USS Long Beach CGN-9 guided missile cruiser (1/700) - FINISHED

[bianfuxia]

 

This will be my second build in the Interceptors GB alongside my 1/72 JASDF F-104.

 

The USS Long Beach was a single-ship class of nuclear powered guided missile cruiser. While it did have ASROC missiles for anti-submarine warfare and some guns for self defence, its main purpose was to shoot down enemy aircraft.

 

For that purpose it had a pair of twin launchers forward for Terrier SAMS (pictured below) and a twin launcher aft for the even bigger and longer range Talos SAM.

 

 

Here's the kit contents:

 

 

Here's a few basic stats out of interest, including comparison to missiles you may be more familiar with:

 

Terrier - ceiling 80K ft, range 17nm/32km, nuclear warhead option, combat record 1 x Mig-17

Talos - ceiling 80K ft, range 50nm/92km, nuclear option, combat record 4 x MiG (two from this ship) (also could be used to fire at shore targets like radar installations)

 

Standard - ceiling 80K ft, range 40-90nm/74-167km, a pair of these downed the Iranian airliner in the tragic mistake by USS Vincennes in the 80s

 

Sea Dart (UK missile) - ceiling 60K ft, range 40-80nm/74-150km, according to wiki seven shootdowns in the Falklands War and one of a missile during the Gulf War.

 

This is interesting too:

 

I'll get started on this build in a week or so.

 

 

Edited March 15, 2021 by bianfuxia

[Col.]

Delighted to see a seaborne subject in this GB

[bianfuxia]

Well I have to admit I was a bit daunted by this and I have pulled it out, opened it up, looked at it blankly and packed it away again more than once since starting this thread.

 

Buuuuut....you gotta start eventually.

So I did, last night, with some dark grey on all the deck surfaces. One of the issues has been deciding which grey to use for the sides. As far as I can tell Vallejo"neutral grey" is the nearest to the correct colour. Well, I have about ten shades of grey in Vallejo, and another couple in Tamiya, but guess which I don't have?

 

So I suppose I either wing it with something else or I go out to the shop for a bottle of neutral grey. We'll see.

 

This paint looks bad because (a) of the light and (b) because it's only the first coat and Vallejo (like many others) really needs two coats to look good.

 

 

Also big kudos to Dragon for packing this safely - the tip of the hull had this sturdy plastic thing protecting it:

 

 

[Col.]

Delighted to see you getting started on this one

[bianfuxia]

Well, just as I was about to get cross because the hobby shop didn't have a can of AS-7 neutral grey, what did I see but a can of actual Haze Grey which I guess is the proper colour for this thing. So I bought it and sprayed everything this afternoon. I will have to touch up the darker grey areas I'd already painted but that's easy enough. Spraying that big hull was a lot faster than brush painting it would have been too. I feel like the colour is a bit too blue but I'm going to run with it.

 

[bianfuxia]

Still planning on this one making its first cruise by the deadline, ready to "intercept" some MiGs and Tupolevs at long range. "Sir we have two contacts at 100 miles"

 

"One hundred miles? Forget that! Take them with Talos. Or Tartar. Or Terrier. Take them with ALL THREE!".

 

Hahaha.

 

So today I re-did all the decks and other horizontal services with the dark grey I'd used before. When I sprayed the Haze Grey on, they obviously suffered a bit.

 

Don't worry about the mess on the main hull - that bit will be covered by the superstructure. I used that spot to hold the blob of paint I was dipping from. I might have to tidy up one or two spots but let's see how it dries up, first.

 

Now that this is done, I can begin construction. Slowly but surely, and actually it won't take long now until the next slow step which is the PE. 

 

There isn't much on this one - no railings, which I always find the hardest and slowest. Just some antennae, some gangways (steps?) and a few bits like that.

 

 

[dnl42]

I just saw this! Great start! 

[bianfuxia]

Now I'm finally getting somewhere. Should be reasonably straightforward for a little while now. 

 

So far I've only done what you can see here, because I ran out of time today and was a bit confused by the instructions on the radar array.

 

More tomorrow with a bit of luck.

 

 

I did the windows with a very thin black marker pen - my standard technique, which seems to work well. You can see where I scraped something off with a knife. I will do a round of touch-ups at the end. Those green drum things are the fire control radar for the two forward missile launchers (the medium range Terrier, later Standard).

 

These two guns are nicely done - the barrel can move:

 

The famous story about this ship is that President Kennedy inspected it in 1962 when it was pretty new. He, of course, had relatively recent combat experience from the South Pacific as a naval officer. He is said to have commented that the all-missile ship might be vulnerable to motor torpedo boats - as Captain of PT-109 he probably knew a bit about that. So they added these two single 3 inch guns amidships. Other than these the ship only has missiles.

 

As I was building I realized I had not sprayed a whole sprue, so I had to do that too before I can go too much further.  

Edited February 10, 2021 by bianfuxia
typo

[Col.]

You look to be making good progress on this one now  

[bianfuxia]

 

Not a huge amount to show but an important step completed.

 

I always try to put these circle deck markings on fairly early in a build, before all the small parts are attached, and definitely before the guns or launchers which they protect are installed. I did the flight deck while I was at it, which was a pretty tricky job but worked out ok in the end. 

 

Dragon must have been on an economy drive the day they designed this kit because the decal sheet is tiny and I practically needed a magnifying glass to carefully navigate the blade through all the closely-printed decals. Also they seem to have missed an entire step from the instruction sheet, as there is no guidance on how to build the rear missile launcher. It's pretty straightforward but you do need to drill a hole through the deck.

 

Why? I would get it if this was one ship of a class of many and there were some variations. But this was a one-hit wonder, so why not just mould the hole? It's not like there aren't plenty of other holes on the deck.

 

Anyway, it only took a second and so now I am ready to really rip through the rest of the basic construction.

 

I am toying with the idea of displaying the rear launcher in an active mode - slewed out to the side with its enormous fire control radar doing the same, and maybe some cotton wool smoke as it launches a Talos off to hit some high-flying Myashiev over the North Atlantic...

 

Anyway, one step at a time.

 

The big radar array is not finished, btw. There are four squares to go on there but the first one fell off so I want to think up a better way to approach them.

[bianfuxia]

Discovered some sabotage at my dockyard! 

 

Not terrorists, not environmentalists, not disgruntled dock workers. No! A foe far more insidious...a Curious Daughter with FumbleHands. Imagine my annoyance and amusement (ratio about 70:30) to come into my room and discover glue all over that mid deck and a piece of paper stuck to it. She denies all knowledge of this, but I am fairly certain I didn't do it myself and I know, as presumably many of us do, that literally THE LAST THING ON EARTH my wife is interested in is anything to do with a model ship. 

 

 

Anyway no harm done. I had it cleaned up and repainted in about ten minutes. I also noticed I had put that red circle in the wrong spot on the ASROC, by misinterpreting how the holes in the deck worked. I thought the ASROC must have been offset and the other hole was for an antenna or something. Tuns out the part has two offset connecting pins. 

 

Not for the first time, and undoubtedly not for the last, I thought, hmmm, why do I never read the instructions? I mean, it's not like they're RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME.

 

Anyhow this is where it's at now after a few more mini-sessions here and there.

 

Still confident I will have it done by the end of the GB.

[Col.]

Well saved. it could have been so much worse!

[bianfuxia]

Things are moving along nicely now.

 

Today I worked on some smaller parts here and there, and focused on the missile launchers. 

 

 

The missiles are actually pretty big - nearly as long as this Sea King I have sitting around from another completed ship:

 

USS Long Beach apparently carried 52 of the long range two-stage Talos missiles (the all white ones below) and 120 of the mid-range Terrier two-stage missiles (the other ones):

 

With the front two launchers installed, the ship is really looking ready for business:

 

 

 

Edited March 1, 2021 by bianfuxia

[Col.]

This one certainly is looking open for business now 

[bianfuxia]

Apart from the rear missile launcher and associated fire control units, the plastic on this is basically done. 

 

 

After that, I pondered how best to tackle the small amount of PE. Started with a quick blast of Haze Grey:

 

 

Then assembled the tools...

 

And I managed to do two ladders - on the turret things ahead of each gun mount - before it was time to wrap things up for the day.

 

I'm not sure the angle the ladders are at is strictly correct, but they were a bit too long to go on vertically and once the first one went on, I figured it was better that they both looked the same. They're actually tiny and barely noticeable with the unassisted eye.

[bianfuxia]

I finished the PE today, though it still needs to be touched up with paint and also there are several staircases (gangways?) remaining on the fret but not mentioned in the instructions. 

 

It was in some ways relatively easy, but I am pretty sure I spent more time on the floor looking for parts that spontaneously launched out of my hand than I did installing the parts on the ship.

 

The three gangways either side at the front were really easy, though I am not convinced they actually look that good.

 

 

Toward the rear there were several ladders and then these two platforms, like wings, out the side (one is sharp, the other out of focus, sorry for that but I take these with my phone).

 

I dropped one of those wing platforms on the floor and generally made a bit of a mess of things, but bear in mind when you are looking at the photos that these parts are pretty small and fragile. You dare not breathe while you're tweezing them, and it has to be done with superglue so you only really get one shot at it.

 

The little radars on top of the latticework things are plastic, the rest is PE.

 

Now these are another story - these complex antenna on top of the gun mounts gave me all kinds of trouble. I dropped both of them, one side twice. They took AGES to find - grey small thing on grey carpet.

 

Also they didn't really look like how they look in the instructions.

 

I made such an unholy mess of them I'd probably prefer to remove them, but, of course, SUPERGLUE. So I am (literally) stuck with it I guess.

 

It looks nowhere near as crappy with the naked eye, inasmuch as it's practically invisible with the naked eye. At least my one.

 

 

The main problem is that the diameter of that circle is way bigger than it appears in the instructions so you can't get the thing to look like it should. 

 

Anyway, all i need to do now actually is a few decals and add the rear missile launcher and related components. This thing is actually more or less finished. It could use a decent amount of touch up paint too.

[dnl42]

She's looking fine! 

 

Your namesake for the adjacent city looks ready for action!

[bianfuxia]

Into the home stretch with this now. 

 

Today I made this armature (I guess it's called) for the rear-mounted Talos missile that's going to be launched off to intercept a Badger or a Bear.

 

 

The base sits under the hull and the straight part lines up with the launch rail.

 

 

I made sure to have the fire control radars pointing in the same direction. Either side of the big ones are some smaller ones which I imagine should be angled up as well as slewed out to the side. The top of the launcher unit is not finished.

 

Then I drilled a hole in the back of the missile - kind of amazed that worked given how small the missile is - and placed it on the end of the wire.

 

 

After quite a while mucking around getting the angles right, or as near to it as I could, I then added a bunch of cotton wool. I only used one bud of it, and then ripped it up a bit so it stretched out more.

 

 

On the one hand, it's obviously cotton wool. But on the other hand, it looks kinda cool. So I am happy enough with it.

 

Tomorrow I will take some decent photos outside in the sun and post them in the gallery, right after I do one round of touch-up paint. For that I'll spray a small amount from the Haze Grey can into a container so I can then brush paint it on where it needs it.

 

Last pic is not very good, taken with my phone in a dark part of my room, but I added it so you can see how big the Long Beach was.

 

At 219 meters in length, it's only 30 meters shorter than the Izumo, the big carrier you see there (#83) which is a current JMSDF ship. It's nearly 50 meters longer than the Ticonderoga class cruisers of the USN.

 

Pretty much every ship you see there apart from Long Beach and Izumo was done in the epic "In the Navy" GB this time last year (Izumo was in the carriers GB in 2018).

Edited March 14, 2021 by bianfuxia

[TimJ]

Great build. The missile launching is a nice touch. 

[bianfuxia]

 

Well, this one's done and out to sea, ready to shoot down Bears and Badgers at 100 miles or more. Bit of a rush job in the end because all the pics I took this morning were out of focus so I had to do them again. Just squeaked it in the gallery. I touched up the PE and other spots with some brush-applied Haze Grey from the spray can and I set it on the famous Blue Towel Sea for some long range launch practice.

 

A very enjoyable build. The only disappointment is I seem to have lost the smaller "9" decals for the rear of the ship, and somehow I managed to let the radar arrays get a little bit skewiff. Never mind - I think it still looks pretty cool and it's a cool addition to my fleet of ships which, thanks to COVID lockdowns and GBs, just keeps expanding.

 

More pics are in the gallery but they're here too for completeness.

 

Thanks for following along and I hope you (a) enjoy the pics and (b) give it a go yourself! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[dnl42]

Very nice! 

 

As you say, there's no mistaking it for smoke, but it is a cool action shot! 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Bianfuxia, I only found this thread a few days ago. It never occurred to me that a warship could be included in an 'Interceptor' GB, but when you explained the ship's purpose it made sense. I've actually seen this ship. She anchored off Fremantle in Gage Roads back in August 1978, along with the carrier USS Enterprise.

     This is a very good build, and that Talos missile launch is a nice touch. One thing though, I think the two guns are 5-inch 38cal. It's interesting to see the ship included with your others, to get an idea of her size. Well done. Regards, Jeff.

[bianfuxia]

On 3/18/2021 at 2:45 PM, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Bianfuxia, I only found this thread a few days ago. It never occurred to me that a warship could be included in an 'Interceptor' GB, but when you explained the ship's purpose it made sense. I've actually seen this ship. She anchored off Fremantle in Gage Roads back in August 1978, along with the carrier USS Enterprise.

     This is a very good build, and that Talos missile launch is a nice touch. One thing though, I think the two guns are 5-inch 38cal. It's interesting to see the ship included with your others, to get an idea of her size. Well done. Regards, Jeff.

thanks Jeff! 

 

That would have been something to see, this and Enterprise together. I had a model of the Enterprise when I was a kid. I thought I'd seen Dragon had one in 1/700 but i've never been able to locate it to actually buy it.

 

thanks for looking in, hope you're doing well!

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday Bianfuxia, my original photo was taken from the north mole with a 35mm Minolta. This photo is digital photo of the original while still in the photo album, hence not the best quality. The original was dated Saturday 12th August 1978. The ships departed a little later the same day.

 

As this is your thread and not mine, please feel free to delete this if you wish, and no hard feelings. Regards, Jeff

[bianfuxia]

23 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Gidday Bianfuxia, my original photo was taken from the north mole with a 35mm Minolta. This photo is digital photo of the original while still in the photo album, hence not the best quality. The original was dated Saturday 12th August 1978. The ships departed a little later the same day.

 

 

As this is your thread and not mine, please feel free to delete this if you wish, and no hard feelings. Regards, Jeff

No it's super awesome, thanks for posting it!

 

I think I can just make out Tomcats on the front of the carrier, right? 

 

What a cool photo!