Subject: SMML VOL 1755 Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 01:30:10 +1000 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http://sandlehobbies.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: Naval anti-missile defence test successful: Pentagon - The Times of India 2: Ruse de guerre, 9th June 1944 3: Ruse de guerre, 9th June 1944 4: Model Shops in Washington, DC? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: New additions to SANDLE Hobbies 2: books for sale -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: JRKutina@webtv.net (John Kutina) Subject: Naval anti-missile defence test successful: Pentagon - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=12994290 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "Tony Ireland" Subject: Ruse de guerre, 9th June 1944 Hi Erik, Many thanks for cleverly using the reported date of the scuttling of the 'Courbet' to correct my date error. Odd that I should have lost a day spent off the beaches. Probably because nothing really memorable happened on 8th June - merely routine bombardments at intervals throughout the day against groups of tanks massing inland in woods. Once I recall that the B.L.O. on the bridge plugged into our Tannoy speakers his radio link to the pilot of a Spitfire who was spotting the fall of our salvoes of five shells. A dozen or so tanks had been caught in a sunken road as our shells fell on them, and the pilot was whooping excitedly "Yippee!" as he circled the scene where the column of tanks could not climb out of the road and scatter. Our B.L.O. rather irritably asked him for range and bearing corrections, leading to his classic shout "Just keep on shooting! I'll tell you when you miss!!" Caught up in this excitement I positioned myself at the aft end of our oerlikon AA battery, by the main mast, and looked down at the Royal Marine crew serving 'Q' 7.5-inch gun in its open single mount. Two men were lifting a 205lb, two-foot long semi-armour-piercing shell, using a grab below a 4-ft long steel bar, before it was pushed by hand with a thud into the open breech. Then a thin canvas cylindrical bag of cordite propellant - about the same length - was withdrawn from its protective leather Clarkson case. Its rear end had a silk disc, probably enfolding a gunpowder gaine. The bag was pushed carefully into the breech, which was then slammed shut. A firing detonator the size of a .303 cartridge case was inserted into the breech-block and 'Q gun ready!' was called into the gun captain's head-set. Unlike my near-fatal forgetfulness on the morning of the 6th, I listened intently. The warning bell sounded 'Ting, ting!' and I put my hands over my ears. I heard our other four guns fire. But 'Q' stayed silent. The gun captain shouted 'Misfire!' and extracted the detonator from the breech-block. It appeared to have fired correctly. Two men dragged a 3-foot diameter wooden tub of water forward and positioned it just below and behind the breech. Again they repeated the firing sequence at the next salvo. Nothing happened. Maybe they tried again - I can't remember. After a lengthy pause and a gesture from the chief, the gun's crew withdrew to the sides of the gun shield, leaving a heavily gloved marine each side of the breech. I stood back a little and took a deep breath as one reached out to the lever and hauled the breech-block open. I caught a quick glimpse of a wisp of smoke and a red glimmer of smouldering fabric. Then they'd yanked the cordite charge backwards and doused it in the tub - and I breathed again, filled with admiration for the two marines. Somehow, I guessed, the rear silken end of the cordite bag had become damp. There were no more misfires, fortunately. I'd been watching a gun whose mechanism dated back, I suppose, to the 1890's. I presume that the use of similar bags of cordite propellant led to the disasters aboard David Beatty's three battlecruisers at Jutland. I believe that a similar near-disaster in 1914 caused the Germans to switch to the use of brass cordite containers. Interesting stuff, cordite - solidified nitroglycerine, like sticks of uncooked brown spaghetti. One midshipman had a party trick - using a stick of it as a cigarette lighter. Or he'd suck on a stick and explain that it was a stimulant. Curious, also, was the way that one man at Manchester University in 1916 - and Director of the Admiralty Laboratories till 1919 - saved Britain from a disastrous shortage of cordite. As a result he made possible the creation of what came to be the State of Israel in 1948. It seemed remarkable that our obsolescent, manually operated main armament had nevertheless knocked out the main battery of four 155mm coast defence guns at the mouth of the Orne canal by hits on the narrow concrete gun slits - not long before zero hour on D-Day. But we'd been forced to close to 5,000 yards - from 10,000 - and lie stopped in front of them, way inshore from the rest of the cruisers and destroyers who were blazing away at the sea front of Ouistreham at Sword Beach. Then, as we thankfully sped out to sea at 24 knots to rejoin them, we passed the line of rocket-firing landing craft - an unforgettable sight. Each carried 1,028 rockets, I believe, angled upwards 45 degrees in a maze of steel supports. A clump of rockets fired every few seconds and sheets of flame and smoke flashed rearwards to our amazement, as we'd never heard about them. A curious little incident had occurred the previous evening, as our cruiser steamed south through the half-mile wide channel swept through minefields. We five midshipmen had obeyed pre-action-stations orders by having a shower and changing into clean underwear. Having no cabins, we dressed out on the tiller flat below the quarterdeck beside our large sea chests. As I swung an arm around into my battledress blouse I knocked a mirror off my sea chest, and it shattered on the thick armoured deck - drawing much gallows humour from my shipmates. The odd thing was that one of them went down with a bad bout of pleurisy and spent the next four days in the sick-bay sedated with morphia - amid the stream of emergency operations being performed on seriously wounded men from the beaches. The syringe of Omnopon morphia issued to me was stored in my VW Kombi first-aid kit in 1961 when I drove south from Kariba Dam via Lusaka to the Victoria Falls in Central Africa. I then used it on an African I came across whose leg had been shattered in a collision between two trucks... In a similar vein, I should mention the ghastly and pitiful sight, during those four days in 1944, of the numerous bodies drifting along the coast, often bobbing up and down beneath the blast of our salvoes. They were buoyed up by inflated lifebelts, but mercifully always lay face down. The big tidal range of about 20 feet must have led to the drowning of many of the wounded from the first wave of infantry who had landed at low tide between 6.30 and 7.30 a.m from Utah Beach to Sword Beach. Just before dawn on the 6th, when I came up to my action station and peered out at the shapes of the vast fleet around us, I was startled by a tremendous brilliant white flash some distance away to the east. Later I was told that this was the Norwegian destroyer 'Svenner'. All her torpedoes must have been detonated when she was hit by one of a spread of torpedoes loosed by three S-Boote from Le Havre that blundered out of a smokescreen along our left flank. They raced back to their base, making the first sighting reports of the invasion armada. No, Erik, I'm afraid that I never noticed that HMS 'Warspite' was down by the stern. I'd assumed that aiming the whole ship on a compass bearing, with both forward turrets locked dead ahead, would ensure the most accurate line of fire. And as her pitching motion would be far less than her sideways roll in the fairly rough sea on D-Day, her ranging corrections would also be simplified. I did know that only her X turret was jammed by the glider bomb hit on No.4 boiler room in 1943. I concluded that they decided it wasn't worth-while using Y turret by firing awkwardly aft over her stern. One of my two surviving small photos - not eaten by termites in Central Africa with a whole album in a bookcase - shows HMS 'Ramillies' similarly firing a salvo ahead from her forward guns. We kept a wary lookout for both ships when they were less than a mile from us, as the concussion when they fired over our heads was pretty severe. I don't recall ever seeing 'Rodney' or 'Nelson' actually firing their 16-inch guns. Perhaps they did not start their harassing fire at Caen until after we'd left, and our failure to capture that important communications centre became clear. BTW, Erik, I had a prolonged close-up view of the stern of 'Warspite' on the 4th and 5th June, 1944. We were close astern of her after the eight or so ships of the bombardment squadron rounded Land's End in line ahead, coming out of the Bristol Channel. We then steamed east along the coast of Cornwall and Devon very close inshore, following each bay, to escape detection by German radar sited across the Channel. Crowds of children ran along the cliff tops, waving excitedly. Then the near-gale conditions caused D-Day to be postponed 24 hours, so all our ships had to do a tricky 180 degree turn close inshore and retrace our course westwards, with 'Mauritius' ahead of us and 'Warspite' close astern. As we rounded Land's End and headed north at a dozen knots to kill time, the wind and sea caught us on the port quarter. I was amazed by the wild rolling and yawing motion of 'Mauritius'. We spent a rough afternoon and evening before turning to retrace our previous day's course at exactly the same hour. With hindsight, any U-boat lurking there - as they did towards the end of that year - would have had a golden opportunity, as I don't recall any escorting destroyers, and our big ships had no asdic/sonar. Forgive unplanned length of this. I'd half hoped that John Lambert would clear up my confusion over the maximum elevation of an oerlikon gun. Sorry, Erik, that you've been waiting 21 months to hear how we were bounced by those eight FW-190's. Cheers, Tony Hi Tony, No need to apologise for "unplanned length" - keep em coming ;-) Shane -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: "Leslie Brown" Subject: Model Shops in Washington, DC? Having just returned from a business trip to Washington, DC (Crystal City to be precise) for which I had no chance to prepare myself, can anybody advise me of suitable locations to visit on the next trip? Regards Les Brown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: Lorna Jenkins Subject: New additions to SANDLE Hobbies Hi guys, Just a selection of some of the goodies that have come in over the past week or so: WEM's Prinz Eugen/Hipper and Gneisenau/Scharnhorst sets are now here as well as the latest IJN paints (Modern Navy should be arriving very shortly) Ozmods ships (Darings etc) as well as their aircraft kits and conversion sets are now also available. Hawkeye Models decals for those of you wanting to build RAN aircraft in a scale larger than 1/700 or 1/350, not to mention a whole lot of other aircraft as well Check out the website at: http://sandlehobbies.com for more information Cheers Lorna Jenkins BTW: We are also "cheerfully taking pre-orders" for the WR Press Essex class carriers book which is scheduled for release in mid-July. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: Gernot Hassenpflug Subject: books for sale Fellow SMMLies, I am selling off a few of my library assets. Please contact me off list if you are interested. Prices include shipping anywhere in the world. 1. British Detroyers, Edgar J. March $225.00 2. US Light Cruisers in Action, Squadron/Signal $12.00 3. Akagi,Monografie Morskie $15.00 4. Model Ship Guide, Pitroad $10.00 5. Radar at Sea - The RN in WW2, Derek Howse $30.00 6. Marine Mitchells in WW2, Jerry Scutts $15.00 7. F4F Wildcat, Aero Detail No.22 $35.00 8. De Havilland Mosquito, Aero Detail 23 $45.00 Regards, Gernot -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Backissues, Member's models & reference pictures at: http://smmlonline.com Check out the APMA site for an index of ship articles in the Reference section at: http://apma.org.au/ -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume