I, too, have had the honor of walking the decks of each, and other musuem ships, over the years, but I recall the condition of TEXAS in particular, as there were so many spots where time and the elements had worn away the steel structures, that it is shame and quite sad to see a ship allowed to get that way. I remember on instance where the decking had worn to such an extent one could step through the wasted area, it was actually unsafe. Frankly, these ships need our help and attention, as they are not going to heal themselves. I do believe having a paper model of each of them available can be used to draw attention to their plight and, perhaps, become a basis to highlight the historic importance of each vessel and underline the dire need of each for funding to provide serious maintenance and repair work. I think we can use the USS CONSTITUTION as an example, where this tremendously historic ship was about to be used as a target for gunnery practise, but a cry went out to the public to becry this ludicrous decision by the Navy Department, and the ship was saved moemntarily, but it wasn't until the Boston school children conducted a very public pennies for Constitution campaign which drew the necessary attention to the vessel's plight and slowly but surely lead to significant action being taken by Congress to fund the historic 1929 restoration work which actually saved this iconic vessel...so that now our grandchildren can still walk her decks in Charlestown...Just a thought on how with a small ripple some enormous restoration efforts can take shape...hopefully one of our many talented designers might consider one or both of these vessels when contemplating a new ship model shibject....
Cheers!
Jim