Subject: SMML30/09/98VOL318 Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 21:53:15 +1000 (EST) shipmodels@tac.com.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: Re: Fletcher Conversion 2: Arizona casemate guns 3: Re: Ticoneroga Info. 4: Re: Copyright laws 5: Re: A/C recovery 6: DML's 1/350 scale Ticonderoga 7: Re: AA on ArkRoyal 8: Re: USN Flowers 9: Ark Royal III 10: Re: Fletcher Conversion 11: Re: Bismarck's turrets yet again 12: Finally accesed Navis 13: HMSH Brittanic 14: Portuguese Triainig ship 15: Thanks 16: Re: Ark Royal A.A 17: Re: "Send them flowers...." - USN Corvettes 18: Re: Lindberg Landing Ship Dock and LCVP 19: Re: Young Yamatoholic -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: I/350 Ticonderoga 2: GHQ vehicles 3: 1/400 Otaki CVN-65 Enterprise 4: Wanted- 1/700 Kingfishers -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: Bruce Ross-QBR000 Subject: Re: Fletcher Conversion Hello Doc, I'm currently scratchbuilding in 1/144 the U.S.S. Stevens, the research that I've done indicates that the crane that was used was a simple boom crane that was operated by running the lines forward to the deck wench. In the case of the Stevens when the crane wasn't in use it was stowed on the main deck, I believe that the Pringle's crane was mounted aft of the #2 stack and offset to port on the 01 level not on the port side main deck like the Stevens and that the crane was stowed on the 01 level deck instead, I'll check and see tonight. The means of recovery was for the ships to basically come to a complete stop and have the Kingfisher taxi up alongside and then be hoisted up and replaced on the catapult, to have to do this in a war zone understandably gave Captains the shakes. I have read an account of this operation on the Stevens that brought the whole experiment to a halt, seems at one point the airplane was pointed straight down at the water and swinging into the side of the ship with the observer in the water and the pilot hanging on for dear life! From the FEW pictures I've been able to find it would appear that the catapult did not have the elevated walkways that the BB's and CA's had on theirs. You also might want to note that the main deck 20mm's were not mounted in the same place on the Pringle and the Stevens. Pringles were mounted about 12 frames further forward than Stevens. Anyway, hope this helps. Bruce Ross -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Les Dorr Jr." Subject: Arizona casemate guns >> I just noticed that after the mid to late thirties the Arizona's casemate guns were open. Does anyone know why they made this change? Does anyone know where to get ten 5" 51 calibre guns in 1/429 scale??? I feel some scratchbuilding coming on here. << Well, maybe you won't have to. I've seen photos of pre-WWII battleships where these casemate openings were covered with canvas while the ship was at sea. You could use small pieces of tissue applied with diluted white glue over the rounded face of the gun. The barrel should stick through. Les -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: SHIPMDLR@aol.com Subject: Re: Ticoneroga Info. >> My local hobby shop says DML's 1/350 scale Ticonderoga was discontinued a while ago. I know it is still listed on most on-line hobby shops and in the Squadron catalogs so ... is he correct or is there water coming over his bow? << Your hobby shop dealer is correct when he says the DML Tico. has been discontinued. However, the license to produce the same kit was picked up by Shanghai - Dragon in China I believe. I have a kit by Shanghai - Dragon and the molding is very good. I believe the kits were passed on to anther model company as well, but I could be wrong. The good news is, the kit is available and I carry a detail set for this kit. Rusty White Flagship Models Inc. http://www.okclive.com/flagship/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: SHIPMDLR@aol.com Subject: Re: Copyright laws >> There may be copyright issues with this, but as long you are just making one sheet for your own use, I doubt too many companies would be upset. << Copyright infringement is as I understand it through our attorneys occurs when your product (decal sheet, model parts, etc.) is copied and sold for profit to others. One interesting thing to note about copyrights. You CAN legally copy up to 20% of a total kit, decal sheet, etc. That's why you see so many DML lifeboats, helicopters, 5" guns, etc., on so many after market kits. From what I understand, if you produced and sold DML 5" guns and sold them in a five pack for instance, this would be illegal but if you used that same 5" gun as a small part of the total kit that's okay. I'm not saying this is good or bad, just interesting. To answer the question, as long as you don't sell the parts to others for profit, you're pretty safe. Rusty White Flagship Models Inc. http://www.okclive.com/flagship/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: SHIPMDLR@aol.com Subject: Re: A/C recovery >> I had wondered, just recently, how they got the Kingfisher back aboard while at sea after launching it. << I believe the A/C recovery was done via a wide nylon floating net towed either from the back or the side. The Kingfishers ha a retractable hook on the bottom of the floats. Once in the water the pilot would maneuver the plane into position and drive it on the floating net. The hook would catch the net, the crane would swing out and was attached to the A/C by the pilot. I'm not a WW2 expert, but I saw some stock footage on TV showing the whole maneuver. I was quite impressed. Rusty White Flagship Models Inc. http://www.okclive.com/flagship/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: "Jim McCormick" Subject: DML's 1/350 scale Ticonderoga >> My local hobby shop says DML's 1/350 scale Ticonderoga was discontinued a while ago. I know it is still listed on most on-line hobby shops and in the Squadron catalogs so... is he correct or is there water coming over his bow? << Well, yes, and no. The Tico from DML was discontinued, but when Dragon took over, they did release it. Dragon and DML seem to be two separate entities, I am not sure how the arragement is, but I do know that the dragon kit is out, and is cheap! It shouldn't be too hard to find. Jim M -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: Vimieraa@aol.com Subject: Re: AA on ArkRoyal I know that to some I may seem to be nit picking but there is a saying. which is "the devil is in the details". Therefore as I now see it ,there were six pom poms fitted, of which five were connected to the pom pom directors, of which there were six in number. Does anybody disagree with this, if not,then this note must be the final one on the subject? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: John Snyder Subject: Re: USN Flowers The US Navy got a small group of RN Flowers (6?--too lazy to look up the numbers at the moment) in early '42 on a revrse Lend-Lease. These vessels served only in the Atlantic during the shortage of escorts in those early months, and were eventually returned to the RN. They were never in the Pacific. John Snyder -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9)] From: "graham walker" Subject: Ark Royal III Has any body got any plans for the Ark in W.W.II -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: Doc Data Subject: Re: Fletcher Conversion More on the conversion of the Fletcher DD kit to the Pringle (or Stevens or Halford)... On the issue of the crane located on the main deck, port side, I rechecked the few photos I could find on the net and you can just make out a crane mast slightly aft and outboard of the after stack. You can also see rigging going down behind the main deck superstructure from the crane mast to, supposedly, the crane boom. In looking at the photo of the USS Stevens kit (w/ catapult and Kingfisher) from Blue Water Navy in which the port side is to the camera, I noted there is no crane on the model. Was this an oversite or was it based on some reference material? Can BWN be contacted to ask them this? Doc Data, owner of the USS Putnam (DD-757) home page http://www.MustangONE.com/putnam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: Tim Perry Subject: Re: Bismarck's turrets yet again I think I must have missed the plot on this one. Can someone put together a resume of this story? The reason I ask is, although I have (had!) no interest in it, I was in my local model shop today and looked by chance at the Airfix 1:600 kit, complete with splendid painting (by Roy Cross?) on the box top. And guess what, it has YELLOW turret tops! I have a feeling 432 SMMLies are now calling Timmy a complete klutz, but now I am intrigued. Or perhaps I should stick to Flowers and LCTs...... Tim Perry -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From: SHIPMDLR@aol.com Subject: Finally accesed Navis For you who have had trouble accessing Navismagazine.com using your pass word, I finally got into it. The web site or my browser would not recognize my password. I was finally able to access the magazine using this proceedure! (1) open the Internet into any site (I used a chatroom to keep from getting thrown out due to inactivity). (2) Minimize AOL (3) Go to start, then programs, and select Internet Explorer. (4) go to the Navis site and enter your password. NO CAPITAL LETTERS! The first time I tried this I used the default name in the name box (White) and it didn't go through. When I entered the name and password in small case it open up. AOL doesn't know why this problem has occurred, but at least they helped me fix it. From now on I'll have to access Navis by going through the desktop. Rusty White Flagship Models Inc. http://www.okclive.com/flagship/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From: "Ralph E. Batykefer, Jr." Subject: HMSH Brittanic I have a modeling friend who is seeking information on HMSH Brittanic. He wants to modify the Revell kit into the Brittanic just before she sank. What color was the hull, stacks, and her markings? What noticable differences were there between her and the Titanic (I hear she was 1/10 larger somehow). Did she have teak decks? What changes were made to convert her to a hospital ship? I'd appreciate some help, otherwise my friend may find himself in a hospital (the mental kind). Keeping sane (almost)... Ralph Batykefer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14) From: "Adam Mello" Subject: Portuguese Triainig ship I am Looking for the portuguese naval trianing ship Sagra. adamelo@calicom.net -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15) From: Douglas Bauer Subject: Thanks I'd like to thank all those who came to my assistance with info on the 5"/38 cal. open mount gun...the help was greatly appreciated. Now I have another request for some input: I'm in the planning stages of scratchbuilding a 1:350 scale USS Kaskaskia (AO 27), and since there's no ready-made hull available, I'll be scratching that, too. With my limited shipbuilding experience (but considerable scratchbuilding expertise, at least with armor), forming the waterline hull will require some advice from my learned modeling collegues. One piece of advice I've received is to cut out a waterline silhouette from styrene, cut appropriate frames and securely glue them to the waterline; then glue a styrene main deck to the frames. Once all is cured, fill in between the frames with Bond-O, file, sand, and shape. Having never attempted anything like this, I'm wondering if there are other ways of doing it. Any input you can provide will be most gratefully received. Thanks, Doug Bauer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 16) From: "Robert J. Mitchell" Subject: Re: Ark Royal A.A Thanks for that Les, I don't know how I missed that one. I have three different histories of the Arks career, and they represent three slightly different points of view.. Now I've read that, I remember reading it some time back. It points out even when you read something written by an Officer who was connected to a particular ship, it isn't necessarliy 100% accurate. Everyones infallable.it's one of the thing s that makes naval History fascinating. Regards Bob -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 17) From: dhjonespsm@juno.com (Daniel H. Jones) Subject: Re: "Send them flowers...." - USN Corvettes >> Were the Flower Class Corvettes used by the USA as well as UK? If so, did the USA use them in the Pacific? How? << When the U-Boats arrived off the American coast (Operation Drumbeat) the USN was critically short of escorts. To meet this emergency 10 Flower class corvettes were transferred from the Royal Navy under reverse Lend-Lease. A further 15 hulls were ordered from Canada, but only eight were delivered to the USN, the other seven being turned over to the Royal Navy. The US corvettes for the most part were manned by US Coast Guard crews. They were designated as gunboats (PG) carrying numbers (first 10 units) PG 62-71, (15 unit Canadian order) PG 86 100. All were employed as coastal convoy escorts in the Atlantic theatre. First 10 units: PG 62 USS TEMPTRESS (ex-HMS VERONICA) PG 63 USS SURPRISE (ex-HMS HELIOTROPE) PG 64 USS SPRY (ex- HMS HIBISCUS) PG 65 USS SAUCY(ex- HMS ARABIS) PG 66 USS RESTLESS (ex HMS PERIWINKLE) PG 67 USS READY (ex- HMS CALENDULA) PG 68 USS IMPULSE (ex- HMS BEGONIA) PG 69 USS FURY (ex- HMS LARKSPUR) PG 70 USS COURAGE (ex- HMS HEARTSEASE) PG 71 USS TENACITY (ex- HMS CANDYTUFT) The 15 Canadian built corvettes were all assigned PG numbers, but only eight served in the USN. These were: PG 86 USS ACTION PG 87 USS ALARCITY PG 89 USS BRISK PG 92 USS HASTE PG 93 USS INTENSITY PG 94 USS MIGHT PG 95 USS PERT PG 96 USS PRUDENT Most photographs of American corvettes show overall gray schemes (example - USS HASTE), or a darker hull, lighter upperworks (USS ALARCITY). USS SURPRISE shows a two color disruptive pattern (there is a photo of this scheme on page 242 of Paul Silverstone's "US Warships of World War II"). Armament on the American corvettes was different from Royal Navy and Canadian units, with more and heavier armament - American pattern 4" and 3" AA guns replacing British weapons - with 20 mm light AA. "To Sea in Haste" by Ronald T. Carr (1975) is a unique book about one of these American corvettes. Though long out of print, it is the only written account of one of a group of USN ships that rate no more than a paragraph in most histories, if they are mentioned at all. The author served on PG 92 USS HASTE and the book is based primarily on a diary he kept at the time. There are several interesting photos of HASTE and sisters INTENSITY & ALARCITY. Daniel Jones Plastic Ship Modeler magazine -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 18) From: RCClem@aol.com Subject: Re: Lindberg Landing Ship Dock and LCVP Thanks to Lrry Ouellette and Tim Perry for their responses regarding the Lindberg LSD at 1/288. I have also built the Lindberg LCVP at 1/32 and built a jeep to and some characters to go with it. It also has a motor for bathtub sailors. I'll check out GHQ Models at http://www.ghqmodels.com for vehicles to load into the LCVPs that came with the kit. A great List. Thanks for the tips, Roger Clemens -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 19) From: RCClem@aol.com Subject: Re: Young Yamatoholic On behalf of my son, Erik, I'd like to thank Michael Connelley for his very detailed response to his questions about the Yamato. He dragged the message to Windows, printed it and put it in his research file for this ship, which already includes some neat pictures. A nice learning event. Also, I know he may not spend his allowance on books but he's fully willing to expend my color cartridges on printing pictures off the web. So, are there any favorite web pages that you older Yamatoholics like to visit? Roger Clemens -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: "Shaya Novak" Subject: I/350 Ticonderoga Dear SMMLers, The Ticonderoga and other 1/350 Dragon kits are all available at The Naval Base 1-888-411-1945 www.navalbasehobbies.com for 24.95 plus 6.00 shipping -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Shaya Novak" Subject: GHQ vehicles The vehicles for the LSD and the LST by Lindberg are here at the Naval Base contact we carry Tanks, Trucks, 1/2Tracks , Jeeps and Command Cars. www.navalbasehobbies.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: Pacific Front Hobbies Subject: 1/400 Otaki CVN-65 Enterprise I forgot to advertise this kit on our Sept.UPDATE...I have one early version in stock for $105.00 + shipping. No extra aircraft kits, but I will try to order some extra sets from Pitroad if I can think of it next week or so. WEM has some 1/400 US Modern CV aircraft in development, that should make some of you happy. Regards, Bill Gruner http://www.pacificfront.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: JGordon262@aol.com Subject: Wanted- 1/700 Kingfishers Gentlemen, I need a pair of Kingfisher floatplanes in 1/700 scale. Skywave makes these and includes them in some of their US ship sets. If anyone has some and is willing to part with them, please contact me. Thanks Jim -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume