Subject: SMML VOL 3052 Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006 22:26:53 +1100 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 Cuban Crisis Slightly OT 2 Help Needed with masts of YMW USS Porter 3 Prop driven planes in the Med during Cuban Missle Crisis 4 Fleet Rehabilitation And Modernization 5 Re Sea Slugs 6 Re Prop driven planes in the Med during Cuban Missle Crisis 7 Re Gear box setups 8 Re Girdle Ness 9 revell Type 206A U-Boat 10 Re Scorpion ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- MODELLERS ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1) From Richard Sweeney Subject Re Cuban Crisis Slightly OT >> 3) 1. My dad was at Fylingdales during the crises, his only comment is that "it was pretty serious" I was shocked to see in a documentary recently that the Cubans had nuclear missiles ready to both hit the invasion force and the supporting fleet. Don't recall that ever being mentioned in Miss Brady's history class in High School. Guess Dad meant what he said. << Hi Michael, I used to work at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and it was not generally known that the the Russians had tactical Nuclear Weapons in Cuba until President Gorbachev called for a series of discussions about the Cuban Missle Chrisis in the 1980's to see if we could keep the world from getting that close to Nulear war again. The US didn't know about the Tacticals. They only knew about the ICBMs. The Russians discussed their side in the conferences. Sec. MacNamara was quite suprised as he had been one of the people urging invasion. Only Bobby Kennedy amongst the advisors said it was a bad idea, and to stay with the Naval Blockade (Actual usable topic reference.)The Russian take on it was. "at that time, the ICBM's we had were so bad and inaccurate, we probably could not have hit Florida with them. On the other hand, we would have used the tactical/Battlefield Nuclear weapons we had with us if you had invaded." Rich Sweeney ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) From William Swan Subject Help Needed with masts of YMW USS Porter I am in the midst of working on the 1/350 YMW USS Porter and having difficulty with the construction of the masts on this ship. The directions that I have seem to be missing some vital information The dimensions of the brass stock to be used in the construction of the masts and the lengths of the various pieces. Pictures are provided of how the mainmast should look after construction but nothing is available to help with the foremast. Any help with this would be appreciated (scale drawings, stock size, lengths, ANYTHING). William Swan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3) From Subject Prop driven planes in the Med during Cuban Missle Crisis The angled deck Essex class carriers could carry both the jet powered A-3 Skywarrior and the piston/jet powered AJ Savage usually in 3 plane detachments. At the time of the Cuban Crisis I believe the AJ's were serving in the tanker role rather than as a nuclear bomber. I also believe that the AD-7 Skyraider was designed with the delivery of nuclear weapons in mind. Polaris was operational at the time, I remember a day at the beach in 1960 being highlighted by the passage off in the distance of the USS Patrick Henry (SSBN-599) after having been inspected by President Eisenhower at Newport. I had just turned 14 in time for the Cuban Crisis and as as we were in the next town over from Qounset Point Naval Air Station and just across the bay from COMCRUDESLANT in Newport our preparations for the worst case scenario was just to get out the Bible before the missliles hit and spend a little time studying for our finals. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4) From Don Subject Fleet Rehabilitation And Modernization Does any SMML member have information on the ships and types of ships which underwent the FRAM program of the 50's/60's period?. Also wish to find source references for books or related documents, especially related to auxiliaries if they were included. I've been assuming all ships modified for various reasons were done under this program. If true, then information leading to images for ship alterations may be available. I do know of the major program for Gearing class Destroyers from Friedman, Lott, and Sumrall's booklet The Gearing Class Destroyer featuring the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. (DD 850). Thanks in advance for any reply. Don ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5) From M Brown Subject Re Sea Slugs Are you after photos or drawings or just general info? Regards, Michael Brown ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6) From "David N. Lombard" Subject Re Prop driven planes in the Med during Cuban Missle Crisis From "Paul Giltz" >> If I remember correctly there was a time gap when the USN was waiting for the Polaris missile system to become operational and the A3 Skywarrior wasn't deployed yet either. There are a lot of people who are too young to remember that the USAF wanted the carrier navy to be relegated to assisting amphibious assaults.The Airforce considered the Navy to be redundant. << Google for "Revolt of the Admirals". Interesting reading... David N. Lombard Rossmoor, Orange County, CA http//www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth?imgsize=320&opt=-z&lat=33.8&ns=North&lon=118.08&ew=West&alt=7&img=learth.evif ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7) From "David N. Lombard" Subject Re Gear box setups From John SLATER >> ... One thing I have noticed in smaller scale RC models that have gearboxes is the units tend to produce a tremendous amount of noise relative to the scale of the model. Whilst you won't want a hobby motor screaming along producing out of scale speeds, and a gear box could be justified to reduce speed to more realistic levels, why not just go for direct drive and use voltage to determine speed. No reason why an inexpensive small hobby motor could not be set up to run on 1.2 or 1.5 volts. << The motor will be hard-pressed for sufficient torque at slow speeds. >> Why not for example remove the limiter tabs of a micro servo and you will then have in one simple unit of a geared motor with speed control. << This is actually the solution--but I'm not quite sure what you mean be "limiter tabs." The thing you need to do is disconnect the feedback potentiometer to get the effect you describe. For those wanting fairly realistic turret slewing, drive the feedback pot from the turret through sufficient gearing, you'll even get the slew drop off as the turret approaches the desired position. David N. Lombard Rossmoor, Orange County, CA http//www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth?imgsize=320&opt=-z&lat=33.8&ns=North&lon=118.08&ew=West&alt=7&img=learth.evif ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8) From "David J Shirlaw" Subject Re Girdle Ness Mike et al - Warship 2005 has an interesting article about the post war RN. The original thought in the Girdle Ness conversion was as a coastal convoy AA escort. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9) From andrew jones Subject revell Type 206A U-Boat Hi all Currently working on the 1st ship kit for nearly a year now.. forgive me for I know I have sinned ha ha I am going to do the sub under water with its periscope sticking out of the water so just a couple of questions 1) Looks part 26 & 27 are the snorkel- might leave that down for now as I would probably have to do something about the padding/wire basket thing (?) around the snorkel.. but the periscope, my hunch is thst it would be part no. 29 or could it be part number 28? 2) Seeing its underwater I would not have to worry about the 2 flag poles (parts 31 & 40) on the bow & the strn but what about in Step 13 there are some cleats or something .. are they there all the time or covered up while submerged ? 3) Rigging. The instruction sheet shows a rigging wire running from behind the sonar bump from the base of the wire cage or whever it is to about 1/2 way up the tower ..Is this fixed in all the time? a few photos I have managed to find online dont show it but then again it would be so fine that any shot of these subs even taken from a small distance away would not show any fine rigging. 4) is there anything else about the kit I should be aware of..i dont think there is any photo-etch out there for it...hopefully the prop has the right number of blades on it etc oh well if not too late need to finish it for a meeting in Feb Thanks in advance Andrew Jones Oz ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- 10) From Ned Barnett Subject Re Scorpion >> I just finished a new book on the loss of the Scorpion ("Silent Steel" by Stephen Johnson) - BTW, for you submarine fans, this book is outstanding! It is very carefully researched and extensive references are provided in a bibliography. With the publication of John Craven's "Silent War" and Sontag & Drew's "Blind Man's Bluff" it has become a "fact" that Scorpion suffered from some sort of Mk 37 torpedo accident. Johnson interviews former crewmembers and painstakingly reexamines the Court of Inquiry testimony. While in the end, it is not possible to say exactly what caused the loss, it is clear from this book that the loss remains largely unexplained. Scorpion was a "tired boat", and had been subjected to an experimental "minimalist" overhaul just before her loss, and still had not been through the SubSafe modifications that were a result of the Thresher loss in 1963. The strong argument is made from the evidence that the Scorpion sank to well below its 700 ft test depth (possibly 1400+ feet), and the hull deformed and a juncture failed at the point where the cylindrical hull narrowed more sharply to a cone shape, a structural weak point in the hull. This failure drove the stern of the Scorpion forward some 50 feet, "telescoping" it inside of the engineering spaces. Pictures of the wreckage clearly show this effect. The resulting "water hammer" of pressure ruptured the operations compartment completely, and blew the bow section ahead of frame 22 off. In addition, another of the conclusions is that there is no evidence for any kind of torpedo explosion or detonation. What is not at all clear is the exact circumstances or failures would allow Scorpion to grossly exceed test depth. And that remains a mystery to this day.... << Tom and all I researched this fairly extensively (though not anywhere near as in-depth as the author did) for a History Channel program, "Submarine Disasters" - I was on camera, and also behind the scenes as a historical consultant on this program. The upshot - I'm reasonably convinced that the loss of Scorpion was no "accident," but a Soviet pay-back for a Pac-Fleet sub loss they blamed on us, one that occurred just a short period of time before Scorpion was lost. Theories as to how this tit-for-tat revenge sinking occurred include an underwater collision and some kind of stand-off weapon. This may all be Cold War hysteria, but I found what I read and learned persuasive that it was at least possible, and perhaps plausible that the Scorpion exceeded crush depth because something (or somebody) knocked a hole in the hull. I was not able to sell this conclusion to the producers - History Channel programs do well in Europe and other places that apparently don't share my "cold war hysteria" - so it was chopped. However, I tried to "picture" the disaster (in words) for their video animators - my words come very close to what Tom described here - but in the final analysis, I had them do the animation for Thresher, as we knew why it sank, instead of the Scorpion (which, as noted, we were still debating). In the end, they didn't have the budget to do it as I'd scripted it, but what they did do was fairly spiffy animation (considering budget limitations). Anyway, I wish this book had been available when I was doing this show - I think the producers went with the torpedo battery disaster theory, and I never bought that. Thanks, Tom - Ned Barnett ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the SMML site for the List Rules, Reviews, Articles, Backissues, Member's models & Reference Pictures at http//smmlonline.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- End of Volume