Subject: SMML VOL 2045 Date: Fri, 06 Dec 2002 02:28:36 +1100 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http://sandlehobbies.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1: "War Stories" release 2: Help please - From the brain dead 3: Re: Seafire 4: Re: The Monitors guns 5: Re: PT 109 documentary 6: Interesting items on eBay 7: Re: Scale relativities 8: Re: Liberty Ship: Go Big! 9: Books for sale on Ebay by the seller "zeroman" 10: Re: DECAL PAPER STORE 11: Accuracy of the ship's plans -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD INDEX 1: New 1/350 WW2 Aircraft Decals to be released by GMM ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: Burl Burlingame Subject: "War Stories" release War Stories with Oliver North Real Stories about Real Heroes Sundays 8:00-9:00 PM (ET) EIGHT NEW EPISODES STARTING DECEMBER 8, 2002 On December 8, 2002, FOX News Channel's War Stories with Oliver North will air "Attack of the Japanese Midget Subs!" which was filmed on location in Honolulu, Hawaii. The program explores University of Hawaii's Undersea Research Laboratory's discovery of a sunken Japanese midget sub outside Pearl Harbor. This discovery is the first physical evidence to back up what numerous historians have long believed-America fired first in the War with Japan. War Stories brings to life remarkable first-hand stories of American strength and military pride. For this episode War Stories traveled to Japan as well as numerous locations in the U.S. including Hawaii, California, Washington D.C., and Texas to conduct in-person interviews with: Kichiji Dewa, crewmember of one of the five Japanese mother subs that carried midget subs into Pearl Harbor and William Tanner, a PBY pilot who spotted the Japanese midget sub outside Pearl Harbor that was eventually sunk by the USS Ward. Other interviews include, Steve Weiner, who interrogated the first WWII POW, Kazuo, Sakamaki, Kenneth Swedberg, fireman on the USS Ward and John Wiltshire, Chief scientist at the University of Hawaii. Historical expertise on the Pacific War is provided by historians, Burl Burlingame and Jack Green. War Stories Schedule is as follows: DEC. 8 ATTACK OF THE JAPANESE MIDGET SUBS! DEC. 15 WINTER WARRIORS: THE 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION DEC. 22 THE FORGOTTEN FRONT AND THE 1ST AIR COMMANDOS JAN. 5 THE BATTLE OF BRITAIN JAN.12 THE HILL WARS OF KOREA JAN. 19 THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE JAN. 26 HELL IN THE PACIFIC: GUADALCANAL FEB. 2 THE DESERT WAR War Stories highlights the true stories of key battles and individuals in American military history and gives the audience a personal look at the battlefield. Previous episodes have profiled the battle for Iwo Jima, the fight for Okinawa to end WWII and the siege at Khe-Sanh during the Vietnam Conflict. FOX News Channel's program War Stories with Oliver North is on Sunday evenings at 8 PM (ET). Burl Burlingame ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From: "lamkeel" Subject: Help please - From the brain dead Hi Gents I had an e-mail this evening from someone in the USA that wishes to purchase our "Allied Coastal Forces of WW II Volumes 1 and 2". He states that is out of stock at Amazon. Any ideas please ? (Including Canada). Yours "Aye" John. (It doesn't hurt now)..... ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From: "Graham Boak" Subject: Re: Seafire Can I back up your other members re Temperate Sea Scheme on Seafires, but must apologise to Paul Fontenay. I was responsible for the suggestion that the RAF Hurricane IIb destined for Singapore but retained by Indomitable and converted to a Sea Hurricane, retained its RAF colours. On good authority, there is colour film of Pedestal that actually shows this aircraft to be in Temperate Sea Scheme. (I am just waiting for WEM to get additional stock to satisfy my order, so that I can see it too.) My excuse is that there is a pre-Pedestal picture of her on Indom's deck, looking to be in a very different camouflage to the others. Presumably it was just fresher paint. Graham Boak ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From: Andreas Bergauer Subject: Re: The Monitors guns Sorry, but I have to disagree with some of you about the port stoppers: Two passages in the book of James Tertius deKay (Monitor: The story of the civil war ironclad and the man whose invention changed the course of history) sound as if both port stoppers could be raised simultaneously: Page 108: "...The stoppers were huge wrought-iron shields designed to drop down over the portholes when the guns were pulled back into the turret, but Ericsson discovered to his distress that due to an error on his part, only one stopper could be raised at a time (...). A hurried modification did much to solve the problem, but in practice the stoppers, while they did the job they were designed to do, proved cumbersome and difficult to operate." Page 190: "Eventually Lieutenant Greene and his men worked out a makeshift system for controlling the turret that worked with tolerable effectiveness. The awkward iron pendulums that were designed to cover the ports were left permanently open, so as to give the men a freer hand for swabbing out and reloading the guns." This sounds as if both pendulums could be raised at the same time. All sources say that raising them required the whole gun crew which would be a good reason for the usage of the C-shaped port stoppers on later monitors ( which in my opinion possibly could be moved more easily). Hope this helps. Greetings, Andreas Bergauer ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From: "Timothy Connelly" Subject: Re: PT 109 documentary William, read the book, From 163 to 182. Timothy Connelly ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From: paulship37 Subject: Interesting items on eBay I saw these items for sale at eBay. 1918 - 1945 <> THE HISTORY OF POLAND'S NAVY http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1977593334 Great Liners at War by Stephen Harding http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1977402272 * Maru Special #103 Marshalls and Gilberts http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923662488 * Maru Special #98 The Aleutian Strike Force http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923661526 * Maru Special #94 Attacks on Wake, Rabaul http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923659353 * Maru Special #93 Malaya, Singapore Campaign http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923658131 WWII TARPEDO BOAT (1/400 SCALE) http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923561138 PAPER MODEL - HOUSTON TYPE CRUISER http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923534550 PAPER MODEL - BRITISH DESTROYER MARKSMAN http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1923531558 MECHANISM OF THE IJN AIRCRAFT CARRIERS http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1922137482 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From: Edd Pflum Subject: Re: Scale relativities Steve.Richards wrote: >> As I was contemplating my various-scales model ship collection the other day, it seemed to me that unless one is displaying the models in a diorama setting, the big ships should be big models! << I tend to build collections, rather than individual models. One of the influences was finding a local hobby shop that stocked Airfix kits in my youth ("constant scale".) Another was a display in a Squadron Shop outlet (long gone.) A 1:32 scale Starfighter was next to a 1:32 Phantom. The Starfighter was a large model, but the Phantom was huge! The difference in size of the two planes was brought home with a vengeance. My ship modeling has its roots in operating models. Glynn Guest, in his series of stand-off scale designs, has advocated 1:144 as the smallest scale in which the entire range of naval ships could be modeled. (Apparently, Mr. Guest has never tried to build an operating 1:144 PT boat.) At one time, I contemplated a 1:144 Nimitz (4' by 8', roughly), but sanity prevailed. In 1:700, even a large ship produces a rather "dinky" model. 1:350 is much better, but a fleet soon drives one out of the house. The best solution I've come up with is to use a limited range of scales, larger scales for smaller craft, smaller scales for larger. Battleships and carriers would all be the same scale, as would PTs and subchasers (and, of course the Flower), with the destroyers in between. A few duplicates, in a couple of scales, bridge the gaps. Edd (who, of course, has not yet built his grand fleet.) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From: "Doug Marrel" Subject: Re: Liberty Ship: Go Big! If you don't mind upsizing your scale a bit, Dean's Marine has a very nice kit of both armed and unarmed Libety ships in 1/96 scale. It is of course RC and about 52 inches in length according to the box I have. Very nice and impressive in the box :) Doug ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From: PaulShip37 Subject: Books for sale on Ebay by the seller "zeroman" This Ebay seller has over 30 "MARU Special" publications for sale, many out of print since the 80's. Most are about campaigns/battles/ships/aircraft of the fighting in the Pacific in WWII. Go to one of the items previously listed as an interesting item/MARU Special and click on "view sellers other items " for a complete list. I've never seen this many listed at once. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From: SantMin Subject: Re: DECAL PAPER STORE >> Can anyone tell me where ink jet decal paper can be ordered other than the above? << www.micromark.com and www.walthers.com Bob Santos ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From: "D.Przezdziecki" Subject: Accuracy of the ship's plans When discussing ship's plans offered for sale by Russian publisher "Modelist Korablej" on Steel Navy's message board Steve Backer proposes a novel approach to judging accuracy of those drawings. Apparently if you compare those plans with Combrig resin kits they coincide!!!! I would be hard press to find a better example of a circular argument: because plans coincide with kits they are accurate and because kits coincide with plans they have to be accurate too!!?? This of course begs the question: What if the kits were made from inacurate plans??? Steve also apparently believes it "logical that a Russian company would have better sources for Russian subjects than non-Russian ones". Well, it MIGHT sound logical but it still doesn't mean that it HAS to be true does it??? By now I have examined quite a number of plans drawn by "Modelist Korablej" and since Steve stated that he "tends to disagree with blanket condemnation of those plans" lets look at them in some detail: 1- "Borodino", "Suvorov" and "Imp. Aleksander III": all three ships are drawn with identical hull and transverse sections (that of "Orel" BTW), and while drawings of "Borodino" are the best of the bunch they are still very innacurate while drawings of "Suvorov" and "Aleksander III" border on pure fantasy. 2- "Peresviet", "Pobieda" and "Oslabia": I can't comment on "Pobieda" since I am not very familiar with the layout of this ship but drawings of "Peresviet" and "Oslabia" are so inaccurate that they are useless for any modelling purposes. 3- "Tsesarevich": while side view is relatively accurate ("relatively" is the operative word), the main deck layout is a pure fantasy and the shapes of platforms, which form forward and aft bridges, are innacurate. 4- "Navarin": more of a sketch than a plan and very inaccurate in plan view. 5- "Imp.Nikolay I" again a sketch rater than plan, hull lines look wrong when compared to near sister's "Imp. Aleksander II". Drawing is very basic and of little or no help to a ship modeller. 6- "Imp.Aleksander II" the set is one of the better ones in the whole bunch, the shape of the main turret (plan view and side view) needs correcting and so does the planking of the forecastle but unlike the "plans" mentioned above this set is at least salvageable. 7- "Poltava" sisters: since the differences between those ships (in "as build" state) were very minor, if you got one ship right you got all of them right and, judging from the style of the drawings, I do not believe that person who made the original drawing was the same as the author of all the "plans" listed above. Still definitively one of the best sets on offer. The shapes of the turrets in plan view need correcting but other than that the set represents "Poltava" sisters in "as build" appearance fairy well. Regards Darius ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRADERS, ANNOUNCEMENTS & NOTICEBOARD ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From: Loren Perry Subject: New 1/350 WW2 Aircraft Decals to be released by GMM Gold Medal Models will soon release a new 1/350 scale decal for World War Two USN Carrier Aircraft. Stock number will be 350-6D. See the "What's New" section of the GMM webpage for details: www.goldmm.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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