Midway Class Aircraft Carriers

The Midway class carriers were commissioned right at the end of WWII. They were the Midway (CVB 41), Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB 42) and Coral Sea (CVB 43), with the "B" after CV standing for large. The first company to do a 1:2400 model of them a number of years ago was Seabattle of Austria. Recently GHQ released their own version of the Midway class so they make a nice comparison. The Seabattle model in the rear always bothered me a little because it stood so high out of the water. The Midway's were the first U.S. carriers with armored flight decks, a valuable lesson from WWII, and as such they rode lower in the water than the previous Essex class. The GHQ version in front seems to capture that better than Seabattle did. Additionally, the GHQ model is based on the Midway as she appeared right at the end of the war with 5"/54 guns and 40mm anti-aircraft (AA) armament. The Seabattle version is from the 1950's when the 40mm were replaced by 3" AA. You may also be asking why the GHQ version has planes on the deck and the Seabattle doesn't. That's simply because no one manufactures 1:2400 jets from the 1950's period - the GHQ is carrying the F4U/Corsair, which was its primary compliment when commissioned. I thought these two models were a good example of how different companies can do quite different versions of the same ship.