Subject: SMML VOL 2429 Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 05:38:04 +1100 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http//sandlehobbies.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1 HMS CLEOPATRA 2 Re "NOT the TIRPITZ" 3 Photo Quality 4 Re Photo Quality 5 Re News about Graf Spee 6 Re Kormoran vs. Sydney 7 Re News about Graf Spee 8 Oahu RR 9 Re "What a silly question.!!!!! 10 Re Niko Models Needs Help 11 Re KORMORAN and GRT 12 Re Niko Models Needs Help 13 Re Niko Models Needs Help ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From "john bradford" Subject HMS CLEOPATRA I served on HMS CLEOPATRA ( F28 ) during her first commission 1965/66. I have a !/96 plan and all the specs but unfortunately I do not have a colour photograph of her.The colour scheme of the Leander's varied from ship to ship and it is important that I get it right, especially with her Fast Motor Boat and Whaler. We visited 'OZ' in 1966 and it is possible someone may have a colour photo of her. Have contacted the usual sources here in the UK without success.Can anyone down there help me? John ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From "Chris Hughes" Subject Re "NOT the TIRPITZ" I have emailed the person responsible for administering the Keele University website and copied Brooks' comments. It is most unfortunate that the people who run the site are "digitisation" experts, not historians! I have had some dealings with Keele and the Archive, through my job as an Imagery Analyst and former Curator of the UK's museum of Imagery Analysis artefacts, the Medmenham Collection. The folks at Keele are very keen to be able to put as many of the 5m prints into the public domain as they can, which can only be to the benefit of us all. I'm hoping that my email to them will result in the establishment of a "sanity check" system to prevent such "howlers" taking place in future! Cheers, Chris Hughes ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From "James Kloek" Subject Photo Quality Steve, Updating your files to new formats and software packages is an adequate short term solution. However, everytime you do that, some of your data get corrupted. It could be up to 5% each time. Computers and (especially) software applications are not perfect, so something is always lost in translation. Some of the "1's" turn to "zeros" and vice versa. Also, most writeable storeage media, CDs and DVDs, degrade with time. Even if you are conscientious about updating your files, the break point is currently around 10 years. After that, your data will be too corrupted. So if you want to keep any electronic files more than 10 years, you should archive them in a rendered (human readable) form. For photographs, that means a photographic print. As you may know, I work at Kodak, and we consider images to be memories, so we have been working on this issue for quite a while. (The first digital camera was invented at Kodak in the mid-1980's). If we had a good electonic solution, we would be selling it. If I can be forgiven a shameless plug, if you have a digital image you want to preserve as a long term memory, upload it to Ofoto.com. You will get a high quality photographic print, with outstanding image permance, back in the mail very quickly and inexpensively. Jim Kloek ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From SeaPhoto@aol.com Subject Re Photo Quality I think a good point has been made here about digital storage. If you are diligent about upgrading to the latest and greatest storage systems - and file formats - the effective life of a digital image would be unlimited. If not, I suspect a lot of today's digital photographs will be lost. Consider if you had a collection of photos on Atari 800 5" disks, and forgot about them for 50 years. I wonder which of the flash cards / CD / DVD or whatever format will be supported in even 10 years. Most Inkjet prints are temporary, even by the tenuous standards of our society. Photographic prints last much longer, but a lot of photo processing is done using materials that are not archival in nature and are stored in a haphazard manner. If your photos matter to you, make sure you are storing them correctly. If they _really_ matter, spend the money to have them printed on archival paper, and store them carefully. If you go to Kodak's website you can find a lot of material on the proper storage of photos. Kurt Greiner SeaPhoto Maritime Photography - onboard details and overhead views of modern warships www.warshipphotos.com Order via our online catalog...now taking credit cards via Paypal Warship Models Underway - learn about large scale radio control warship models. www.warshipmodelsunderway.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From Roland Mar Subject Re News about Graf Spee TO u.brow >> our local newspaper said today that there are difficulties in lifting the wreck of The Graf Spee from the bottom of the River Plate in Montevideo and that they will try again when the weather is better. I always thought that the current in that area is much too strong for any action saving this wreck. Can anyone give me further details about this news? What will they do with a 65 year old wreck of a burnt out ship?? Couriously looking forward for any hint. << From what I understand, there have been plans to raise the Graf Spee almost since the end of the war. She is only in, I am told, about 25 feet of water. There have been some really hare-brained schemes to raise her, including one I remember from the 1960's where it was planned to pump her full of millions [billions?] of ping pong balls on the assumption they would float her up. Since she is in the Plate estuary I assume that there are heavy currents, wherever the channels are. However I also guess that the channels shift around depending on the current and silt load coming down the Plate. It may well be that she is in a relatively calm area. In fact it strikes me as fairly likely as there would be a desire in dredging operations to keep the ship channels away from the wreck. The primary problem, I have been told, is that she is filled with mud. This strikes me as a salvors nightmare, as there is no way to easily pump out mud, or introduce air for bouyancy. The Graf Spee is several times the displacement of the largest dead lift salvage I've heard of. The problem of bottom suction is going to be horrendous. Still and all, I wish them luck. The plan, supposedly, is to use the raised and preserved ship as a centerpiece for a museum covering the Battle of the River Plate, commerce raiders in general, and the Deutches Kriegsmarine. There are a number of exhibits already, based around raised artifacts, including at least one 5.9" gun and mount. The purpose of the museum is to draw tourist dollars, both for itself and for the city. I admit that the odds of me finding myself in Uruguay are exceedingly slim; but if I found myself near Montevideo, I could not resist the temptation. Hope this helps, Roland Mar ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From Brooks Rowlett Subject Re Kormoran vs. Sydney >> Displacement 19,900 tons The displacement seems to me way too high, none of the German raiders of WW2 that I know of was so large here's another source that indicates the displacement as 8,700 tons - I don't know about the reliability of the source, but the number seems coherent with the picture of the ship. http//www.bismarck-class.dk/miscellaneous/hilfskreuzer/kormoran.html << Check this link http//www.geocities.com/pentagon/2833/kriegsmarine/raider/kormoran/kormorandata.html Notice the fuel capacity of 5200 tons? I think the 19,900 tons is a full load displacement. If you subtract the fuel off you would have a 14,700 ton standard displacement. The 8700 ton figure is probably the registered tonnage which of course is not a weight or displacement figure at all - it is a measure of the enclosed volume, 1 registered ton being 100 cubic feet. The cargo holds as a freighter were probably modified to include some additional fuel, and the rest converted as ammunition magazines, supply roooms, and accommodations for the much larger crew for a warship with guns to man and prize crews to carry for captured ships. Given the dimensions cited in the geocities page, the vessel at full load probably has a block coefficient in the mid .60-.70 range which is about right for a freighter hull. Of course a freighter hull is far more 'blocky' and 'filled out' than a warship hull - and in fact KORMORAN is said to have been the largest of the German raiders. On the other hand the compartmentation would not have been nearly as thorough as a designed-as warship. At least one wargame system I know would halve the damage point rating of the KORMORAN computed on basis of displacement, just because of that factor. Brooks A. Rowlett ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From URUDOFSKY@aol.com Subject Re News about Graf Spee Todays "Hamburger Abendblatt" newspaper has a brief story. I translated it into English. http//www.abendblatt.de/daten/2004/02/07/259937.html >> Past history surfaces The armored cruiser "Admiral Graf Spee" is to be raised on Monday. The survivors oppose it. Montevideo - The days of the "Admiral Graf Spee" on the bottom of the sea are numbered. On Friday, only rough seas and poor visibility prevented the raising of the German cruiser from the Rio de la Plata [estuary. UR] where it had sunk 64 years ago. The warship, which was scuttled in 1939 by its own captain in order to evade a hopeless naval battle with the British, is now scheduled to be raised on Monday. Two men of the 1100 crew, who had then fled immediately to Argentina, are still living in South America Paul Bauch lives in the Argentine city of Rosario, Friederich Adolphe in Montevideo (Uruguay), were the "Graf Spee" had found several days of refuge in its the neutral harbor before its sinking [scuttling. UR]. Now the wreck is to become a museum. Even the "Titanic" film director James Cameron will have this salvage operation filmed. But the majority of the original crew are against the salvage operation. The Chairman of the veteran association of the "Graf Spee", Kurt Wecker, states "This is a historical monument that is to be awarded respect" [Note no Germans died during the scuttling; one English diver died trying to remove gunnery instruments, which had been smashed prior to scuttling. UR]. And the veteran torpedo mechanic, Hans Eupel, who participated in the blasting of the ship, considers the raising even too dangerous. Reason "Not all blasting charges detonated. They could certainly be still live." A further problem for the multi-million dollar project of the private salvage group is Even the German Federal Government, which considers itself the rightful owner of any German warship, has not given its consent for the planned raising. The German Foreign Office had not received any formal requests as of Friday. Berlin asserts that in its view all ships that were deployed in missions during the Second World War, remain properties of the state whose flag they carried [that's a problem since the German Reich does not exist anymore. UR]. In addition, the captain had scuttled the "Graf Spee" in 1939 in international waters off the coast of Uruguay. According to the German Foreign Office, the Federal Government of Germany understands that Uruguay has a quite differing legal opinion. The Uruguayan government has transferred the rights of title to the wreck to the research team led by the Uruguayan Alfredo Etchegaray. << http//www.abendblatt.de/daten/2004/02/07/259937.html Ulrich H. Rudofsky Delmar, NY, USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From "JPasquill" Subject Oahu RR http//www.satlab.hawaii.edu/space/hawaii/vfts/oahu/Oahu_Update/Trains.html See above also http//www.divisionpoint.com/ng_consols.html There will soon be a new brass HOn3 version of an Oahu rr locomotive. There have been plans for Ohu Rr equipment over the years in Narrow Gauge and Shortline Gazette. A web search turned up several dozen pages with other intersting bits of the history of this rr. Jim ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From Randy Ward Subject Re "What a silly question.!!!!! SMML wrote >> Can anyone let me know if in POST war use, tankers USA T 2 type had lights showing from the rear of the ship , and also where they, if any , are put. and what colour ? I only build the models , and as to date have not noticed the lights.. << Edward 'Don't know about just after the war, but a T-2 today would probably be required to display either amber or white stern lights, and possibly a whistle light (white at top of mast when whistle sounds). It's all covered in the pocket "Rules of the Road", published by the folks who do "Professional Mariner" magazine. I have one around here somewhere. On the river, we had loading lights, as well, for when loading or unloading petroleum dockside. They were displayed from a high mast on the dock. Cap'n Randy (whose concepts of vessel lighting are largely from the inland waterways) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From "Harold Stockton" Subject Re Niko Models Needs Help After some rather harsh comments by yours truly about Niko's needing some help and the subjects that they are doing, I decided to see how well Niko's efforts ranked with what is out there for the 1/700 scale modeler. The case in point being the Tamiya (ex-Skywave) HMS Onslow with the WEM O-P photoetched sheet versus the Niko ORP Grom. Shane Jenkins does a very admirable on-line review of this kit at http//smmlonline.com/articles/onslow/onslow.html While the finished model definitely looks a whole lot better than the out-of-the-box kit, and Shane's work and determination is to be applauded in the finished product, there are a lot of details that just are not there for a really pleasing effect. Items like hatches, pipes, portholes, and other items that clutter up a real vessel are decidedly absent from the Tamiya (ex-Skywave) HMS Onslow kit, and must be added, at extra expense and effort of the modeler. While I would be the first to agree that this is what makes modeling the joy that it is, any extra help in these areas are most appreciated. Turning to Niko's efforts in the same scale, one should look at the details provided on their hull of the ORP Grom at http//www.nikomodel.pl/grom40.html The unpainted hull molding present at http//www.nikomodel.pl/foto/gromwz40/kd4.JPG , shows very crisp and sharp moldings that also include hatches, trunking, portholes and other detail items provided that are decided absent from the above mentioned Japanese offering. When one looks at this Polish company's efforts at the O.R.P.BLYSKAWICA wz.44 (year 1944), at http//www.nikomodel.pl/blyskawica44.html , the same fidelity to molding and detail is also present, as are the separate photoetched mine rails. Niko's kit of the O.R.P.BURZA wz.36 / O.R.P.WICHER wz.36, at http//www.nikomodel.pl/bw36.html , show even more attention to detail in the main hull and superstructure's moldings. This is definitely shown at http//www.nikomodel.pl/foto/burzawihcer36/kd4.JPG . And this is especially true when one looks at the small boat details of these kits at http//www.nikomodel.pl/foto/burzawihcer36/md4.JPG In closing, my comments here are for the general information about what we can all expect from starting with above average kits to start with. Though specific ships may not be available in our preferred scales or in the desired detail level of what we prefer, we should all expect that models should at least start at the level that Mr. Adam Koscicki of Niko Models is offering. And one cannot complain about the value for money that his company is offering with his models. Though Mr. John Sutherland does make a point of offering models of lesser available subjects of greater historical significance, one should not forget that wars, and especially World Wars, are fought by many lesser known subjects. Harold Stockton ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From Subject Re KORMORAN and GRT With ref to my posting in SMML Vol 2428 my mind must have been hibernating when I wrote this. Please delete the ref to the difference between continental tonnes and British tons which of course have nothing to do with gross registered tons which are a measure of volume rather than weight. Michael London ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From "John Sutherland" Subject Re Niko Models Needs Help I chose not to dignify Mr Stockton's ill tempered first reply to my posting. Unfortunately I was "rewarded" by being misquoted in a second posting which I feel I need to correct. Mr Stockton stated that >> Though Mr. John Sutherland does make a point of offering models of lesser available subjects of greater historical significance, one should not forget that wars, and especially World Wars, are fought by many lesser known subjects. << I said no such thing, nor could any reasonable interpretation of what I said lead to such an interpretation. What I DID say, in summary, was that it would be nice from a modeller's point of view if we were offered models of ships of greater historical significance that ARE NOT AVAILABLE rather than additional models of lesser significant vessels that ARE ALREADY AVAILABLE. This is a far cry from Mr Stockton's twist on what I said. Enough said. At the time I did not know NIKO was a Polish company specialising in Polish models for a Polish consumer base. Nothing in the original posting gave that clue - it talked about three British cruisers. More power to Adam and NIKO if he can make a living, or even just cover his costs, by doing so - I sincerely wish there were more like him all over the world. I have since found the website and viewed some of the pictures of the kits. Indeed from the shots I would agree with Mr Stockton that they appear fine models made of a mixture of resin and white metal (but no PE?). That being so it is a shame Mr Stockton chose to compare them with something as awful as the Tamiya/Skywave O class kit. It does no service to any kit to say they are better than that kit. Nor is it fair to compare a quality limited run resin kit against a mass produced plastic kit - resin nearly always produces finer quality albeit at a price premium. Given the total overlap of NIKO's range with HP (which is much larger even of Polish ships) a comparison between them would have been ideal, or failing that an indication of how NIKO's kits stack up against other resin and multi-media kits such as those made by HP, B-Resina, Samek, Combrig, Waveline, Classic Warships and/or WEM - the list is not complete - these are the ones that immediately come to mind. Niko's fine looking kits almost certainly deserved better than a meaningless comparison to a kit that is in the running for the "dog kit of the century" award. I was particularly heartened to see Mr Stockton states that the newer kits are even better than the older ones - like is the case with all good manufacturers that are trying hard to improve what they do. Seeing the photographs makes me wonder if they are sold by any distributor or if there are plans to do so and also how much they sell for. I don't know any Polish so I was not able to work any of that out from the website. Adam keep up the good work. And if you run out of Polish subjects ..... John Sutherland NZ ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From "Harold Stockton" Subject Re Niko Models Needs Help John, Please accept my apologies for the "sound" of my postings as they were not intended to "flame" or misrepresent your original statements about the Niko Model's kits or subjects. What was intended was an honest examination of what can be expected from one of Niko's kits as compared to a kit review that is on the SMML website. By doing an examination alone of the photographs at HP's website of their models that were built up and with the same at Niko's, as a prospective buyer I would tend to lean toward the Polish company's products from the detail provided from the photographic evidence alone. Though I may be wrong in this matter also, I stand to be corrected from others with more knowledge than I who have actually seen them in the box or have built them. While on the subject of comparing apples to apples, and not oranges, a photographic examination of Bob Pearson's review of L'Arsenal's 1/400 resin Flower Class Corvette, at http//smmlonline.com/reviews/models/larsenal_snowberry/larsenal_snowberry.html , and other resin models that he has built, does show some interesting things. That Niko's models are at least on par, if not slightly ahead, of all of the other resin kits that are currently available, even in larger scales; though this comment is not meant to detract from any other company's products. Niko kits are available from the manufacturer and also from Jadar's website at http//jadarhobby.waw.pl . The suggested retail price for these kits is 79 zl or $22.50 plus shipping. From a pricing standard alone, Niko's kits are still a value for money when compared to HP's suggested retail price of 26 Euros ($ 38.18 at today's exchange rate). In closing, please accept my apologies for any affronts that may have come from my postings as that were not my intention. Harold Stockton ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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