Oh boy, I did the porthole thing once.  Once!   1/350 Bismark.  I swear to this day those pesky things are not in a strait line and whenever I look at the model I want to send a torpedo into it.  I will never understand what tempts us to do such projects.  The older I get, the less wiser I must be because I now build in 1/700 scale and tried the same thing on the Prinz Eugene.  At least I am being more level headed with the Texas.  No wooden deck and no replacing 80% of the model with photo etch.