and repeat for the next few hours. This works on windows that are indented). The major bit's are the funnel, AA gun barrels, and flight deck...they are supposed to show that the ship has seem some action.

The ship was supposed to have a grey flight-deck and some camoflauge on the around the ships sides, but i taught a wooden deck would look nicer, and once i got to the point i was supposed to paint on the camoflauge, i looked at the ship and taught "i think that looks pretty nice as is". To spice things up a tiny bit, i added a couple decals from my Warhammer 40,000 transfer's i still had laying around (got rid of most of miniatures a long time ago as they where just sitting inside a box: i still have a couple fully painted miniatures on desk tough.

 

 

The aircraft you see here are:

Messerschmidt BF-109 (early).

Fiesler: FI-something i can't remember right now.

JU-87 Stuka (early).

 

The ship came with a huge amount of photo-etched parts that i left out cause im not very good with those, but there are still some around, mainly the radars and lifeboat ramp rail thingies.

I will most likely do some improvements on the weathering at some point as there are some blank spots around, but overall im very happy with the end result on this one.

 

Technical specks:

Armaments: 7x abrams turret and 6x Goalkeeper MK.3.

Top-speed: 71 m/s

Length: 255.6m

Width: 55.5m

Height: 45.2m

Parts: 849

Mass: 15,180 tons.

 

Action groups/IR stuff:

Actiongroup 4 is for engaging thrust-reverses on the main engines, you WILL need these if you want to slow down in less than an hour.

in the IR window you will find controls for the aircraft elevator, island warning light, and radars.

 

Mods used: Tweackscale, Infernal robotics, and BD-Armory

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7d68vsy30t4o0c0/K_S_S GrandCarrier.craft?dl=0

 

And there it is for you, the pride and joy of our ever expanding navy. I hope you enjoy it

[Cupcake...]

Looks a lot more elaborate then my effort that's for sure!

 

Cupcake...

[Kerbalstar]

Much more work than I would put in! Great job @kapteenipirk!

[kapteenipirk]

12 hours ago, Cupcake... said:

Looks a lot more elaborate then my effort that's for sure!

 

Cupcake...

Thanks .

5 hours ago, Kerbalstar said:

Much more work than I would put in! Great job @kapteenipirk!

Thanks .

 

This carrier may seem really complicated and elaborate, but when you get down to it, it's actually really simple...i mean literally the biggest challenge for me was figuring out how to make it as good looking as it is .

[degenerate]

Awesome design and detail, wonder how long it'll be before we have aircraft carriers pulling 255km/h here on earth eh

[kapteenipirk]

14 hours ago, degenerate said:

Awesome design and detail, wonder how long it'll be before we have aircraft carriers pulling 255km/h here on earth eh

Thanks .

I dunno, probably one day, but i have a bit of a feeling they won't be traveling by water anymore .