Scale: 1/96 (1/8 inch = 1 foot)
Includes 1 blast shield. Torpedo mount available separately.
This accurate and highly detailed model represents the blast shield (hood) for the US Navy's Mk.15 Quintuple Torpedo Mount. On Fletcher class destroyers, the blast shield was typically fit only to the aft torpedo mount.
Features:
- overall dimensions accurately scaled from official US Navy drawings
- details confirmed from careful study of a surviving blast hood aboard USS Cassin Young, and period photographs of mounts in service
- perfectly scaled to fit a 3D-printed Quintuple Tropedo Mount, available separately
- exterior stiffener rings
- closed top hatch
- rooftop handrail omitted (too thin to print)
© Model Monkey LLC. This 3D-printed product may not be copied or recast.
The Mk.14 and Mk.15 torpedo mounts (click here) were the standard World War II-era US Navy torpedo mounts first fit to destroyers of the Benson/Gleaves class beginning in 1937. They continued to be the standard torpedo mount for the following Fletcher (DD-445) class, Allen M. Sumner (DD-692) class, and Gearing (DD-710) class. These ships mounted either one or two mounts.
The Mk.14 and Mk.15 torpedo mounts launched 21-inch diameter Mk.15 torpedoes (not included). The Mk.15 Mount carried a drum-shaped blast shield (blast hood) installed to protect the operating crew from the gun blasts of a nearby 5"/38 caliber gun and twin 40mm Bofors. The circular Blast Hood was normally fit to the aft torpedo mount nearest the No. 53 Five-inch/38 Gun Mount. Other than the blast shield, the Mk.14 and Mk.15 Mounts were identical.
From Microworks.com: "In the battles of Vella Gulf and Cape St. George, destroyer attacks using torpedoes [launched from this mount] sank six enemy destroyers without losing a single man, with a fifth (the legendary Shigure) escaping only because a torpedo hitting her rudder failed to explode.
"U.S. destroyer torpedoes also accounted for the only "dreadnought"-type battleship ever sunk in action by surface launched torpedoes, the Fuso, during the Battle of Surigao Strait."