Subject: SMML VOL 2952 Date: Sun, 02 Oct 2005 01:51:19 +1000 The Ship Modelling Mailing List (SMML) is proudly sponsored by SANDLE http//sandlehobbies.com For infomation on how to Post to SMML and Unsubscribe from SMML http//smmlonline.com/aboutsmml/rules.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS INDEX 1 Re White rings on turrets 2 Re Yamato & other survivors 3 British Carrier Fighters (a response) 4 Re FAA 5 Re Documentaries 6 Royal Navy dockyard paddle tug DEXTEROUS (1956) photo (#6211330411) 7 Re FAA ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Model club & SMMLcon Information 1 Nautical Research Guild convention in Hampton ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From "Kathypirie" Subject Re White rings on turrets While sources generally say the rings were applied in late 1916, Seydlitz, at least, had them at Jutland. They show quite clearly in the pictures of her on her way back from the battle. These pictures are available in many sources. Because I have been unable to identify them on other ships at Jutland, only my Seydlitz has them. However, common sense would dictate if one ship used them, most did. Pirie Sublett ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From "John Clements" Subject Re Yamato & other survivors May I just say how pleased I was to read Michael Loring's post on this topic, with which I entirely agree. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From Ned Barnett Subject British Carrier Fighters (a response) Responses to several comments .... From Richa5011@aol.com >> A better description would be that the Fulmar was "a scaled down Fairey Battle"... << Not sure that's entirely true - though they looked a bit alike (and some published sources said that the Fulmar was "derived" from the Battle), they had almost nothing in common EXCEPT the engine, and they had vastly different missions (and vastly different performance envelopes). Fulmar was to carriers what Spitfire was to land-bases - the best fighter the Brits had at the time (hence my comparison). >> There is the account of the only known Roc air-to-air victory when one was credited with shooting down a He-59 floatplane after a long running battle south across the channel. The He-59 was skimming the wave tops and the Roc's guns could not depress past level...so the pilot had to roll the aircraft to allow the gunner to fire (the Roc had no forward firing guns). << One site online says the only credited Roc victory was over a JU-88, but I can't confirm the accuracy of this. I know that with a war-emergency top speed of just 223 mph, the Roc would have to fall out of the sky onto the JU-88 in order to bring it down. From Matt >> Defiant was quite a bit better than the Roc... << 100 mph faster - oddly, both built on the same assembly line at the same time (Boulton-Paul subcontracted Roc construction for Blackburn). >> Unfortunately the Fulmar was based on the poorly designed Fairey Battle that was basically massacred during the Battle of France, however it can be argued that the Fulmar did not fare quite so badly as the land version, indeed its rated speed is about equal to that of the SM 79, which up until Germany's involvement would have been its most common adversary. << Perhaps, but for fighters to succeed, they pretty much have to have an edge in performance, and the Fulmar didn't have an edge on anybody much. Without that edge, they have to be positioned above the target plane, then dive on it - and Fulmar had poor altitude performance, too. While some published sources give it a top speed of 273 (hardly blistering) and a ceiling of 27,000 feet, anecdotal stories of Fulmar performance in the Med (in the carrier battles heading to Malta) note that tricked out for combat it could only maintain about 250 as it's top speed and 14,000 feet as it's useful service ceiling - something both German and Italian bombers could surpass with ease. >> The Fulmar ended up in the form of the FireFly, this proved to be quite successful in the asw role. << FireFly was a completely different aircraft - except for being two-seat, it had nothing in common with the Fulmar. It was fast, beefy, able to carry prodigious loads, well-armed and - well, just a better aircraft. Comparing the two is like comparing the P-35 with the P-47 - a family linkage, to be sure, but completely different planes. FWIW, I saw a FireFly at last year's Aviation Nation, flying with a Spanish Bf-109 and some Mustangs, and it was IMPRESSIVE (and loud) >> The Roc was a failure, they even knew it at the time...But it was available at the time when almost anything would do, however the best thing one could have done with them was to ground loop them (a battle of britain squadron did this with their Brewster Buffalo's). << I am not aware that any Buffalo fighters served in the UK during the Battle of Britain - timing's wrong, for one thing, and AFAIK, they were all shipped to Singapore and Burma, where they did better than most folks give them credit for - eventually decimated, to be sure, but they did a fine job of defending Rangoon for about two months (against heavy odds). >> Who knows what the Admiralty's thinking was about having two seats, it may have been Northern Atlantic weather oriented ). Seafires did fine, but as you say it was not really built as a rugged plane for shipborne operations, unlike Hellcat's, Wildcat's or Corsair's. Weren't the Corsair's banned from US Carriers at one point? << Yes, Corsairs were restricted to land bases for some time by the USN - it was hard to land until the oleo struts were modified, and that was part of the reason (the "hose nose" was the other); but a big point in the ban is that - with the superb Hellcat, the Navy didn't need the Corsair on it's decks - not until the Kamikaze threat meant that carriers had to quickly double their complement of carrier fighters. When that happened, rather than waiting for the training pipeline, the Navy just moved Navy and Marine land-based Corsair squadrons onto the carriers (with minimal transition time) and had very little problem. From "Erhardtsen" >> The top speed of the Fulmar was 275-280 mph - not 250 mph, << The highest I've ever seen it listed as was 273. and that was for factory-fresh aircraft with minimal fuel loads - but operationally, and loaded, the functional top speed of FAA Fulmars based on the carriers in the Med was 250. However, even if they were rated at 280, that's pathetic for a post-1940 front-line fighter (not much better than the Gladiator biplane that the Fulmar replaced). Wildcats topped out at 332 mph, for instance, and had much better altitude performance. >> The Ju 88 might still be to fast, but the rest is another story. The Roc was build fore carrier use, but it was newer used on carriers. I don't think it ewer did fight. << It did fight, but not much (mostly from Scotland). Also, some were fitted with floats and flew off 5 or so RN battleships. >> You write "..it left them without a real fleet defense fighter until the Spitfire was modified ". Arnīt you forgetting the Sea Hurricane? << Nope - but I was making a comparison between the best land-based fighter (Spit) and best carrier-based FAA fighter (Fulmar), to note that there was no comparison. The Sea Hurricane was adequate, but no world-beater - certainly not as good as the Wildcat/Martlet, which was designed for carrier service. Basically, only the FAA used converted land planes on carriers as front-line fighters, and their experience was less than superlative (the planes just weren't sturdy enough), but as a stopgap, both were light-years ahead of the Fulmar. >> And after all, the Marletīs did fight from British carriers in 1941. << But the Fulmars were in fleet service until '43, and when they faced the enemy, they were remarkably ineffective. >> The war was different fore British carriers than fore American. Germany and Italy newer put any carriers to sea, and there fighters was short rang types, << The FW-190 was a short-range fighter? Better tell the Luftwaffe right away ... (they probably think otherwise). >> so British carrier fighters did very seldom meet enemy fighters at sea. << I'm sure that you're reading different history than I am - in my book, the British carriers met fighters frequently in the Med (where they had enemy bases to port and starboard, many within easy range), off Norway and in the Indian Ocean/Pacific. However, fighter opposition wasn't significant IF the bombers attacking were as fast (or faster than) the fighters defending - and when the Fulmar was defending, that was almost always the case (among attacking bombers, only the Stukas were notably slower than the Fulmars). >>In the U.S. / Japanese carrier battles it was quiet another case. At the time the British joint that fight, they used Corsair (and the Japanese build carriers with armored flight deck (Taiho and Shinano). << Better not tell that to the RN's Indian Ocean fleet in '42 ... the Japanese carrier fighters/bombers tore the hell out of at least one Brit carrier their in '42, and FAA fighters had to face down Zeroes all across the Indian Ocean in '42. By '44 that was different, but in most cases, the Brit carriers then operated in conjunction with US carriers, so it didn't much matter what fighters the Brits flew - they were under the Big Blue Umbrella of Hellcats and Wildcats, who could take the measure of the best the Japanese could fly (as the Marine Wildcats proved at Guadalcanal in mid-42). From "Erhardtsen" >> In the book "World War II Airplanes volume 2" (Rand McNally & Co 1977) page 23 "The Royal Navy put the Wildcat into service before the U.S. Navy did. A total of 81 of the new fighters went into service in Britain in the summer of 1940..... " On page 24 it is told "... saw combat over Scapa Flow in December, 1940. That same month the U.S. Navy received its first F4F-3s....." << YABUT those were land-based, in Scotland. The first Wildcat kill of the war was by a land-based Martlet in FAA service off Scotland in December, 1940 - it shot down a JU-88. Not sure just when the FAA put Martlets on carriers, but it was certainly after the USN started putting the F4F3 on carriers. >> Aircraft in Profile No. 53 page 5 tells, that VF-4 of the Ranger and VF-7 of the Wasp received them in December and January replacing the biplane F3Fīs. << That may have been the first carrier assignment for US Wildcats - but I'm almost positive that was still well before the first FAA carrier-based use of Martlets. In '40, the Wildcat was largely competitive (performance-wise) with land-based planes - Greece, for instance, ordered the Wildcat (the F4F3-A model, I believe) for it's land-based RHAF in '40 (those planes were later diverted to the Brits and the Marines, after Greece fell) << Combat Aircraft of the World by John W.R. Taylor page 500 tells that "...these aircraft began to reach the Fleet Air Arm at the end of July 1940." but William Green in "Fighters Volume Four" (Macdonald's serie War Planes of the Second World War) page 92 writes "....eighty-five reached the United Kingdom where, in October 1940, the type entered service with No. 804 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm at Hatston. The Marlet 1 gained the distinction of becoming the first U.S. aircraft in British service to shoot down a German machine in World War II, this event occurring on December 25, 1940 when two Marlet 1s of No. 804 Squadron patrolling Scapa Flow intercepted and destroyed a Junker Ju 88." << As noted above, this is all true but it also applies to land-based Martlets - the question you're answering was raised about the carrier-based assignments of the Wildcat, and in that, the USN was almost certainly first. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From "GRAHAM BOAK" Subject Re FAA There are a few points that need expanding on in this discussion. Firstly, it is not in the least surprising that the Swordfish had a torpedo - it was designed to a specification calling for a TSR - Torpedo Spotter Reconnaissance. Note that the Torpedo actually came first. Indeed, the initial designation of the Swordfish was TSR 2 - thought every Brit enthusiast knew that! Secondly, it was official prewar policy, should the fleet be attacked by enemy bombers, the fighters should be transferred into the protection of the armoured hangars and the ships defended by AA guns. Honest. And if you think that was another perfidious efffect of the influence of the RAF you're not connected to this planet. Thirdly, and to be completely fair to the Admiralty, they were not as dedicated to the two-seat fighter as some writers make out. They had operated, perfectly successfully, the Flycatcher and the Nimrod between the wars. They wished to buy single-seat fighters in the late 30s but none were available, so they did buy Sea Gladiators - which did a fairly good job, initially. They approached Fairey to produce a sea-going Spitfire. He refused. Now this sea-Spitfire was much more of a redesign than the eventual Seafire, and heaven knows what sort of abortion might have resulted. However, Fairey was much more interested in selling his fighter derivative of the P4/34 bomber (a slimmed-down Battle ordered by the Danes, IIRC) and this was certainly likely to be ready far before any redesigned Spit. The Fulmar also did a fair job against most of the opposition it came up against, in its early years. The Admiralty then went on to order the Firebrand - this was a failure, but that is not the point. They were continually thinking of single-seat fighters, but couldn't get any. They should have asked for Hurricanes sooner - but that's the benefit of hindsight. As has been pointed out, they did get Sea Hurricanes and Martlets as soon as they could - and indeed Buffaloes, too, gawd bless 'em! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From Fkbrown90@aol.com Subject Re Documentaries I too am appalled by the perceived inconsistencies, errors, and apparently outright incompetence of the production in some of the television documentaries shown by certain entertainment entities which imply truthful presentation and factual information. A colleague of mine (name withheld to protect the innocent) wrote to one well known documentary oriented TV organization, citing instances that were downright ludicrous. In reply he received a form letter expressing gratitude for his having watched the show, and appreciation of the fact that he had enjoyed the documentary. So much for consumer feedback !!!! Somewhere along the line I have come to the conclusion that such companies are merely TV outlets for documentaries which appear to have been created by independent production companies and then marketed to whomsoever (i.e. The History Channel, or Nova, or A&E, or TLC, and others) cares to procure them, as is, accurate or not, regardless of quality (or lack thereof), and unchallenged by capable referees. If this is conclusion is correct, the function of these client companies may therefore be considered as fulfilling a role of information-focused TV impresario organizations. In other words, the TV outlets (with possibly at least one exception noted below) merely buy documentaries created by independent producing companies and then broadcast them on TV. In my humble opinion, some TV outlets which do indeed operate in this manner are negligent for not doing their "homework" (preliminary research) and by not subjecting the film for critical review or peer evaluation by a disinterested ("disinterested"and "uninterested" are two quite different concepts, do not confuse the two) but qualified panel of competent reviewers, and then insisting that subsequent corrections be made before accepting the offering. Those TV outlets would greatly improve their presently somewhat tarnished quality quotients and reputations by thus striving for perfection rather than striving for mediocrity, which, alas, seems so frequently to be the case. If, through insistent intransigence, they continue espousing errors and inconsistencies concerning matters about which a viewer may have some sure knowledge, can that viewer realistically be expected to trust the integrity of the information appearing in the rest of the show ? Having said that, I submit that it does seem to me that Nova apparently produces some documentaries, in-house as it were. If true, it is hoped that Nova's policy makers do implement the disciplines discussed above and thus help to explain why in some instances the quality appears to be much better than that presently inherent in the output of some independent production companies from which Nova may occasionally obtain material. And it may also demonstrate that Nova may have taken pains to create an ensemble of highly talented personnel. After all, to paraphrase, "Should not a man's reach exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for" ? Franklyn ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From paulship57@hotmail.com Subject Royal Navy dockyard paddle tug DEXTEROUS (1956) photo (#6211330411) I saw this on eBay and thoughtof the recent thread on these ships. Royal Navy dockyard paddle tug DEXTEROUS (1956) photo Item number 6211330411 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From Matt Subject Re FAA >> I've seen the following statement in print from various sources, but find it hard to believe...that the Blackburn Roc never actually operated from a carrier. << Not necessarily hard to believe, the Fifth Sea Lord tried to get the Roc cancelled in 1938, but it was already too late for that as the plane was in full production. With a top speed of 223 mph why bother with carrier ops? They already had the Skua which was a little faster and had a more conventional armanent. Although the Roc had an endurance of around 6 hours. >> It must have passed some sort of carrier certification trials...but did it ever depoly about a carrier before or during the war? << From what I gather, carrier certification came after production and as it seems that the Roc's future was already sealed it seems they did not bother even trying to get them on carriers. >> There is the account of the only known Roc air-to-air victory when one was credited with shooting down a He-59 floatplane after a long running battle south across the channel. The He-59 was skimming the wave tops and the Roc's guns could not depress past level...so the pilot had to roll the aircraft to allow the gunner to fire (the Roc had no forward firing guns). << According to "Turret Fighters", by Alec Brew where I got most of my information from, this Roc did not even down the He-59, but was credited with damaging it. Matt ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Model club & SMMLcon Information ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From URUDOFSKY@aol.com Subject Nautical Research Guild convention in Hampton The Nautical Research Guild's annual convention is in Hampton, VA, this year. http//www.naut-res-guild.org/ http//www.naut-res-guild.org/conference05.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Reviews, Articles, Backissues, Member's models & Reference Pictures at http//smmlonline.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume