USS Oregon by Digital Navy

The "Old Steel Navy"

Battleship No. 3 USS OREGON

'McKinley's Bulldog'

in 1:250 scale

by Digital Navy

Part 1

By Jeff A. Cwiok

Model photographs by the author ( unless indicated )

Digital Navy kit photo

HISTORY

from: Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, vol V, pg 167-168

Oregon (Battleship No. 3) was laid down 19 November 1891 by Union Iron Works, San Francisco, Calif.; launched 26 October 1893; sponsored by Miss Daisy Ainsworth; and commissioned 16 July 1896, Capt. Henry L. Howison in command.

After commissioning, Oregon was fitted out for duty on the Pacific Station, where she served for a short time. Leaving drydock on 16 February 1898, she received news that Maine had blown up in Havana harbor the previous day. As tensions with Spain grew, on 9 March Oregon arrived in San Francisco and loaded ammunition. Three days later she was ordered on what was to become one of the most historic voyages ever undertaken by a Navy ship.

Oregon departed San Francisco on 19 March for Callao, Peru, the first coaling stop on her trip around South America to the East Coast for action in the impending war with Spain. Arriving at Callao 4 April and departing several days later, her commanding officer, Capt. Charles E. Clark, elected not to stop at Valparaiso, Chile, for coal but to continue on through the Straits of Magellan. On 16 April Oregon entered the Straits and ran into a terrific gale which obscured the perilously close rocky coastline. For a time she was in great danger, but just after dark she let go her anchors on a rocky shelf fringed by islets and reefs, and safely weathered the night. Before dawn on the 17th, the gale moderated and Oregon proceeded around Cape Forward to Punta Arenas, where she was joined by gunboat Marietta, also sailing to the East Coast.

Both ships coaled and departed on the 21st for Rio de Janeiro, keeping their guns manned all the while for a Spanish torpedo boat rumored to be in the area. Head seas and winds delayed them, and they did not reach Rio until 30 April. There Oregon received news of the declaration of war against Spain, and on 4 May she left on the next leg of her remarkable journey. With a brief stop in Bahia, Brazil, she arrived at Barbados for coal on 18 May, and, on the 24th, anchored off Jupiter Inlet, Fla., reporting ready for battle. Altogether, Oregon had sailed over 14,000 miles since leaving San Francisco 66 days earlier. On one hand the feat had demonstrated the many capabilities of a heavy battleship in all conditions of wind and sea. On the other it swept away all opposition for the construction of the Panama Canal, for it was then made clear that the country could not afford to take two months to send warships from one coast to the other each time an emergency arose.

On 26 May Oregon proceeded to the Navy Base at Key West, joined Admiral Sampson's fleet two days later, and on 1 June arrived off Santiago, Cuba, to shell military installations and to help in the destruction of Admiral Cervera's fleet on 3 July. Oregon then went to the New York Navy Yard for a refit, and in October sailed for the Asiatic station.

She arrived at Manila on 18 March 1899 and remained in the area until the following February . In cooperating with the Army during the Philippine insurrection, the battleship performed blockade duty in Manila Bay and off Lingayen Gulf, served as a station ship, and aided in the capture of Vigan.

Departing Cavite 13 February 1900, Oregon cruised in Japanese waters until May when she went to Hong Kong. Under orders then to proceed to Taku on account of the Boxer Rebellion, she departed 23 June for that northern port; and, on the 28th, while steaming through the Straits of Pechili, she grounded on an uncharted rock. Suffering some damage and taking on water, the battleship was in a precarious situation for a week. On 5 July Oregon refloated and the following day was towed to Hope Sound for temporary repair. Arriving Kure, Japan, on 17 July she was placed in drydock at the naval station there for final repairs.

On 29 August 1900 the battleship departed again for the coast of China and cruised off the Yangtze River and served as station ship at Woosung. On 5 May 1901 she got underway for the United States. Sailing via Yokohama and Honolulu, she arrived at San Francisco 12 June and entered Puget Sound Navy Yard on 6 July for overhaul.

Remaining in the Puget Sound area for well over a year, it was not until 18 March 1903 that Oregon returned to Asiatic waters, and arrived in Hong Kong on that day. Visiting various Chinese, Japanese, and Philippine ports, the battleship remained in the Far East until returning to the West Coast in February 1906. She decommissioned at the Puget Sound Navy Yard 27 April that year.

Oregon recommissioned 29 August 1911, but remained in reserve until October, when she sailed to San Diego. The following years were ones of relative inactivity for the aging veteran, as she operated out of West Coast ports. On 9 April 1913 she was placed in ordinary at Bremerton, Wash., and on 16 September 1914 went into a reserve status, although she remained in commission. On 2 January 1915 she was again in full commission and sailed to San Francisco for the Panama-Pacific International Exposition. From 11 February 1916 to 7 April 1917 she was placed in commission in reserve, this time at San Francisco. Returned to full commission again on the latter date, Oregon remained first on the West Coast, then acted as one of the escorts for transports of the Siberian Expedition. With World War I over, on 12 June 1919 she decommissioned at Bremerton. From 21 August to 4 October of that year she recommissioned briefly and was the reviewing ship for President Woodrow Wilson during the arrival of the Pacific Fleet at Seattle.

With the adoption of ship classification symbols on 17 July 1920, Oregon was redesignated BB-3. In 1921 a movement was begun to preserve the battleship as an object of historic and sentimental interest, and to lay her up permanently at some port in Oregon.

In accordance with the Washington Naval Treaty, Oregon was rendered incapable of further warlike service on 4 January 1924, and was retained on the Navy List as a naval relic with a classification of "unclassified." In June 1925 she was loaned to the State of Oregon, restored, and moored at Portland as a floating monument and museum, to be visited by thousands in the ensuing years.

On 17 February 1941 when identifying numbers were assigned to unclassified vessels, Oregon was redesignated IX-22. With the outbreak of World War II, it was deemed that the scrap value of the old veteran was vital and necessary to the war effort of the nation. Accordingly, she was struck from the Navy List on 2 November 1942 and sold on 7 December. Towed to Kalima, Wash. the following March for dismantling, the Navy requested that the scrapping process be halted when progress reached the main deck and after the ship's interior had been cleared out. She was returned to the Navy to be used as a storage hulk or breakwater in connection with the reconquest of Guam, and by July 1944 she had been loaded with dynamite and other types of ammunition and towed to that island.

The hulk of the old battleship remained at Guam for several years; during a typhoon on 14-15 November 1948, she broke her moorings and drifted to sea. Finally, on 8 December, the old warrior was located by search planes some 500 miles Southeast of Guam and towed back. She was sold on 15 March 1956 to the Massey Supply Corp.; resold to the lwai Sanggo Co.; towed to Kawasaki, Japan; and scrapped.

CHARACTERISTICS

Class:

Indiana class sea-going coast-line battleship

Year: 1896

Country: United States

Length: 351 ft 2 in (107.03 m)

Beam: 69 ft 3 in (21.1 m)

Draft: 24 ft (7.32 m)

Displacement: 11688 tons (10606 tonnes)

Machinery: 6 cyl boilers,2 VTE reciprocating engines, 9000 ihp

Max Speed: 16 knots

Armament: 4x13", 8x8", 4x6", 20x6pdr, 6x1pdr cannons, 6x18" torpedo tubes

Crew: 473/636

THE MODEL

KIT DESCRIPTION

As is standard for Digital Navy, the model is published on CD rom. The files are very nicely done, with a painting of the vessel on the front cover done also by the designer, Roman Detyna. Three color schemes are available on the CD; "buff","white" and Spanish War-time "gray". Accordingly, there are 3 folders with different colored versions of sheets 3,7,8,9,10,11,12 & 13. Sheets 1,2,4,5,6, & 14 are common to all versions. Sheet 13 is designed to be printed on thin paper to aid in forming certain parts such as thinly rolled tubes for gun barrels. Sheet 14 is a stand, to be colored as desired.

The sheets contain a certain number of alternate parts aimed at the more advanced modeler wanting a 3D look to the details, such as torpedo tube & 1 pounder hatches on the hull, which are rendered 2D on the hull pieces for the more timid. If doing the Gray scheme you will have to print out an extra sh 7 to provide inner surfaces for the insides of the bow bulwark and anchor hawse casting. While the hull sides on the White/Buff schemes are presented 'clean', the Gray scheme hull shows a very nice, subtle weathering effect with slight rust staining in the anchor handling areas. This type of thing is usually a bit overdone, so it's nice to see a bit of restrained scale effect. Of course, those who like the 'derelict' look, may think it too restrained, but you can always add more. Once overdone, it's hard to go back.

The wood decked parts merit special mention. Besides choosing a realistic wood color for the deck, which are often rendered too yellow, Roman also found a neat solution to the 'striped' effect often caused by overscale caulk lines overpowering the background color. While others (such as HMV) have used Very thin caulk lines to achieve a more scale planking effect, He has used not black, but brown caulk lines, which blends with the plank color very well, and gives the optical illusion that the lines are thinner than they actually are. A very convincing result, and a neat trick to remember when reworking decks on older kits!

The flags provided on sht 13, while quite usable, are, however not correct for the Era in question, being the present 50 Star Flag which dates back only to 1960. The correct Flag for the 1896 to 1908 period is the 45 Star Flag. On the subject of flags, clip art files may be found at various sites on the net; a good one for US Flags is National/Historical American Flags

There are 7 pages of instructions, which include 18 assembly sketches. Also provided to aid assembly are 4 color photos of a finished model. These help a great deal as they allow you to see the final shape and placement of the parts. (Note:As an additional resource, more photos and profiles of all three schemes are available at the Digital Navy web site.)

Digital Navy kit photos

CONSTRUCTION part 1

Above water Hull

I started construction with the upper hull frame, which is built using a form of "egg crate" construction. The frame parts are to be laminated to 1mm thickness, which provides a very strong frame for a hull this size, but the thick parts can be difficult to glue into position due to the thin location lines. I added a pencil line .5mm either side of the printed line, to keep the formers straight. (BTW, Roman has incorporated this idea into His latest kit, the free download of the Ambrose lightship.)

The only slight problem I found was, that the frame parts are sometimes oversized, & the bulkheads don't always match the height of the centerline piece. This is easily corrected by sanding the edges till everything lines up. This is an important step before laying the deck, and again before adding the hull sides. I had several bulkheads which were proud of the deck and/or waterline and had to be trimmed back. Also the bulkheads near the ends will have to be beveled to match the angle of the run of the deck & waterline. And of course the stem & stern ends will have to be sharpened to close the seam tightly. The hull pieces are a little long at the bow, so test fit and trim as necessary while keeping the Anchor shelf indents aligned.

To represent the waterway, I decided to try a little trick to add some 3D enhancement to the deck edge. The real planks are laid on top of the structural steel stopping short of the hull plating. This is represented by the gray deck edge. I printed out a second sh 3 and cut out just the planking areas, cutting away the gray edges. After touching up the cut edge gray, this was glued down on top of the first deck, creating a rebated edge detail, which is to scale. The hull sides will extend up past the deck by the same amount ( .3mm), creating a waterway or "gutter" effect, as in the actual vessel.

I added a few glue tabs amidships, similar in principle to the glue strips used for the lowerhull ( which I am building by the way; I just won't be permanently attaching it as I plan to use it with a later White/Buff version, possibly sister Indiana). I use a wood block wrapped in plastic to push the hull pieces against the frame to prevent "Oil Canning" between the frames.

I doubled the hull pieces as a matter of course, even though it's not in the directions. Before hand I punched all the portholes & glazed them with the very thin cellophane from envelopes, taking care not to wrinkle it, and back painted them navy blue for depth. The doubling strip should not extend all the way to the deck in order to give a scale thin edge, so I just shaved a bit off at an angle with a sharp blade.

Some of the small parts ( such as for the gun ports ) in the gray version are printed in two tones of gray to give some depth to the 2D rendering. But this was carried to the 3D parts as well, which I didn't care for. I printed a second sheet at a slightly darker color, then selected between them for the best match for a uniform appearance.

The dark stripe down the sides midships, just above the waterline, mystified me for a time. It appears to represent a rubbing strake or bumper, but none is visible in photos, though a horizontal line can be seen in the area. Finally, I came across plans of the class in a book and realized this must be the top edge of the recessed 18 inch main armor belt, which extended 3 ft above the waterline and 4.5 ft below. I made up a strip of 'armor belt' to mount in this area, large enough to cover the dark stripe, using a graphics program to import sh 7 and edit the affected area of the hull sides. The anchor shelves came next. I cut the triangular side pieces off and glued them on after the main center piece was installed. This results in a nice tight 90 deg joint all the way to the tip of the triangle, which can be a problem area to fold neatly. The bumper piece was thickened up and applied separately also.

It was at this time that I noticed that the bow bulwarks are too short and place the anchor hawse castings [ part 25 ] too close to the bow for the Oregon ( though this is the correct configuration for the East Coast sisters Indiana & Massachusetts). There should be a noticable gap between the front edge of the casting and the rear edge of the shield emblem. The best existing plans for this class are of the Indiana, but being built at a different shipyard on the West Coast, the Oregon differs in small details such as this. I guess this one slipped by the designer. Since the hull sides were already attached I elected to cut off the bulwarks and replace them with corrected parts, made up in similar fashion to the armor belts. The inside surfaces were covered with a strip of gray printed paper at this time. Also a patch of color had to be added to the hull when the hawse casting was moved to its proper location; when everything was in place it thankfully disappears. A modified part 25 ( trimmed & doubled ) was used to represent the inner surface of the hawse casting. To finish off the bulwark, a cap rail was formed from a narrow [ .7mm] strip of gray paper, and the rod which forms the seam between the bulwark and hull plating was made of gray painted mono filament thread. Both of these elements show quite prominently in the available photos, so are worth adding.

The bow shield and centerline torpedo tube casings were the last items to be added before moving on to the superstructure. The Shield was slightly modified by editing out the black fold line, & coloring the stars Gold. ( They appear too dark in photos compared to the stripes to have been white. ) The torpedo tube casings were trimmed shorter at the rear edge ( less rounded ) and fitted into shallow notches cut into stem & stern. Photos dated 1898 ( showing Oregon immediately after the battle of Santiago ) useful for hull details are NH61222, NH61237, NH61502, NH43148, & NH82656. The last 3 also clearly show the 45 star flag & jack mentioned above. These are available online at the Naval Historical Center or NavSource Photo Archives; URLs listed below.

To be continued.........

SUMMARY

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