Hi Brian:
I was once building a hull master for the Nelson in 1:96 scale but the master was damaged beyond economical repair and was scrapped, I never got back to it, I still do not have any RN hulls available, but I recently worked up the templates for the KGV in 1:96 scale, now I just need to clear the space to build her, the 1944 version of the West Virginia and Alaska are taking away the slipway area, not to mention 2 Nimitz hulls in the shop for shipment, I can't even work on my own projects for now.
On the Iowa Turret explosion, I worked on the Iowa twice last year and there was no split in the barbett, what happened on the Iowa was more of a conflaguration then an outright explosion, I was up inside turret 2 and there was a lot of damage but no serious structural damage, and all was readily repairable, it is kind of eerie up in the turret, I inspected the structural damage down to the bottom of the turret decks, the powder hoist seems to have taken the most damage, I don't think they make a hammer big enough to pound that back into place, it would have had to be removed and replaced. The plan was to remove the turret roof plates in order to access all of the neccessary spaces in there as well as replacement of that barrel.