Good day all,
I’m glad to present you the first of my ships, the first of a long list (so I'm ardently hoping, taking into account that I’m not a youngster
).
The Colorado-class battleships have been the first USN vessels to be fitted with 16” (406-mm) guns. These ships were practically identical to those of the Tennessee-class, except for the main battery.
The class was made of three ships, USS Colorado BB 45, USS Maryland BB 46 and USS West Virginia BB 48: initially, it was due to come into service a fourth ship (USS Washington BB 47), but she was destroyed as a target (being only 75% complete) under the terms of the Naval Washington Treaty. The five vessels of Tennessee and Colorado-classes were known as the “Big Five”, they constituted the backbone of the Pacific Battle Fleet for a long while.
No one of these ships was modernised before the onset of WWII, apart increased AA-protection (and armament) in mid-late 1941.
The USS Colorado was the only of the “Big Five” not moored along the battleship row on December 7, 1941. From July of that year she was undertaking routine-overhaul at Bremerton (Puget Sound) Navy Yard, works lasted until March 31, 1942.
Colorado and Maryland had the cage mainmast cut down in early 1942 and entirely replaced by a small control tower in 1943. Whereas, the forward cagemast was retained.
On the contrary, the West Virginia was so heavily damaged during the attack, that, once recovered, the Navy decided to completely rebuilt her in the same fashion as was done for the Tennessee-class ships.
During the hostilities, Colorado participated to several pre-invasion bombardment providing effective fire support during the following campaigns:
Gilbert Islands (Tarawa)
Kwajalein
Saipan
Palau
Guam
Leyte
Lingayen
Okinawa
She was placed out of commission in reserve there on January 7, 1947, and sold for scrapping on July 23, 1959.
The Colorado received seven battle stars for World War II service.
Some Technical Data and FeaturesUSS Colorado BB 45 (designation assigned on July 17, 1920)
Built by New York SB, Camden, NJ.
Laid down 29 May 1919, launched 22 March 1921, commissioned 30 August 1923.
Main features (as built):
Displacement: 32,600 tons normal; 34,946 tons full load
Dimensions: 624 x 97.5 x 30 feet/190.2 x 29,72 x 9,15 meters
Propulsion: Turbo-electric, 8 285 psi boilers, 4 shafts, 28,900 shp, 21 knots
Crew: 1080
Armour: 8 -13.5 inch belt (203 -343 mm), 3.5 inch decks (89 mm), 4.5 -13 inch barbettes (114 -330 mm), 5 -18 inch turrets (127 -457 mm), 4 -16 inch CT (102 -406 mm)
Aviation: none (Catapults fitted in 1924)
Armament: 4 dual 16"/45 cal, 14 5"/51cal, 4 3"/50 cal AA, 2 21 inch torpedo tubes (submerged)
Armament at the time of Pearl Harbour’s attack :
4 dual 16"/45 cal, 12 5"/51cal, 8 5"/25 cal AA, 4 quadruple 1.1”/75 cal AA, 5 to 8 0.50 Browning AA Mgs.
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If you're interested this is the downloading linkNew and Final Version is available at
download from 4Shared -
http://www.4shared.com/rar/whr3Gsf1/USSColorado.htmlor
download from mediafire (Thanks to Gerax) -
https://www.mediafire.com/?m1yty92uql13wbvSome change to the texture to avoid the little graphical bugs noted for the damaged status.
This can be taken into account as the "official" release.
my regards
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Credit:
Gofo: 3D model, mapping and texturing
asheshouse: classfiles and priceless tutoring (and endless patience too…
)
Installation procedure is quite simple and fully detailed in the Readme file within the Colorado’s folder.
N.B. This Mod was initially created for the 4.10 version, but it works even in 4.09.
Author
Topic: USN - Colorado Class Battleships (Read 41329 times)
