World War 2 at sea
CV-16 USS Lexington (1945)
The USS Lexington is finished – the second U.S. Fleet Carrier of that name during WW2. She’s one of the short-bow Essex-class Fleet Carriers and was leading the fast carrier Task Force in the Pacific late in the war. Like my USS Missouri, the model depicts how the ship was outfitted and painted in 1945.
The model is actually the USS Intrepid, another short-bow Essex-class Fleet Carrier. From what I understood during my researches, no two Essex-class carriers looked exactly alike at any specific time during their service in the war. And this does not only include very obvious differences like different camouflage patterns, but especially how they each were outfitted – for example how many of each of the small-caliber AA guns were installed on a specific Essex-class carrier. Even their antenna and radar layouts were not exactly the same.
So, at this tiny scale – even though the models are insanely detailed – a short-bow hull and loads upon loads of Bofor and Oerlikon AA-guns combined with a Measure 12 camouflage scheme and sea blue aircraft in her airgroup make a pretty accurate CV-16 USS Lexington at that particular moment during her career:
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