Subject: SMML25/08/98VOL282 Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1998 17:49:41 +1000 (EST) shipmodels@wr.com.au --------------------------------- Thanks for having SMML at your home, why not stop by our home at: http://warship.simplenet.com/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: Re: Mystery-kit 2: Re: Knots at sea 3: FLOWER CLASS CORVETTE 4: Re: Mystery ship 5: Re: Knots 6: Why funnel caps? 7: Re: Knot Gratuities are in order 8: Re: What DD/FF/CG goes with what carrier when? 9: Re: Knot info request 10: Hobby shop in Miami and Boca Raton 11: Re: Knot info request 12: HMS Zulu 13: Tamiya Prince of Wales kit 14: That kit again.... 15: Re: Knots @ Sea 16: Knots again 17: Re: Knots 18: LST Model: Thanks everyone!! 19: SCALE COMPATIBILITY 20: Mystery kit solved ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: Re: Tamiya's POW kit 2: Update to the White Ensign Models website ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: "Foeth" Subject: Re: Mystery-kit Prinz Eugen did carry the Arado 196 Evert-Jan Foeth ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Foeth" Subject: Re: Knots at sea >> Although the term knots is often expressed as a speed for a ship, this is not exactly true. Knots are really a term for advancement of the ship. A ship sets revolutions to maintain a speed that she has been pre measured for. This is done on a measured course, usually in calm weather. << What you are pointing out, is that a ship during trial condition will fare better than a ship under normal operating condition, experiencing resistence added by waves, by wind, by fouling, by different displacements etc... This is off course well know, as ships will always perform below trial conditions. But trial conditions are the demands as written down in the building contract. Each quarter of a knot below or above a margin around the demanded speed will result in fines for the yard. Although a higher speed may seem to be an advantage, to a comercial shipowner it means that the ship is fitted out with a too powerfull, and thus too expensive, engine, with a higher fuel consumption. If the required speed differs too much above a certain point, the ship may be refused by the shipowner. It goes without saying that this will be a substantial financial blow to the yard. This was almost the case with Stena's new HSS, which was delivered months too late, but Stena accepted the vessel anyway, saving the yard from bankruptcy. So now they have a ship that uses one million worth of British pounds in fuel. But the ships speed is eventually expressed in knots. Ship resistance may differ for each weather and loading condition, yielding in a higher powerdemand. If a ship, like a comercial ferry, encounters more resistance, the captain will not accept a lower speed, but will increase the number of revolutions. With the controlable pitch propellor, a ship does not have one single optimum operation point, but can alter the propellor characteristics, to obtain a better net efficiency. It's the same thing when you're on your bike, with the wind blowing from different directions. You'll have to use more or less power to keep your speed, but luckily, you have many gears to choose from, for optimum comfort. For waterjet propelled ship with gasturbines, the number of revolutions will dissappear from the picture entirely. As for the knot, being 1852 meter an hour, it is a direct result of dividing the earth in our 360 degree measuring system. With a circumference of 40,000 kilometers, or 40,000,000 meters, divided in 360 degrees, with each degree 60 minutes, we have 40,000,000/(360*60)=1852 meters per minute. This is defined as the nautical mile, and the knot as one of them each hour. Evert-Jan Foeth ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: BALJ1017@aol.com Subject: FLOWER CLASS CORVETTE HELP ! I AM LOOKING FOR A FC CORVETTE KIT AROUND 1:100 SCALE OR WHATEVER - I AM NOT FUSSY. IF THERE IS A CHOICE I WOULD PREFER AN EARLY SHIP DENIS JOHNSON ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: Shane & Lorna Jenkins Subject: Re:Mystery ship >> I acquired a kit of unknown identity, and I'm hoping one of you wizards can ID it for me from the scanty info I can provide: << Hi Ken, Well I'm going to stick my neck out & say that the mystery ship is the Airfix 1/600 Bismarck/Tirpitz. The discription above matches fairly well with the built up model picture in a mid 70's Airfix catalouge & with the dust ridden, unpainted version I built in early 1980. I'll give you a few details about the kit The lengthof the kit is 42cm approx. The height from the "keel" to the main deck is 3cm. The length of the "indentations is 28cm approx. The hull is in two parts with a separate deck. The funnel with the swept foot actually faces forward to the bow. The catapult is just a narrow straight piece about 6cm long. The boat info you give could point to it being the Tirpitz, especially with the amount fo AA guns. I would also agree that the extra funnel may not belong to the kit. HTH: Shane Ps: You might want to take the kit to a model shop/club & have them try & ID the kit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: KDur597268@aol.com Subject: Re: Knots And I'm sure everybody remembers the origin of the term "knots?" ---- from the 'days of sail' when speed was measured by throwing a knotted line overboard - with a widget on the end like a water anchor, I'm sure they had a term for it - and a glass was turned for a predetermined time while the mid who'd thrown the line counted the succesive knots in the line being payed out. When the glass was turned, the final result would be the speed - a certain number of "knots" plus whatever length of rope between the knots was payed when the line was seized. So speed could be expressed in "knots plus fathoms." By the way, I've always wondered - even though you mostly discuss modern era, are many of the people on this list Patrick O'Brian fans? I've read all 17 books twice! ( I know, I know...) And another note - the "mystery kit" sure looks a lot like Prinz Eugen. Only problem is, the photo and drawing I compared it to didn't have the step, or indentation, in the upper hull running from the forecastle break back to the poop that the model does. So... I'm still a little unsure. Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: JGordon262@aol.com Subject: Why funnel caps? Hello again, Yet another obvious, yet unanswered question: Why do ships have funnel caps? At first I surmised they must be protective grids to prevent things from falling into the funnel, but from the photos and drawings I've seen, the space between the funnel dividers are large enough for a man to fall into, not to mention smaller debris. My in law suggested their use is to prevent planes from flying down them??? (Could be very true in a kamikaze scenario!) So funnel caps must act as strengtheners? Otherwise the funnel would collapse into itself? Or is there yet another untold function? Holding my breath... JG ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: JGordon262@aol.com Subject: Re: Knot Gratuities are in order Gentlemen, scholars, etc, I feel that I am now fully learned in the subject of nautical miles,arc of the earth, speed in terms of knots (it is wrong to say knots per hour), revolutions per knot, conversion factors and such. Today I will set a course to work in my TaurusWagon class cruiser, bring the boilers to pressure, call out a speed of 56.5 knots, and hope the engine room responds in a lively fashion. Thanks JG ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: John Snyder Subject: Re: What DD/FF/CG goes with what carrier when? Well, if you're doing ENTERPRISE in her original fit, I can tell you that during Vietnam her typical escort was BAINBRIDGE plus either a conventional BELKNAP-class DLG (remember, these didn't become CGs until the mid-70s), or an ADAMS-class DDG, or occasionally a SHERMAN-class DD. I'd have to go back and look at my slides (or my letters home) to give you specific ship names. Problem is, of course, that none of these escorts is available in 1/700 or 1/720. John Snyder Captain's Yeoman USS BAINBRIDGE (DLGN-25) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From: Sue & Ben Subject: Re: Knot info request Hey gang, A lot of the answers to the original post include a statement such as "A nautical mile is the distance occupied by 1 minute of arc/latitude on the earth's surface". Shouldn' that read ". . .] on the earth's surface _at the equator_" (or any other, perhaps more arbitrarily picked, line of longitude)? Otherwise wouldn't the 'knot' and 'nautical mile' be variables. After all the distance occupied by a minute of arc 50 feet from the north pole is mighty small. Forgive me if I'm nitpicking. Ben Montreal, Canada ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: "Roberto Paredes" Subject: Hobby shop in Miami and Boca Raton Hi Guys, Do you know any hobby shop in Miami and Boca Raton? I need the name and the address, because, the next week I will go to this city. I also need to find some bookstore (with speciality in warships, aircraft carriers, WW2, Vietnam war, etc...) in these cities. Regards, Roberto. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: KDur597268@aol.com Subject: Re: Knot info request >> Although the term knots is often expressed as a speed for a ship, this is not exactly true. Knots are really a term for advancement of the ship. A ship sets revolutions to maintain a speed that she has been pre measured for. << Fascinating. I didn't know this. It reminds me of the aeronautical differences between airspeed and ground speed. Of course there's Indicated, True, and Calibrated Airspeed, but at the altitudes and speeds I fly it's mostly just Indicated vs Ground Speed that concerns me! It also reminds me of the fact that in general aviation we set "cruise power" ("revolutions", in fact) and accept whatever speed is the result, a product of wind and density altitude (true alt corrected for temp). When an approach requires flying a particular *speed", it is a different problem. Sailing into a current or a swell then, sounds like it has the same effect as a headwind? Is the speed of a current commonly a known quantity? It could certainly be calculated by measuring progress relative to a a fixed point, of which there are none on the high sea of course, except perhaps stars? But I imagine the parallax is too small (or great?) there for accurate speed computation. But of course now we have Loran and GPS, so it must be a relatively simple matter to determine actual speed. Sorry to take so much air here, but I'm intrigued! Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From: "RLOCKIE" Subject: HMS Zulu Greg, There is a good photo of Zulu in a French magazine/book covering the Royal Navy 1939-41 by Yves Buffetaut which I picked up recently and which might even still be in print as it is dated December 1995. It is called Marines No.4 and was priced at 65 francs (I paid GBP 7.95, so maybe USD 12-13?). Motorbooks in London supplied my copy. The photograph is on page 28 and has a dark hull with light pendant number G18 and light coloured superstructure. The mast is still the tripod type. There is a light band around the top of both funnels and two additional dark bands round the middle of the aft one. The shot is taken from the port side, looking slightly aft and shows the whole ship. The photo is credited to the Imperial War Museum although no negative number is given so you could try them. They have a reasonable computerised system which uses a word search to find things so there are probably not that many shots of Zulu to sort through. Unfortunately the British did not take that many photos of our warships (probably too cloudy and wet here) so they are rather thin on the ground. By the way, does anybody have a good reference for any WW2 Tribal class destroyer in a disruptive scheme but with the tripod foremast? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From: "RLOCKIE" Subject: Tamiya Prince of Wales kit There are a total of 12 photos (some of the whole ship and some details shots) in the Alan Raven book 'KGV Class Battleships' in the Ensign series but the book is long out of print and copies are hard to obtain. It also contains some colour scheme details. The other ones I have found useful are: Tamiya Model Magazine Winter 1986-87 - An article by Mike Williams on the 1/350th version but with some relevant detail. Scale Models November 1984 - Mike Williams again, this time on the 1/700 kit at the time of the Denmark Strait battle in May 1941, and including a plan of the components of the UP launcher. Scale Models May 1976 - Roger Chesneau article covering corrections and colour schemes. Warship - I forget which issue has the camouflage schemes but there is a good description and plans of the original and disruptive schemes. There was also a series of two articles on the KGV class in the UK IPMS magazine but I only have photocopies so cannot identify the exact issues. It does include the light AA refits to which all ships of the class were subject. Finally there is a letter in Scale Models May 1980 which suggested that PoW had an army Bofors on the stern somewhere. More details are unknown. I have copies or originals of all the above so can supply if you need them as all are now out of print. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14) From: "Douglas Martin" Subject: That kit again.... Folks: Caroline, if its a Zara, there should be 2 funnels, a split waterline hull with a 'red' coloured lower section. (I have a 1/400 Tauro, Fiume, unbuilt of course, and it wouldn't fit into an Airfix 'Victorious' kit box, unless the sprues were chopped up. If its A Prinz Eugen then there is only one funnel, and a silhouette a la Bismarck. Could be a Heller 1/400 Hipper, but our man 'should' be able to tell us if its a 1/600, 1/700, 1/400 or 1/350 kit. No UK ships have 4 main turrets and '6' secondary turrets (Airfix Belfast excepting), 6 secondaries are German/Italian (French perhaps), not USA. Zara has a twin 'rail' catapult inscribed on the foredeck. Prinz Eugen/Hipper have 2 cranes, and quad/twin/single AA guns by the dozen. Gosh, this is fun!! Douglas (More info please, is it waterline, describe the bridge, any hangers, radar?) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15) From: JohnVCP@aol.com Subject: Re: Knots @ Sea As an old Navy (I'm old - not the Navy!) navigator and currently (for the past 23 years) an instructor for the USCGA (teaching Coastal Piloting and Dead-reckoning Navigation) let me add this: A navigator will know his TRUE speed ("Speed Made Good" or "Speed over the Bottom") when he plots his advance on his DR plot FROM FIX TO FIX. All other speeds are referred to as "Speed thru the Water". Example: Turns on for 15 kts (based on the measured mile data) while proceeding up bound in a river with a 5 kt current - speed made good would be 10 kts; all other things being equal (wind, waves, etc.). Conversely, down bound (with the current) would give a speed over the bottom of 20 kts. Now that DGPS is available at a very reasonable cost, it gives the mariner his "Speed made Good" in a read-out. But as I tell my students - what happens when your electronics 'fry their brains and stop working?' The answer - go to your DR Plot. Also, a nautical mile is defined as one minute of latitude at the equator or 1/21600th of great circle (of the earth) or 6080.20 ft (US NM) or 6080 ft (British Admiralty NM). The international NM ( as defined 1 July 1954) is 6076.1033 ft. I agree that I also twitch a little when I hear "knots per hour"!!! John Heasel ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16) From: "Denis G. Campbell" Subject: Knots again Been away for a couple of days and just plucked out two issues of SMML and have enjoyed reading the many discourses on knots - to which I added my own 2 cents (JG, you should certainly have enough to work with now). I have been away from flight plans and navigation for some time (now, I don't think they even worry about lat. and long, what with gps satellites etc) but an interesting question would be: what is the origin of the name "knot" for i nautical mile per hour. Maybe some of you naval historians may know the answer to that one. I believe it goes back to long before Columbus and had something to do with a rope with knots tied at set distances and dropped (or dragged?) over the side. By the way, knots and the concept of the nautical mile and all the other basics of navigation existed long before Columbus "discovered that the world was round". The theories had been worked out and calculated starting as far back as the Incas and the Druids and the ancient Egyptians who all knew about lattitude and were measuring the movemnts of sun and stars and the theory of the world being a globe was already in place - Columbus just tested and proved it (today, we would use a computer model). So who knows the answer? - I did a looong time ago but I forget Denis Campbell ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17) From: Tim Perry Subject: Re: Knots It isn't the distance and geometry I have a problem with, it's the 'hour' bit of all these navigational formulae. I'm sure my so-called 'lunch hour', when I do all my modelling, goes by in about twenty minutes. Contrast this with dropping out of a Cessna bellowing " 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, CHECK CANOPY!!! " That felt like a lifetime! Does this mean the activity of modelmaking can warp the time/space continuum? I think there should be a research grant to be had out of this..... Tim Perry (Bristol UK) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18) From: LeadSled58@aol.com Subject: LST Model: Thanks everyone!! Recently I posted a message about the "new" NavalBase LST model and would like to thank all of you who answered either via the message board or personally. I do appreciate the comments and they will certainly guide my decision. Respectfully, Tom ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19) From: Kenneth Hagerup Subject: SCALE COMPATIBILITY I think this a purely a matter of taste. Obviously, the greater the difference in scale, the more the difference will be apparent. There comes some point, probably different among individual modelers, where it becomes difficult to rationalize putting kits of different scale together. One exception: forced perspective dioramas where the smaller scale ship is placed behind the larger scale ship to convey a sense of greater distance between the two. Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 20) From: KDur597268@aol.com Subject: Mystery kit solved Well well well. Not bad for an airplane guy. In my first post I said it reminded me of "Bismarck." It is. It's the Airfix 1/600 Bismarck. I threw y'all off by saying it had two funnels. One must of snuck in here somehow. Or maybe it's something else that just looks like a stack. Sorry about that. 8-/ So, is this a good kit? It looks like it would need a helluva lot of detail work. Thanks again Ken ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: "Caroline Carter" Subject: Re: Tamiya's POW kit Thanks Mike, for a very useful summary re. building the Tamiya 1/700 POW.. I am sure there are many here who, like us, will print that one out and keep it for reference. However, just to add codes and prices re. the WEM "Professional" range you mentioned, they are as follows (Greg, feel free to drop this into "TRADE" section if you deem it appropriate) WEM PRO 7011 5.25 inch turrets and barrels (x4).£2.95 Re your query, these are original patterns and are absolutely correct in dimension, with as much scale detail as it was possible for Brian Fawcett to pack in. WEM PRO 7003 Quad Pom-Poms (x4).£1.57 WEM PRO 7004 271/272 Radar Lanterns (x4).£1.57 WEM PRO 7006 8-Barrelled Pom-Poms (x4).£1.57 Re. the doors, the correct pattern for POW/KGV is provided in WEM PE 703 1/700 Royal Navy Doors and Hatches at £0.97. All shipped post free worldwide. So, no excuses Mike... you've got to build it now! Cheers Caroline "Shiphead" Carter/nWMo and WEMblie. White Ensign Models http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/white.ensign.models ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Caroline Carter" Subject: Update to the White Ensign Models website Today, I updated the PROFESSIONAL range pages with details and photos of new releases. Re the WEM AIRSTRIKE 700 range, all items in production are listed, as of yesterday. Photos are being added of these items at this time. Go to: http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/white.ensign.models, our homepage, and follow the direct links. Bookmark us for future reference. Cheers Caroline "Shiphead" Carter/nWMo and WEMblie ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume