Thread: New ships
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Old 03-15-23, 03:37 PM   #230
gap
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Default USN Alamosa-class dry cargo ship (Type C1-M-AV1) - general information

@ Alex.B

Yesterday I had a closer look into your beautiful C1 model, and that inspired me to do a little research. I hope you don't mind if I share my findings here.

The following website has the full list of C1 ships:

http://shipbuildinghistory.com/merch...cargoships.htm

211 vessels of the C1-M-AV1 subtype were completed starting from August 1944. Of these, only 77 were delivered before May 1945, the majority of which (52) being meant as dry cargo ships for the US Navy (hull code AK) and collectively designed as the Alamosa-class. The remaining vessels (25) were retained by the USMC and, I guess, they were operated through various US shipping companies.

Unfortunately I didn't find much information about external appearance and wartime careers of the latter, but Wikipedia has short articles on every single Alamosa-class ship with specifications, service histories and pictures. Here is the index with links to the individual articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catego...ss_cargo_ships


In short: 29 Alamosa's were commissioned before the German capitulation, but all of them were attached to the Pacific Fleet, so they were rarely seen in the Atlantic.

Their standard armament was composed of 1 x 3"/50 caliber gun plus 6 x 20 mm/70 Oerlikon AA cannons. For what I can see from pictures, the 3in gun was on a shield mount, fitted on a circular platform at ship's stern. The AA guns were also fitted on circular platforms and they were arranged in pairs: two at the aft end of the superstructure abaft the funnel, two on the flying bridge and two at the aft end of the forecastle.

Besides that, another visual difference from your model was the presence of four 1942 Navy balsa life rafts in two pairs, one by each mast.

Finally, most pictures that I have seen show Alamosa-class ships hulls with solid grey paint, probably Measure 14 Ocean Gray System, nonetheless dazzle camouflage schemes are documented as well. The patterns used were Measure 32, Design 10F and Measure 33, Design 6Ao. The following link has high resolution drawings illustrating the above patterns:

https://www.history.navy.mil/content...amosa&ts=false

On the exact shades of color specified by the measures above, I suggest you to check the following Wikipedia article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_...ouflage_paints

This is all the information I have gathered so far. I hope it will help you with any possible future development of your amazing models
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Last edited by gap; 03-15-23 at 08:39 PM.
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