GazzaS
-
Posts
6,396 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Events
Gallery
Posts posted by GazzaS
-
-
17 minutes ago, PanzerWomble said:
Able Seaman Francis K**** Photo taken when he served with the Fore Transmitting Station Crew aboard HMS Conqueror in 1914. A Transmitting Station (in Royal Navy parlance) is a room deep within a large ship where calculations pertaining to gunnery are worked and from which orders, ranges and deflections are transmitted to the guns.
Joined as a boy sailer aged 16, in March 1914 , served in Conqueror throughout the war . Completed 22 years as a CPO in Dec 1938 .....recalled to service December 1939 . Further 5 years at sea , retired again 1947 as a WO1 . Spent all of his career involved in gunnery.
Extracts from the book on which my father collaborated in which his history is told in more detail /
THE ZEEBRUGGE RAID 1918. 'The Finest Feat of Arms'
Paul Kendall
SPELLMOUNT 2008
Thank you for sharing! Very interesting.
My wife's Grandfather served in the RN on HMS Malaya and HMS Euryalus. He was a Stoker, but also did some diving. One of his stories was about a time when he served on an HMS Euryalus, they decided to make a gun crew out of stokers. Apparently those stoker-gunners shot a lighthouse by mistake. He had some great stories, but never talked about the actual combats he was involved in.
-
3
-
-
11 hours ago, PanzerWomble said:
Love the detail going into this build - the the sea looks good too .
My grandfather was on board HMS Conqueror at Jutland. Captain's report at the time reads
"The enemy was first observed at 6.25 p.m. and at 6.31 p.m., fire was opened on one of the ' Markgraf ' class—rough range, 12,000 yards. This ship quickly disappeared in the haze, and fire was shifted to a three-funnelled cruiser (probably the late 'Maravev-Amurski,')—rough range, 10,000 yards — shortly afterwards this ship dropped astern and passed out of sight.
I reckon a lot of lives were saved by the fact that the main fleets didn't engage until late in the day. It was a calm day with good visibility early on. What was your grandfather's job/position? I've read a book by one of the German guys at the battle. He was below decks... so there wasn't a lot for him to tell.
-
1
-
-
Welcome back, my friends!
I've been working on the two main structures of this vessel all week... when I wasn't doing my day job, anyway... and there are only six pieces of plastic to go. So I'm feeling really close to the end. ...Except for the big photo-etch hump barring my way.
One of the things I consider odd is the lack of photos and film footage from the Jutland Battle. Despite all of those great advancements made since the days of Matthew Brady, we only have a few stills from the battle. One shot that purports being from the battle is this one:
This is definitely taken from the crow's nest of a König Class battleship during a major action. It was captioned as being from Großer Kurfürst during the Jutland battle. And for me, that's great... because it was my intent all along to portray this ship at Jutland.
This photo has a ton of information for those willing to look. Even though it is a unremarkable photo in many ways, it tells us many things about how dreadnought battleships went to war.
At Jutland, the Kaiserliche Marine ships had their after funnels painted red for identification purposes.
Another problem for admirals of the day was the way their ships were constructed. Many had wing turrets and amidships turrets that were usually surrounded by cranes and the ship's boats. The muzzle blast from the wing and amidships turrets would quickly turn the boats into matchwood. So, when a big fleet action was expected, they all unloaded their boats. And this photo gives us a rare glimpse onto the top of one of the boat carriages. And this was one change I had to make. I left the boats off, and constructed enough structure to hold wooden strips that cradled the boats on their carriages. Fortunately, I hadn't thrown away the Artwox deck leftovers away.
Another thing that was removed were many of the railings. The ones in danger were removed, and the ones not in danger were left in place like those at the base of the cranes and the searchlight batteries.
Großer Kurfürst's large cranes were lowered and partially disassembled to protect them from muzzle blast. The booms would have laid on the deck, I imagine.
What follows are my photos as of this afternoon. Happy modelling!
-
5
-
-
Only in Australia. Not my house...
-
1
-
3
-
1
-
-
I built the Monogram Corsair in 1979. I can still remember the terrible mess I made of the wing joins at the fold.
You make it look easy, John. But I still don't think it would provide me stress relief...lol
-
2
-
-
32 minutes ago, ScottsGT said:
So I guess the Aussie fruitcake can hold a door against a 20 mph wind gust?
In all honesty, I’ve had one good fruitcake experience in my lifetime.haha... you got it right. The main difference is that the Aussie one doesn't have candied fruit. And is a little bit more moist. Unlike the American door stop.
-
1
-
-
10 hours ago, Peterpools said:
and to think, working on two ZM kits nearly at the same time.
See... you can do it. I'm trying to clear some out. Working on a ship model really eats up the time thought with slight progress.
-
2
-
-
John,
Very nice looking builds. You do a nice mottle. That's something I don't get to say very often. I always do the open crosses with my Silhouette Portrait. It's probably one of the best investments I've made.
I wish ZM would have handled the upper sides of the cockpit tub in a better way. It's really a horrible place to try to fill and sand.
-
3
-
-
7 hours ago, ScottsGT said:
My wife makes mincemeat cookies for Christmas every year. Absolutely love them! It’s just fruit chopped up and spiced to perfection. People come over and eat them and go nuts. We then tell them they are mincemeat and they act like they are going to puke. No, it’s not meat….
Its gotten very hard to find the mincemeat concentrate in out grocery stores. I had to order it online last time I stocked up.
4 hours ago, Bomber_County said:Mince pies at Christmas are a staple necessity this side of the ditch and sold everywhere. Scott, could always send a mince pie care package………….
Same in Australia. But I still prefer to have American pies on the holidays. have to say, Aussie Christmas fruitcake is slightly better than American Christmas Fruitcake.
-
Wow... looks great... but so tiny.
-
4
-
-
Looking good, Peter.
-
2
-
-
3 hours ago, biggtim said:
Same as mincemeat pies without the meat? Are they good? If they are anything like Vegemite in OZ, count me right the hell out. Never tried Haggis either.
Never heard of a meat pie with Vegemite in it. And I live in Australia. I had to eat a half a vegemite sandwich at my citizenship ceremony to please my family. Nothing like being on the edge of vomiting for 10 minutes straight.
Aussie meat pies are pretty nice.
-
3
-
-
6 hours ago, harv said:
I have one in the stash....harv
Are you building, yet?
-
4
-
-
Very nice, Guy. Figures look good.
-
1
-
-
Looks very nice, Ern. Decals look like paint.
-
4
-
-
Tres bon, Monsieur!
-
1 hour ago, HubertB said:
Maybe I’m wrong (and I am far from a Spitfire expert), but I thought the seat was bakelite (a thermoset plastic, like the one used on the old -fixed- telephones), not plywood.
Hubert
Edgar Brooks describes the seat as plastic. Not Bakelite. Just plastic.
-
1
-
-
Great start, Peter. That's gonna be a big kit when done, I reckon. Those Quinta sets are nice.
-
2
-
-
Well... I'm not very happy. I was waiting on a bloke from TOS to make some decals that would be Aussie specific BoB pilots. But after a month of waiting, it seems they won't be happening any time soon. So, it seems like I'm gonna be doing an in-box scheme just to get it done. I hate it when other people's time tables don't meet mine.
-
2
-
2
-
1
-
-
1 hour ago, Artful69 said:
For a simple build - The Hasegawa kit is almost impossible to fault ... Even at this age now (it was 'New Tool' a long way back) the details are mainly accurate and quite crisp - and there's still plenty of AM around for it, should you want to go nuts on it ... The Revell kit is quite similar and most of it's detractors arise from the poor engineering choices for assembly and, while there is a lot of extra detail supplied, the basic external moulded stuff is either the same or of lower quality than the Hasegawa kit ...
The ZM kits are the ones I'm waiting for - Given ZM's exponential improvements in detail clarity, fit and finish over the years. Every successive kit has major improvements to design. They do their research well because they are passionate about representing their chosen subjects well
I have to assume that you're actually intending to compare the the forthcoming Border 1/35 Kate with the comparative forthcoming Infinity 1/32 offering? ... I'm unaware of any Border production of a Val at all?
One thing I can usually credit the team at HPH for is their attention to detail and accuracy ... The Tigercat is the one major miss in that regard. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of their fit and finish ... I do think though, that the move to injection moulding through Infinity Model will provide a much better basis for iterations in improvement going forward. This has already been proven to be the case as their Vampire was much improved over their initial SB2C release according to most who've built both ... So regardless of how difficult the Val might be to put together - you'll end up with a fair representation of the real article.
Rog
The only problem, Rog... is that the A5 only exists in peoples stashes... or for blood money on Ebay. Only the A8 seems easily attainable. With nobody but PCM offering the early versions. And of course we're all waiting on ZM who seems to be saying they're only gonna make as many as are pre-ordered.
So it's easy for Border to sell.
-
2
-
-
Very nice paint and weathering, mate. Wouldn't guess it was a smaller scale at all.
-
4
-
-
7 hours ago, BlrwestSiR said:
Gary, great to hear about your first model returning to the hobby. Even better that you still have it. Z-32 still looks to be an impressive build.
For me, I never really left the hobby. Even when I went overseas to study for a year, I somehow managed to find a hobby shop and build (and buy) kits. Still have some of them in the stash. The longest break was maybe a few months around when I got married. Or when our first son was born. Probably the latter.
Thank you, Carl. Sometimes I'm glad I had the break, and sometimes I don't. On the positive side, so much is new. But on the minus side, I wonder just how much I have missed as AM providers retire or quit producing... like Northstar mentioned to DocRob above.
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, Bomber_County said:
It looks like 2014 was a good year to return, I was late 2014, just found a picture of the bench being assembled. Gaz you did a lot better than I did for first one back.
Thank you, Phil! I still don't know that my current ship would be any better.
-
1
-
-
8 hours ago, DocRob said:
Interesting first project Gary, I reentered the hobby at about the same time like you, but I chose a Tamiya Birdgcage Corsair with the full galore of AM for my debut.
I like how your Zerstörer came out. On the pics, it looks living and not only because of the nice figures. The water doesn't look to bad either, the sea is not always blue and white.
I have the same Zerstörer kit in my stash, with some extras and it urged me sometimes in the past to build it.
Some days ago, I learned that NorthStar closed business, at least temporary. That's a bummer, because they seem to be the only company offering 1/144 British sailors for my Flower Class Corvette.Cheers Rob
Thank you, Rob. For the Grosser Kurfurst I needed more figures. I couldn't find any from Northstar. even a few years ago... so I went to Shapeways. I still have to separate the figures from their computer printed casings. So I'm not certain they are as nice as the Northstar figures. But at 1/350... it won't matter too much. And unlike a destroyer, most of the battleship guys are at work enclosed in turrets, barbettes, and other armored structures.
-
1
-
Share a Meme...
in General Discussion
Posted