Subject: SMML VOL 890 Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 00:55:41 +1000 shipmodels@tac.com.au -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: Re: Russian MTB Camouflage 2: Scratch Building Hull Bottoms 3: Museum News 4: Vosper MTBs in Action 5: Re: McMuir 6: Deck planking material 7: Re: Belknap class at Philly 8: U-571 Movie 9: Liberty Ship plans 10: yellowing ships 11: Cabot article 12: Re: Philly -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMMLcon Infomation & posts 1: SMMLcon 2000 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: International Scale Ship Models 2: ModelExpo Sale -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: PT191@aol.com Subject: Re: Russian MTB Camouflage Falk Pletcher, I'd like to see those photos of those Russian MTBs. T. Garth Connelly -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: RhinoBones@aol.com Subject: Scratch Building Hull Bottoms I plan to build up a small collection of 1/700 scale pre-dreadnought era ships over the next few years, however, it seems that everything I've found offered is of the water line design. I much prefer the full hull design. I would appreciate any help with ideas in the techniques used to fashion hull bottoms and suggestions for the proper materials. I'm not looking to build highly accurate or detailed hull bottoms, just something which give a reasonable representation and provides a mounting base for the top side assembly. As a second note, the recent message traffic concerning visits/touring the New Orleans area has come in very handy. This Monday I'm off for a two week business trip to the ship yards in Pascagoula, Mississippi. A rather sudden and unexpected interruption in my life . . . but an excellent chance to visit the USS Alabama and USS Kidd. Maybe I can get some decent photos for posting on the SMML home page. As a third note, under separate cover I am sending an updated listing of my turn of the century ship listing to SMML. There have been quite a few additions for new Pacific Front offerings, some 1/700 and many 1/1250 scale kits. Regards, RhinoBones -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: "Mike Leonard" Subject: Museum News In what may be the last futile attempt to save the light carrier ex-USS CABOT from the scrap heap, a group called the Iron Woman Foundation (www.ironwoman.org) is soliciting corporate and private donations. They need at least half a million dollars to begin the process of restoring the ship, and have indicated that Washington, DC, is one of the areas they'd try to have the ship moved to. Good luck to them; they'll need it. On a happier note, the decommissioned battleship USS WISCONSIN will soon be moved from storage at the Norfolk naval base to undergo restoration in preparation for her move to downtown Norfolk. Construction of a permanent berth at Nauticus is proceeding ahead of schedule, and the opening day for the ship is tentatively set for mid-April 2001. On 12 April 2000, the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History (Washington, DC) opened "Fast Attacks and Boomers: Submarines in the Cold War". In the planning stages for two years, this 3200 square foot display features models, drawings, photographs, artifacts and actual weapons and equipment from decommissioned nuclear boats. The exhibit is part of the various events to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the US Navy Submarine Force. More information is available at the Submarine Force Centennial web page at www.navy.mil. (Source: Norfolk Flagship) Mike Alexandria, VA USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: "Mike Leonard" Subject: Vosper MTBs in Action Latest release from Squadron/Signal is Warships #13: "Vosper MTBs in Action". Typical Squadron format: soft cover, 50 pages with one to four photos per page, line drawings, and front and back cover color artwork. There are eight starboard side color views of boats in various camouflage patterns. Author is T. Garth Connelly; illustrations are by Don Greer, Ernesto Cumpian, and Richard Hudson. Appears to be well done, but I'd rather have the opinion of an authority on torpedo boats. Mike Alexandria, VA USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: URUDOFSKY@aol.com Subject: Re: McMuir The ship you are really looking for is the dependents and troop transport, the AP "General C. H. Muir". The "McMuirs" were not troop ships. Ulrich Rudofsky (of the lousy tubs "Generals Butner, Buckner, and Rose") -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: "Foeth" Subject: Deck planking material To my dismay I just found out that Evergreen 2025 V-groove styrene isn't the finest engraved plating available. Already I noticed on Classic Warships Salem the deck planking was narrower, because there is another product by Evergreen, number 2020 Car Siding which is even nicer.I don't have a clue why it isn't in the V-groove selection, but it should be better to-scale for those custom made wooden decks. Evert-Jan Foeth -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: Keith T Bender Subject: Re: Belknap class at Philly To Bruce Ross, The hull at Philly being cut was a Belknap class due to the knuckle at the bow. Sorry. The Claude V. Rickets is there too, cut to the main deck and gun area removed to just above water line and is still afloat. Keith -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: JRKutina@webtv.net (John Kutina) Subject: U-571 Movie Saw this movie last night. Impressive sequences were the depth charge attacks. There was poetic license as shots of depth charges exploding within yards of the submerged sub's hull would have shredded the hull, however, the scenes were most dramatic. As in "Private Ryan" the military is not a democracy and enlisted men arguing with their officer is not the way it was. Also, I doubt if many officers invite all enlisted men to their weddings. It was a fast, action packed thriller. The last scene was of a PBY finding the raft of American survivors. The PBY had the huge script "U.S. Navy" boldly painted entirely covering its top wing - that was strictly for young civilians who never have seen or even know of the PBY. John - Seattle -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From: cfrieden@calpoly.edu Subject: Liberty Ship plans >> does any one know where i can obtain set of plans for liberty ship which can be scaled to 1/72 << Floating Drydock has a nice set available in 1/96 scale. I have only seen a small reproduction of these plans, but they look like they are complete enough to build a large model from them. Hope this helps, Chris Friedenbach -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: "Douglas MacAhonic" Subject: yellowing ships Hi all, I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem. Over the last year, I have dullcoated (humbrol) many of my 1/700 ships, now THEY are ALL turning yellow. This is very disheartening. Is there anyway to rectify this, or is it just a very expensive learning experience for me. Thanks Doug -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: Subject: Cabot article FYI To view the entire article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48837-2000Apr20.html >> Celebrated World War II Aircraft Carrier Is Now in a Fight for Its Life She is known in the fleet as "The Iron Woman," because she has fought in every battle in the Pacific in the years 1944 and 1945. Her battle record sounds like a train caller on the Lackawanna railroad. Listen-Kwajalein, Eniwetok, Truk, Palau, Hollandia, Saipan, Chichi Jima, Mindanao, Luzon, Formosa, Nansei Shoto, Hong Kong, Iwo Jima, Tokyo . . . and many others. She has known disaster. Her fliers who have perished cannot be counted on both hands . . . She has been hit twice by . . . bombs. She has had mass burial at sea . . . with her dry-eyed crew sewing forty-millimeter shells to the corpses of their friends, as weights to take them to the bottom of the sea. Ernie Pyle wrote those words while aboard an aircraft carrier in the western Pacific Ocean in March 1945, a few weeks before the great war correspondent was killed in action. Pyle could not use the ship's real name in his dispatch because of wartime censorship, but it was the USS Cabot, one of nine Independence-class light carriers. In 1942, with the United States' suffering from the loss of carriers in the Pacific, President Franklin D. Roosevelt had ordered the conversion of nine Cleveland-class cruisers then under construction, into light carriers. The light carriers proved a great success in the Pacific War, and the Cabot--known to millions of Pyle's readers as the Iron Woman--had perhaps the greatest record of all. Now the Cabot sits in a berth at a shipyard in Brownsville, Tex., possibly months or just weeks away from being scrapped. It's the last of the nine Independence sisters in existence and the only World War II carrier remaining in near-original configuration. Pyle's words, some of the most eloquent ever written about a carrier, went through Peter Stoudt's head earlier this year when he walked about the carrier's wood-plank axial flight deck--the only one left from World War II--during a visit earlier this year. "About 55 years after Pyle wrote those words, you can walk those same decks and see those same guns," said Stoudt, a writer from Virginia who has been helping to lead a fight to preserve the ship and turn it into a floating museum and memorial. The ship's owner, Sabe Marine, is willing to sell the Cabot and has temporarily postponed plans to scrap the ship but cannot carry the berthing and insurance costs indefinitely. "We really have to do it by the end of this month as they're going to have to start disassembling her," Stoudt said. The Cabot has survived this long largely because it was sold to Spain's navy in the 1960s. During the intervening years, all the other sisters were scrapped. In 1989, Spain gave the ship to a group in New Orleans that planned to make her into a museum, and $2 million in federal funds were spent restoring the ship. The effort to establish the Cabot as a museum foundered because of competing legal claims to the ship, which now have been settled. Stoudt, who grew up in Northern Virginia and graduated from Osbourn High School in Manassas, estimates that as much as $500,000 will be needed to save the ship. The Iron Woman Foundation, a nonprofit organization established to save the ship, is struggling to raise the money from corporations and individuals interested in helping. "We stand a reasonable chance, and we're working night and day," Stoudt said. The foundation may not have much in cash yet, but it does have some big names supporting it, including two former presidents who were nearly killed while serving on other Independence-class carriers during World War II. George Bush served as an Avenger pilot aboard the USS San Jacinto and was shot down when his plane was hit by antiaircraft fire attacking Chichi Jima in September 1944. Gerald Ford served as an officer aboard the USS Monterey and was nearly swept overboard during a typhoon in December 1944. Both Ford and Bush have agreed to serve as honorary board members in the effort to save the ship. "The nine sisters of the Independence class were an example of America's industrial ingenuity in World War II and played a vital role in the successful war effort in the Pacific," Ford recently wrote to Stoudt. There is another presidential connection of sorts: Sen. John McCain's grandfather, Adm. J.S. "Slew" McCain Sr., commanded the task force that included the Cabot, and in one famous rescue, directed the Iron Woman and another carrier to protect two crippled U.S. cruisers that were being towed to safety off Formosa. Stoudt is even floating the idea of erstwhile presidential rivals John McCain and George W. Bush using the ship as a vehicle for rapprochement with a joint appearance in support of its preservation. The foundation has created a Web site at www.ironwoman.org for people seeking more information, and Stoudt can be reached at 804-977-5897. Should they succeed in saving the Iron Woman, Washington is one of a number of locations the foundation is considering proposing as a home. "It would be the only aircraft carrier you could ever get to Washington, D.C., because it's the only one that's small enough," he said. Spy Plane Anniversary On April 8, 1950, a Navy Privateer spy plane with a crew of 10 Americans was shot down by Soviet fighters over Latvia. The crew members were never found. On the 50th anniversary of this Cold War mystery and tragedy, relatives of crew members and others involved in the case gathered. A panel discussion at the Willard Inter-Continental was followed by a wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery. A memorial ceremony in Liepaja, Latvia, where a plaque honoring the missing crew members was unveiled, was simulcast during the gathering at the Willard. Among those participating in the Washington commemoration was Jane Reynolds Howard, of McLean, the wife of crew member Robert D. Reynolds. The Privateers were World War II-era B-24 Liberators, which had been modified for reconnaissance. The downing of the spy plane, which reflected a new level of Soviet aggressiveness in defending its borders, became a Cold War secret. The Navy claimed the plane disappeared during a routine training flight from Germany to Denmark. Jane Reynolds, who knew nothing about the type of mission in which her husband was engaged, was left in the dark. "He couldn't tell me anything about that," she said. "I thought it was routine." Lt. j.g. Reynolds left behind his wife, then 10 weeks pregnant with their daughter Carolyn, and a 3-year-old daughter, Christina. For 40 years, Howard moved on with her life, remarrying and raising her family. But a decade ago, through news accounts, she learned about the Privateer's real fate. For years, she was haunted by speculation that crew survivors might have been captured and imprisoned by the Soviets. She traveled to Russia with her daughters and pressed the U.S. government for answers. A U.S.-Russian joint commission on POWs and MIAs has looked at claims that American service members had been detained in Siberian labor camps but has been unable to find conclusive evidence. Now, at 78, Howard is at peace, and she believes Bob Reynolds and the other crew members are as well. "It's been a very strange experience," she said. Steve Vogel can be reached at vogels@washpost.com via e-mail. << -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From: "Steven P. Allen" Subject: Re: Philly According to my source, as of about 12/96, the only Belknap at Philly was Wainwright. Turner, a Leahy-class, was there, and 8 Adams-class and 7 Coontz-class DDGs (this distribution makes sense, as the Coontz class were shorter-legged than the later Leahys and Belknaps and were therefore more commonly assigned to LantFlet. Another source lists anothe Belknap at Philly, but I can't find it right now. Steve Allen -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SMMLcon Infomation & posts SMML Convention and tour notices: http://www.mikedunn.freeserve.co.uk/smml/help/smml_con.html If your coming to the SMML convention on friday, we need to know which tour you planning to attend so that we can get an accurate head count for transportation. Contact John Frohock ca139johnf@aol.com and let him know which tour you plan on attending. If you are going on a tour, you need to be onboard the USS Salem no later than 10:00am on Friday May 5th. We will open the ship starting at 9:00am for those who would like a cup of coffee and some schoozing before departure. For those of you who are not going on either tour; the USS Salem will NOT be open to the public on friday (Crew will be on watch to repel boarders if provoked ) so please do not show-up at the ship on friday unless you are attending the tours. Check out Convention and tour info at: http://www.mikedunn.freeserve.co.uk/smml/help/smml_con.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: CA139JOHNF@aol.com Subject: SMMLcon 2000 Fellow Model Shipmates, Less than two weeks to go until the big event. I know time is getting very short but we have some news. The Museum has undergone a change of administration. When I was laying out the event plans for the new Director, she did not place any restrictions on the the sale of items between attendees. Therefore, if any vendors wish to do a little business on the side during the meet, they are free to do so. The list of attendees is shorter than we would like and we may not have enough to cover all expenses 100%. More information will be availble on Friday 5 May. The shortfall, if any, is small and may entail paying your own way on the tours, however, we are going to cover the transportation expenses. We may have to ask you to cover any admission charges, which are minimal. Everything else is covered, use of the ship, Lunch and Dinner, Salem tours, etc. Following are the names of attendees that indicated they are comming. If you are and not on the list, let us (me) know or you will not receive a splendiferous SMMLcon 2000 badge being designed by John Sheridan. You will receive, instead, a hand written badge by yours truly. (I'm a mechanical engineer and we are well known for sloppy handwriting and outrageous spelling mistakes.) If you not comming but are on the list, then don't let us (me) know, I can't handle rejection. And please, Please, PLEASE, bring a ship model. Its what we are all about! Attendees: Caroline Carter, John Lambert, Bradford Chaucer, Jim Corley, Robert Lockie, Thorston Wahl, Jeff Herne, John Snyder, Steve Wiper, Duane Fowler, Gary Knizett, Mary Kinzett, Doc Wiseman, Al Ross, Tom Dougherty, Dave Riley, Alan Raven, Tim Dike, John Rule, Levrett Preble, Glenn Arnold, Alan Legloahec, Art Herrick, Jim Kloek, Dave Krakow, Ed Arini, Bill Flemming, Felix Bustelo, Jeff Fenton, Yohan Fernando, Keith Butterly, Jeff Hughes, Mrs. Hughes, Charlie Parker, Edgar Arnold, Darren Scannell, Rod Dauteuil, Denis Cambell, Mrs. Campbell, John Frohock, Fritz Koopman, Harold Lincoln, Mark McKellar, Larry Ouelette, John Sheridan. See You All at SMMLcon 2000!!! John "I'll never volunteer again" Frohock US Naval Shipbuilding Museum -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: "Mike Leonard" Subject: International Scale Ship Models From www.opsailvirginia.com: >> International Scale Ship Model Competition and Exhbibition, 10 am - 5 pm, June 16-18, 2000 The Mariners' Museum, Newport News, VA (757) 591-7751 This prestigious event recognizes and encourages excellence in the art of building scale ship models. The competition is open to completed models built to scale by individual modelers, professional or amateur, of all ages. Models will be judged in three categories, Scratchbuilt, Semi-Scratchbuilt and Kit. Special awards will also be presented by the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Navy, Newport News Shipyard and others. Modelers must have their entries submitted by April 30, 2000. A panel of nationally recognized ship model authorities will judge the models in a private process the week of May 8th. On June 17th at a special ceremony marking the opening of the exhibition the award-winning models will be displayed along with other selected models at The Mariners' Museum. The models will remain on display through October 28th. Plans are also in the works for a variety of activities including demonstrations of radio-controlled models, family model making, model "clinics" for model enthusiasts, and other activities centered around the art of model ship building. It is an honor to have Newport News selected as the site for this prestigious competition especially as this is the first of the new millennium. The visiting public will be able to see examples of the finest workmanship, design and presentation of model ships in the world. << Mike Alexandria, VA USA -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Mike Leonard" Subject: ModelExpo Sale FYI, the new Model Expo Inc. (www.modelexpoinc.com) catalog lists a large sale on all resin models by Blue Water Navy as well as special discounts on plastic kits by Airfix, Heller, Monogram, Revell, Lindberg, Tamiya and Minicraft. Discounts up to 60% are being offered through 8/31/00. Mike -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for having SMML at your home, why not stop by our home at: http://www.smml.org.uk -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume