Subject: SMML VOL 1891 Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 02:57:47 +1000 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http://sandlehobbies.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: battleship debate 2: Re: Battleship Debate 3: Change of Enemy 4: Re: Battleship Debate 5: Re: are carriers just missile magnets? 6: Sea skimmers and battleships 7: Re: Battleships, missiles and the next war 8: Cruisers Reference Books 9: Recommendations for 1/700 Dauntless, Avenger, Hellcat 10: Bismarck and Prinz Eugen colors on Rheinübung 11: Graf Spee Camouflage December 1939 12: Dredging 13: Re: HMS Belfast ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: "Andrew Jones" Subject: battleship debate One thing to consider is that people & experts say that big wars are out... maybe & they say it will be small regional conflicts..possibility.. but who really knows what the next conflict will be Australia Vs Indonesia?? Japan/Phillipines/Taiwan/USA VS China over the spratleys (or what ever islands Taiwan/Phillipines/japan & China I think Vietnam as well always seem to playing tug of war over) or India Vs Pakistan ..each one could be just regional conflicts but each one could be big bloody wars no one can really tell the future.. so the debate on big gun warships...ok for the ship gunners any weather and condition..right? ok then what about safety range the Iowas gun fall of shot is something like 500m+ ? Field artillery 2m+ ,5" I think on one US destroyer tour their average was off target shot was 3m (though majority was on target) .. now what happens if a squad is surrounded by the enemy would you risk the big guns of the iwoa's possibly falling on friendlies? & with future aircraft (sorry any anti fly boys out there) hopefully getting better & better at pin point attacks...also what good is big guns when say a large ship is attacked by smaller craft eg PT boats /suicide boats again it will be down to the 5 inchers etc to engage those targets (I seem to recall that the Oliver Hazzard class was originally only to be armed with missiles & the Phalanx..& then they realised that if a ship/boat is too close for a SM1 or harpoon what good is a Phlanx so they added the Oto guns ..i maybe wrong or have given wrong info). My view is that we still need the 5in guns.. big guns thought good for pounding targets would be too risky in this TV coverage world for risk of hitting friendlies.. Harpoons & Tomahawk missiles hopefully are beter now at pin point strikes now than during the 91 gulf war & Serbia..& also with the JDAM & future bombs/missiles..dont get me wrong I still love the sight of bigs guns letting lose but its time to let the big old girls sleep as their duty is done. covers up with his flak jacket & hides under his desk in case of any return fire ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: NAVYDAZE@aol.com Subject: Re: Battleship Debate Please let the old girls sleep - let's be thankful the remaining four were not scrapped but instead all of them will most likely become museums. We are talking about 60 year old ships. We should be thankful that no other major damage was done to them beyond the IOWA accident. These old ships have a lot of wear and tear on them with a lot of equipment that cannot be replaced as many of the manufacturers no longer exist. Just sitting in mothballs for as many years as they did, still contributes to the aging factor of the hulls. I just don't believe we can add that many more years to them, let alone the money required to keep them going. Let's be proud of them, salute them and tell our kids and grand kids about them. But let them sleep! Michael Donegan NAVYDAZE Naval & Aviation Artist http://www.navydaze.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: "Devin J. Poore" Subject: Change of Enemy >> Remember, when the Falklands were invaded in 1982, British Government policy was that the next enemy was going the be the (then) USSR. With this in mind RN missile defense systems were designed to cope with high flying Soviet aircraft. << Along those lines, has anything ever been said about the limitations of the AEGIS system during the Gulf War? There we were, sitting with the most powerful radar/weapons system in the world, but it was virtually useless at anything over 25 miles out due to all of the dust in the air! Sure made for some interesting watches in CIC. Devin ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: NEVENGER@aol.com Subject: Re: Battleship Debate Say guys I was thinking on this subject again and I have a little more to voice on the matter. Some think the battleship is an easy target and can be disabled without to much fuss. Lets take a good look at what happened the other year for a terrorist attack on the USS Cole. One simple attack and that ship was fighting for its life and had no power of its own. The ship had to use a floating dry dock to even come home. Now I am guessing but I think the turret explosion that happened on the New Jersey was no small fire cracker, but the ship was sea worthy and could still carry battle operations if needed. Put another way most modern warships do not hold up well when they take even one good hit. Battleships were built to be hit again and again and still keep going. Then some write but one good hit on the bridge and the battleship is out. Um last time I checked the bridge is not the only place you can control a battleship from. You need to do some reading about real stories of battleships in combat. I can think of several. I was watching the history channel the other week and watched the some stuff on the battle of the Falkland Islands. Some of the British officers said one of their biggest worries was if somehow the old WW2 "CRUISER" that Argentina had was to find the British aircraft carriers before they got it. Thus the ship was one of the main navel targets to be destroyed. The show also showed again one hit on a modern warship and its out of action if it even survives. A few ships were lost to one hit wonders in that conflict. Unless you hit the Mags or do a whole lot of hits, a battleship it has a good chance to just keep on going. Some if we want a fleet of only one hit wonders that cost 1 Billion plus for a show of force then the Battleship is not the answer. Rich ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: NEVENGER@aol.com Subject: Re: are carriers just missile magnets? Being that battleships are not needed because we have aircraft carriers. I think perhaps we put to much on aircraft carriers because we now have missiles (Nukes at that). So lets make it real easy. Missiles are at the top of the chain so nothing else is really needed right. Just think why have a battleship for shore attack if aircraft carriers, airplanes and missiles can do it (which might kill a battleship as well as any other ship out there). Then we can say why have an aircraft carrier if planes and missiles can kill it. See its real simple we no longer need a navy because anything that floats can be struck by aircraft and missiles which can also do shore attact. Which brings us to real simple logic. We can makes all those other countries wish we would only send a battleship, a missile magnet carrier, or a one hit wonder other type of ship if our answer was nuke em and they will be nice. Now that realy seems simple and just think of the cost savings. Rich ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: Robert Lockie Subject: Sea skimmers and battleships >> Sea-dart and sea-wolf had problems with low-flying exocet missiles because the Soviets had no similar systems and therefore low flying missiles/ aircraft were not going to be a threat. << I seem to recall that the Ivans did indeed have sea-skimming missiles, launched from submarines (the SS-N-7, I think - and possibly other platforms), in 1982. Was this not the reasoning behind the introduction of anti-missile capability? I doubt we would have gone to all that expense before the 1982 conflict to be able to shoot down 'friendly' missiles such as Exocet. The USN also acquired Phalanx, and its principal prospective enemy at the time was the Soviet navy. However, I concur that we were fortunate that Argentinian government did not wait a few months for the vital ships to be sold/scrapped. I don't want to get into the whole battleships issue, but I do remember that the standard warhead size on a Soviet missile was in the 1,000kg range - the shock and overpressure effects alone of impact of such a warhead on even a battleship seem to be pretty likely to cause some heavy duty damage even if the thing doesn't sink. The destructive power of modern precision weapons (not Scuds - if you hit the right city, you are doing well) is such that armouring other than against splinters is so expensive (in terms of money and weight) as to be inefficient. Robert Lockie Swindon UK (considerably more than 23 miles from the coast, so no danger of even a 16" RAP hitting me anyway) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: Phil Stewart Subject: Re: Battleships, missiles and the next war In SMML VOL 1890, Phil Collins said: >> Remember, when the Falklands were invaded in 1982, British Government policy was that the next enemy was going the be the (then) USSR. With this in mind RN missile defence systems were designed to cope with high flying Soviet aircraft. Sea-dart and sea-wolf had problems with low-flying exocet missiles because the Soviets had no similar systems and therefore low flying missiles/ aircraft were not going to be a threat. << I thought the Soviets were heavily invested in cruise missiles, including air-launched and sea-launched anti-shipping missiles. Consider the large array of anti-shipping missiles deployed in their missile cruisers, for example (look at those monstrous canisters on the foredeck of the Admiral Golovko class). Wasn't the first ship sunk by a missile an Israeli destroyer, by an SS-N-2 Styx missile? (I forget the name of the ship-- Eilat?-- and the missile) I had thought Soviet naval doctrine favored cruise missiles launched by air and sea as a counterweight to U.S. carrier operations. I also thought the Sea Wolf missile system was expressly designed with the interception of missiles in mind. Again I may be forgetting. >> with the HMS's Intrepid and Fearless becoming dogfood tins. << Hey I'd buy one of those! Perhaps I would put Spam in it. Great for computer geek parties. >> No British Government could imagine fighting a war, alone, and several thousand miles away from the nearest friendly bases. << It's interesting what two world wars did to European and British primacy, no? Phil Stewart ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: "Michael J. D'Silva" Subject: Cruisers Reference Books Would anyone know of a good reference book, or books, for Cruisers? I'm mainly interested in Royal Navy Cruisers of the pre-dreadnought and dreadnought era. Perhaps something along the lines of a Burt's British Battleships of WW1 and/or Preston's Battleships of WW1. There seems to be plenty of titles available for Battleships, Battlecruisers, Aircraft Carriers, etc., but not much on Cruisers. I already have Burt's British Cruisers of WW1, but I am hoping for something a little more detailed. What's Anthony Preston's Cruisers: An Illustrated History 1880 to 1980 like? Is it a good place to start? I look forward to your suggestions... Michael ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From: "Cameron Lynch" Subject: Recommendations for 1/700 Dauntless, Avenger, Hellcat I just picked up a 1/700 Tamiya Enterprise CV-6 and plan on doing my first aircraft carrier with it. I intend to portray her at the time of the Great Marianas Turkey Shoot in June '44. Preliminary research seems to indicate she was still in MS 21 at the time and had Air Wing 10 embarked. I plan on having a deckload of aircraft on her and don't want to waste time/money on lousy aircraft. To that end I am soliciting opinions on what the best available representations of the SBD Dauntlesses, TBF Avengers and F6F Hellcats. I might also include one of the VF(N)-101 F4U-2 Corsair nightfighters as well... Thanks in advance. Cameron Lynch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: "Cameron Lynch" Subject: Bismarck and Prinz Eugen colors on Rheinübung Ok I'm just getting into a few ships...some KM subjects particularly. I'm excited by the new White Ensign paints, but I'm scratching my head about which ones to get. Should I use the Baltic Scheme colors and then paint over the stripes...or are there other possibilities. Thanks for your patience with a newbie. Cameron Lynch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: "Cameron Lynch" Subject: Graf Spee Camouflage December 1939 Ok I'm reworking the Fujimi Graf Spee and am starting to think about paint and markings. Several of my references depict the camouflage applied to the superstructure as being a shade of green. Several other depict it as gray. Is there anything definitive on this issue? Of course that then begs the question of what to use for the green (assuming it is green) or the gray (assuming it is gray). Right now I'm leaning toward gray because I'm not sure that they would have stores of green paint aboard, but I'm sure they had plenty of gray of one form or another. Thanks and again I appreciate your patience. Cameron Lynch ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From: "Doug Bauer" Subject: Dredging Just wanna add a few comments about this thread: many years ago I worked on a 30" pipeline dredge on the Columbia River. This particular vessel wasn't self-propelled, but moved by means of anchor lines and "spuds". These spuds were large, tall cylinders (about 4' in diameter) pointed at one end and located at the stern, at both quarters, and were raised by a winch and collar set-up. At the bow was the "ladder", which was the working end of the dredge. It was moved up or down by means of a wire-rigged topping lift. At the tip of the ladder a cutter head rotated and stirred up the river bottom allowing the suction pipe to suck it up into a huge centrifugal pump with an 84" impeller....a diesel locomotive engine powered the pump which sent the spoil down the pipeline to the shore. Two swing anchors were led out off each side of the ladder and dropped well ahead of the dredge. The leverman in the pilothouse "drove" the dredge forward in this manner: the port spud is dropped down into the river bottom, and the stbd one up....the leverman heaves around on the port swing wire and slacks the stbd, and the dredge pivots to port on the spud.....he now drops the stbd spud and raises the port....now he heaves around on the stbd swing wire and slacks the port. Get it?! We often also ran out quarter wires to assist us in getting out of the way of log booms and merchant ships plying the channel. All you never really wanted to know about a pipeline dredge!! Doug Bauer Poway, CA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From: Mitsuaki Kubota Subject: Re: HMS Belfast Hi Bob, Do you mean two structures between three twin HA guns of each ship's side? If so, they are gun crew's shelter. Actually, the crew's shelters have reinforcing frames outboard. "SMML ON LINE" has photographs of Belfast as she is today, taken by Douglas Martin. Some of images show them, although aft shelters of each side were removed and altered by late war (and post war) modernization. http://smmlonline.com/reference/walkabouts/belfast/belfast015.jpg http://smmlonline.com/reference/walkabouts/belfast/belfast030.jpg Hope this help! Best regards, Mitsuaki Kubota http://members.jcom.home.ne.jp/hmdock/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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