BB-55 

The "Showboat" that silenced every critic who said battleships were finished.

When the USS North Carolina was commissioned in April 1941, the Navy's own aviators were already arguing that the age of the battleship was over. Carriers were the future. The big-gun ship was a dinosaur. The North Carolina — the first new American battleship design in nearly two decades — was dismissed by skeptics before she ever fired a shot.

Then the war started. And the Showboat showed up.

The North Carolina was the most decorated American battleship of the entire Second World War. Fifteen battle stars. She fought in every major naval campaign in the Pacific from the Solomons to Tokyo Bay. Guadalcanal, the Eastern Solomons, the Philippine Sea, Iwo Jima, Okinawa — every time the fleet moved, the North Carolina was in the screen.

Her primary job wasn't shore bombardment, though she did plenty of that. It was carrier escort — screening the fast carriers with her anti-aircraft batteries while her nine 16-inch/45 caliber guns stood ready for any surface threat that tried to close. At the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal, she was the only battleship protecting the Enterprise. When Japanese torpedo bombers and submarines came for the carrier, the North Carolina's anti-aircraft fire helped keep Enterprise alive — and took a torpedo hit herself in the process. She kept steaming.

The North Carolina proved that the new fast battleships weren't dinosaurs. They were the shield the carriers couldn't survive without. Speed, firepower, and anti-aircraft capability — the North Carolina had all three, and she used them from 1942 to 1945 without missing a major operation.

Today, BB-55 is a museum ship moored in Wilmington, North Carolina — one of the most visited warship museums in the country. If you've walked her teak decks, you've stood on fifteen battle stars' worth of history.

What you're building:

• 2,662 pieces in 1:300 scale
• 30 inches long. 5.5 inches wide. 10 inches tall. Two and a half feet of the most decorated battleship in the U.S. Navy.
• The fast-battleship silhouette — three triple 16-inch gun turrets, the modern superstructure, the anti-aircraft galleries that kept the carriers alive
• Specially molded pieces throughout
• Display stand included
• No crew figures included

⚠️ HEADS UP — STICKER APPLICATION:
This kit uses 3 stickers for the battleship crest markings. All other detail is clean. We want you to know up front before you order. No surprises when the box arrives.