Subject: SMML VOL 2637 Date: Wed, 06 Oct 2004 01:46:37 +1000 SMML is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http//sandlehobbies.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1 HMS Hood 2 George Washington Parke Custis 3 Re capsule recovery 4 Spacecraft recovery ships -- OOPS! 5 CA 6 Bismarck Vs the Hood 7 Re In Harm's Way models 8 Re Mysterious emails from John Hudock 9 Re Spacecraft recovery ships 10 Aircraft complement 11 found it 12 Thinning CA 13 Re In Harm's Way 14 Re Graf Spee ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From "Leslie D. Foran" Subject HMS Hood Greetings from Nebraska! In view of all the recent theorizing about the loss of HMS Hood, I would like to present an alternate scenario put forth by Norman Andrew in his fine work, "HMS Hood, Pride of the Royal Navy" (Stackpole Books, 2001). In this book, Andrew expresses doubts that the fatal shot to Hood came from Bismarck due to Hood's location inside the immune zone and the problem Bismarck was having with defective shells. He points out that the rate of fire of Prinz Eugen's 8" guns was twice that of Bismarck's 15" guns, and that the heavy cruiser's shells would be falling at a more vertical angle since they would be fired at more than half of their maximum range. He allows that even so, an 8" shell would not have been capable of penetrating her armor. However, he calls attention to the fact that Hood had a target area of about 600 square feet that was vulnerable to even 8" shells, that area being the openings in the funnels. These were protected by a five-inch thick armoured lattice at the bottom of each stack. The supports for these lattices were found to be weak, but had not been corrected. A lucky shot down the stack could have penetrated this grid and exploded in the boiler rooms, setting off an explosion of the pre-heated fuel oil. This explosion would have been contained fore-and-aft by the bulkheads and laterally by the armor belt, vented through the path of least resistance, straight up through the boat deck, already weakened by fire. The few survivors of the Hood did not recall the sound of an explosion, which would certainly have accompanied a magazine explosion. Rather, a great blast of flame engulfed the ship, boiling up from the area of the boat deck. Two magazines were located in this general area, the torpedo rooms and the 4" magazines below the aft superstructure. The Hood was equipped with a 12" armor belt, which was tipped from the vertical, making for an effective thickness of 13". Common practice for battleships of the day called for a maximum armor belt thickness equal to the bore of the main batteries. Hood, being a battlecruiser, comes up a little light in this respect. However this maximum thickness applies only to the main armor belt, other armor applications such as decks and turrets would be thinner. In this respect, Hood was probably no worse off than her opponents. The 5" gun seems to be the norm for modern surface combatants. In Conway's "Navies in the Nuclear Age" the author notes that a large anti-ship missle (non-nuke, of course) would have a striking power roughly equivalent to a 14" shell. If this is the case, what effect would say, a Harpoon, Styx, or Exocet have on a battleship armored against 15" or 16" shells? Conway states that in simulated attacks on surface ships, attackers tend to pump missle after missle into already destroyed target ships attempting to sink them. This thought brings me back to the Bismarck's final battle, where the structural integrity of the ship prevented its sinking long after it was not able to return fire. Did the Bismarck succumb to British torpedos or to her own seacocks? A moot point, I think. Was the Big Gun abandoned because of missle ships with 14" gun capability? History shows this isn't so. What killed the Big Gun was the airplane and its ability to sink the biggest battleships at sea when deprived of air cover. What I think is most telling is the use battleships served in the end as shore offense vessels, pummelling enemy positions with heavy shellfire and missles. That said, mark me among those who love to build models of these obsolete battlewagons. Baroque in design, built to match their opponents in ship-to-ship confrontations on the open sea that hardly ever happened, they have an appeal all their own. Les Foran Sealess on the Prairie ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From "David Hathaway" Subject George Washington Parke Custis Dear SMML'ies One of the more intriguing pieces included in a recent bundle of drawings, photos and photocopies I got recently was a photo of a museum model of the USS George Washington Parke Custis - a converted coal barge that operated observation balloons during the US Civil War. Do any SMML'ies have any idea which museum the model is in and more importantly, what references were used to create the model? I would love to know the dimensions of the barge and to get, if possible a set of drawings (original or derived), for it. As an aside I do remember the discussion on SMML regarding the vessel as being the "first aircraft carrier" and do not intend to re-open it -) David Hathaway ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From Daniel Kurtz Subject Re capsule recovery >> Oops! Seems someone forgot to include USS Okinawa (LPH-3), the prime recovery ship for unmanned Apollo 6. Maybe it's beacause she was the only "mini-carrier" ever asked to do such a big job. << Actually, Guadalcanal, Guam, Iwo Jima and New Orleans all were used for recoveries. New Orleans recovered 4 separate missions, and may have the record for the most number of spacemen plucked out of the ocean. And Boxer was designated as an LPH when she was given the mission of recovering Gemini 8. However, the destroyer Mason actually made that recovery. In all, that list credits three destroyers with recoveries Mason, Noa and Farragut. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From raisingirl@mindspring.com Subject Spacecraft recovery ships -- OOPS! hello all -- What's the best way to get something fact-checked? Publish it! Somehow I wrote, obviously in a big hurry >> Guam (Gemini 9 and Gemini 11) << How in the world did I have GT-9 picked up by the Guam? When we've previously established that GT-9 was picked up by Wasp. Easy...my mind wasn't working. Oooh, I've been at this too long. Sorry, everyone! jodie ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From "Kurt Van Dahm" Subject CA >> ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR THINNING CA? << Dave If the CA has thickened it’s going bad – dump it. If the stuff you have is just too thick get some thinner stuff. Do not try to thin it out. Take care, Kurt ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From andrew jones Subject Bismarck Vs the Hood Hi All Having read the past few days emails in regards to the explosion of the HMS Hood....The last " view point" I heard was that they now suspect that a shell had hit the torpedo tubes, which were primed & ready for firing ...but guess like the HMAS Sydney, we will never know Andrew ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From "Tom Detweiler" Subject Re In Harm's Way models >> While not a movie deserving of an Academy Award, I like In Harm's Way simply for the cast and the props. The storyline is OK, and like Ned, I like to watch it once a year. I did notice though, while the ship models appear to be reasonably detailed for their longshots, they do not have much for masts. This is especially evident when they show a cruiser departing port while Rock and Paul (Kirk Douglas) are chatting on the dock (after the Pearl Harbor sequence). Even the Japanese ships lack adequate masts. As a sidenote, there is one of the PT Boat models at Battleship Cove in Fall River. As I recall there is a small placque explaining how it was donated after the movie was shot. << Hi, Y'alls (or yawls, on this list) ;-| Rod mentioned the models for In Harm's Way. I remember reading a front cover on Life Magazine at that time (1965), with a picture of director Otto Preminger standing on and straddling the decks of two of the many big studio built models that were built for the movie, and which were later used in other studio war movies and loaned or leased to other film companies over time. He also leased every other available studio floating Navy ship model in Hollywood, and had the participation of the local RC ship modelers, who contributed some of the smaller scale models for filming. Just think, even RC models in 1965 were partly transistors, and partly TUBES!! I still have a construction article for a "flea tube" RC setup. Anyway, Preminger's filming models varied in size and length but destroyers seemed to be around 8-10 feet long or longer, and battleships required trailers to move them around between lots and film ponds. The article IIRC was called "Otto's Navy" and featured a multi-page photo shoot on the filming of In Harm's Way. As I recall some models were towed by downriggers, others were powered by small outboards set amidships, with stagehands/pilots doing the steering! Preminger called out his directions to his various ships in the big Fox studio lake "fleets", via a walkie talkie. Given the fact that special effects at that time were all mechanical "gimmicks" and pyrotechnics, and there was no computers or computer generated anything yet, they didn't do a bad job on the model shots, and IMHO they were at least equal to or better than other similar films of the era. They don't fool anyone now, but that's also part of the charm of watching one of those older movies and enjoying them for just what they are entertaining. I bet you can still snag a copy of that Life issue on Ebay now and then, it might be worth looking for. Someone may have it on the net, too. Thanks again for a great topic, you guys! Tom Detweiler ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From Dublindogs@aol.com Subject Re Mysterious emails from John Hudock Howdy John Hudock is indeed legit. After contacting Franklyn about my own Subchaser build, I received several E-mails from John, including pictures of his work to date and an invite to his shipbuilding group meeting in Virginia. Mike ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From "randy nugent" Subject Re Spacecraft recovery ships Hello All, I may have missed something, but wasn't the Shangri La also a recovery ship? Regards, Randy ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From Darren Scannell Subject Aircraft complement Okay guys and gals, I'm drawing a blank here. Where can I find a list of all the planes carried at a given time on USN Carriers? I remember seeing a breakdown in the D&S ENTERPRISE book, but can't seem to put my hands on my copy at the moment!!!! Specifically, I'd like to know how many of each aircraft type were carried on NIMITZ in '79 and ENTERPRISE in '64. Book and or Website links would be appreciated! Thanks!!! Darren Scannell ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 11) From Darren Scannell Subject found it With a little more searching, I found a site. http//sfspatches.com/links.html If you go down the page and click on the carrier deployment link you will be taken to a page that shows all the different CVW's. Click on the one you want and it show's it's whole history. Click on the Bu. No. link if shown and it will detail every aircraft in the sqdrn. Hopefully it's accurate!!! Darren ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 12) From "Ed Grune" Subject Thinning CA David in Dixie wrote >> ANY SUGGESTIONS FOR THINNING CA? << If you are using thin, watery CA which has thickened, throw it away and buy a new tube. If your CA has hardened into a rock in the tube, throw it away and buy a new tube. If you have some thick gel-type or gap filling CA which you want to thin a bit you may have some measure of success by mixing it with thin CA. If the CA you applied has hardened and you want to dissolve it to break the bond, use acetone or nail polish remover. Test first because acetone WILL affect plastic and paint. Ed Grune ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 13) From "Ouellette, Lawrence M" Subject Re In Harm's Way Some of the filming was done aboard at least one real SUN cruiser, the USS Saint Paul. There are photos of various actors on board, as well as another photo autographed by just about every star, in the USS Saint Paul Memorial Room aboard the USS Salem. For those who have seen the Saint Paul exhibit before, it has been relocated to a larger space and has much more material in it. Larry Ouellette Volunteer, USS Salem (CA 139) United States Naval Shipbuilding Museum Quincy, Massachusetts, USA http//www.uss-salem.org/ USS Salem's annual Haunted Ship fundraiser http//www.hauntedship.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 14) From Sab1156@aol.com Subject Re Graf Spee Dear Andy Airlie, The damages,Graf Spee received were not serious,exept one,which penetrated the drinking-water compartment and polluted it with salt water.This was the reason why the Graf Spee had to enter the Rio de la Plata river for repairs. Best Regards Detlef Hartwig ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 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