USS Idaho BB-42
by Paul Helfrich

1/700 USS Idaho BB-42 (Mini-Hobby Models kitbash)

Here is another by-product of a recent bout of "conversion fever." Like the 1944 Pennsylvania and 1936 Maryland models I've recently completed, it's a kitbash of the Mini-Hobby Models 1/700 USS Arizona. In this case, I've built one of the New Mexico class, the USS Idaho, BB-42.

Kits of the Arizona are not too hard to convert to New Mexicos, in whatever scale. The main things that need to be done are to add the "clipper" bow and to alter the main turrets so that they show the more angular, less rounded shape introduced with the New Mexico class. Other than that, the two classes (Pennsylvania/Arizona and New Mexico/Mississippi/Idaho) are pretty similar. My last two pictures are work in progress shots showing the Arizona kit with the new bow added.

A lot depends, of course, on the era you choose to depict. Alone among American battleships, the New Mexicos were modernized in the 1930s with large tower superstructures similar to those on the British Nelson and Rodney. These are actually not too hard to bash out of the Arizona superstructure. You just will find yourself cutting off a lot of the protruding areas and making the entire forward superstructure more consistent in shape.

The New Mexicos, once they lost the cage masts they wore early on, also had a "stump" tower mainmast very similar to those later added to the Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Maryland.

I altered the main turrets with sheet stryene pieces attached to the original kit turrets. Alone in her class, the Idaho had her 5" 25 secondary armament replaced with 5" 38s in single gunhouses. I've had a number of these sitting around for a while, from various Skywave kits I built, and I chose the Idaho so I could use them.

She's painted in Measure 21. My idea was to approximate her appearance in 1945, at the time of the Iwo Jima campaign.