Very good Todd. I was going to call you on that one, pointing out the Washington and South Dakota's action was after the battle during Operationg Torch, when I checked my facts. You're absolutely right, Big Mamie did fire the first and last American big guns during WWII.

It is a shame she isn't better represented. But then it's a shame a LOT of American and British warships aren't represented. But we've got a Graph Zepellin, that never sailed, out there to make. My second rant for the day.

Rodger and Todd,
The word is that Trumpeter is to put out a plastic 1/350 South Dakota in the near future. I talked about this back in november. I'm holding my breath, thats my favorite ship ! I just cant wait to here them anounce it.

Regards,
Garry

Bullseye Ranger! you are right on target.
Hey an old ex grunt here to !

Cheers,
Garry

That does sound great, a South Dakota, or any other American battleship in 1/350 is long over due. Wasn't the So Dak the one that had one less 5 inch mount per side? If that is true I applaud Trumpeter. Another company might have come out with the ship that could be made into the other sisters. Or is it the Alabama that had the four turrets per side?

Yes that was the South Dakota that only had 4 -5 inch twinn mounts. In place of the fifth turret they had a quad 40mm bofors mount.

Garry

Well.......Hot Damn Ranger!! First thread I check after coming in from work on a Friday evening and BANG! A whole jaw-full of answers from a 'landlubber'! Can't rightly call you a 'grunt', because you're Army right? Although you get big kudo's for knowing the 'Squid' remark.... :-)
You're a mighty knowledgable 'non-sailor' there Ranger. Good on ya! And thx for your input. From the sound of Garry and HalfYank you know your stuff!

My original question regarding the 'Montana Class vs. Carrier' development was more focused at the post Pearl Harbor U.S. mentality. Trying to avoid hindsight, I am impressed that the U.S. didn't choose to go with the big guns of the Montana instead. What you and the others say makes complete sense.......now.
The torpedo buldge input is great. Makes you wonder if they did research on exactly how much spacing was optimal between the main outer hull skin and the buldge skin....


On your camo input. Your last two sentences seem to sum it up pretty good. I can only assume that the 'zebra' experiment didn't work out too well, otherwise why didn't we see more ships sporting that kind of 'suit'. Same goes for the 'dazzle' paintwork, apparently it wasn't as effective as they wanted it to be, otherwise why did they drop the technique?

Now, in my usual style, I will pose another Q. Actually, a couple.

The first is about the Battleship Arizona. I was looking at the box art of the model kit and was reminded of the extremely high added superstructure over and above the usual high superstructure on most ships of that size. In fact, the new (I forget the manufacturer) 1/700th scale ( ) Arizona kit I just saw at my local hobby shop even has the added superstructure pictured in a different colour than the rest of the ship which even accentuates the height of the structure even more (if that's possible).
Was this an experiment, or was this just a standard addition, or what?

Also. (a Modern question) I have been doing some reading (I gotta do something to compete with you gents!), and I'd like to know, with the advent of modern day Subs that are designed to operate so extremely 'silent'......what is the first line of detection for all of these 'sub-hunter' Destroyers and such?

Sorry....got a third.
Remember the film 'Hunt for Red October'? Do you remember the special silent drive system the Red October had? Does that really exist? And if so, how the heck do we find the buggers??

O.K.......that's enough for now.

Tread.

Tred, I don't much about modern stuff but I can try your first question. If you look at my gallery you'll see my Arizona. Now's it's not very good but the one thing I think I got right was her camo paint. The "fighting tops" were painted a very light gray. The idea was the dark hull would blend with the sea and the light tops would blen with the sky. Didn't help much when the enemy was staight over head. This was a standard USN pre war camo measure. I can't remember what the measure was called, some number.

Don't be too sure the dazzle camo didn't work either. I switched recently to broadband and lost all my favorites. I had one saved that was a pretty interesting article on how British and American camo came about. They were saying how ship captains who tried to focus on ships that were dazzle painted couldn't tell, withing reason, what their actual course, speed, or range was. It was that effective. They still used dazzle in some WWII schemes, but for some reason it fell out of favor. If you've seen pictures of the Bismarck in some shots she has black and white diagonal stripes for and aft. This was supposed to confuse optical range finders. Warship camo is almost as interesting a topic as torpedo bulges.

You are right, Tanker seems to know his stuff. I am also impressed with Garry, foxroe, and several others here. I'm book smart, some of these guys have actually been to sea. The closest to blue water I've come is a few Sea Scout trips to Santa Catalina Island when I was a kid.

Many thx for the quick reply Rodger. Your first paragraph has already taught me something new. They were called "fighting tops"....neat. Didn't know that.....now I do. :-)
Your intel on the reason they did it also sheds some light on the box art.......I feel silly.

On your 'dazzle' comments...Please don't get me wrong. I think they make great sense! The dazzle paintjob has a an effect you can see with the naked eye. I'm not really sure why they dropped it to begin with! Probably some political nonsense.
My point about the 'zebra' paintwork on the PT boat was the exact opposite. To my untrained eye, the zebra stripes (as opposed to the dazzle paintwork) seems to make the ship stand out like a sore thumb! Maybe it worked differently through optics or something.....who knows.
No......Rangers' expansion on the point about creating a "false bow wave" etc, makes immense sense!

Thx for your time HalfYank.

Tread.

BTW, try to find that article you lost!

......maybe I should post my 'Modern' ship questions in a different 'Forum'? Am I guilty of a floaty thing 'faux paux'?...........


Tread.

Jim did ssay to post things in the proper Forum category...........geeez.

What did we ever do without Google. If she could cook I'd MARRY her.

Here are a couple sites I had before.
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/warship_camouflage.htm
http://www.shipcamouflage.com/development_of_naval_camouflage.htm

That second one has more info than you could every possibl want probably, but it makes really interesting reading. If you're a geek like me anyway.

More on ships camo. The Germans were good at this, specialy the dazzle patterns. There BB Tirpitz, the deuchlands, the Hippers and some light cruisers . Used the Dazzle in dark and light contrast, at times black and white. These ships spent a lot of there time in and around the Norwiegion (spelling) Fiords. Some pictures that I have seen, it realy makes it hard to see them! Or tell just what they are.
The US later in the war mostly dropped the Dazzle schemes in favor of measure 21. That is dark sea blue horizontal surfices and haze grey vertical surfices, the hull itself was painted a sea blue. This was done becouse of the threat of aircraft, since the surfice enguagments were nill by this time in the war. This scheme worked very well, even to other ships.

Regards,
Garry

I think the bizzare WWII camo patterns fell by the way side because of the advent of fire control electronics and radar... You didn't have to see your target to shoot him any more.

As far as the modern stuff goes, surface ships look for submarines with passive sonar (listening to emitted sounds under water), by using active sonar (sending out a loud ping and listening to the return echo from a target) emiited from the ship or from dropped boueys from helos, or by magnetic detection (MAD... i forget what it stands for... Magnetic Anomoly (sp?) Detection I think...) from recon planes and helos; a submarine will cause a small disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field (or any ship for that matter) which the MAD system can detect. Surface ships can also use surface-search radar to detect submarine periscopes/snorkels.

This is fun (I'm geekish like that)...Keep 'em coming!

Todd

Howdy foxroe,

Thx for your answers. I understand the active/passive system, so maybe it's better if I turn the question around......

I'm the skipper of one of our best Nuclear Subs, and I've been sneaking around the coast of.....oh, I don't know, Communist China let's say. The Chinese Navy has been alerted and I am being quickly surrounded by Chinese war vessels. Because of possible International repercussions, I will choose to sneak away and avoid detection..........
Now, how do I go about that if the enemay has all these listening devices just mentioned? Or, should I just count myself caught red-handed, surface the ship, give all Classified material to the Chinese, and open a noodle bowl stand in Beijeng?

Tread.

Ooh! Another.
When U.S. Destroyer's (during WW II) are 'hunting' for a german U-boat, how pray tell, do they decide to set the depth charge's? In other words, do they 'spread' the depth of ignition amoung the lot, or are they more precise?
Also, how many depth charge's did most WW II Destroyer's carry?

Shades of the U.S.S. Eldridge and the Philadelphia Experiment!

In response to Tread's sub question...

You would reduce speed to about Ahead 1/3 (~5 knots), order the crew to a condition of Battlestations and Ultraquiet and creep away. During periods of Sound Testing, a submarine and her crew learn the most optimal machine operating conditions which produce the least amount of emitted noise. If you are only travelling at A1/3, you can secure about half of your operating equipment... REALLY quiet. The loudest noise offenders on a nuclear submarine would be her reactor coolant pumps. Some of these can be secured and the others can be reduced in speed to make them very quiet. Modern nuclear submarines are SO quiet that they have been nicknamed "Holes in the Ocean"... BTW, an American submarine Captain would never surrender his sub. The crew would scuttle her first...

GO PATS!!!

Todd

Sorry i just got int this thread, but have enjoyed reading. Back during WW2, subs had real limited depth so they would usually drop the depth charges in a pattern and set them for a fairly close to maximum lowest depth range. You only had to get close with these puppies, especially when the U-bot was deep

Howdy fellas,

To foxroe: Thx for your insightful intel on the 'going's on' in modern day Subs. Really helped. But, in a situation like that, don't the 'bad guys' do the same things?

To blaster: Welcome to the thread! Your point makes complete sense, most enemy subs would go deep right? And, their 'deep' was predictable wasn't it? So, there really is no setting to adjust on depth charge's?

Tread.

Oh, BTW foxroe, the chance's of my giving up my ship to anybody would be quite slim indeed. I'm an old stubborn Marine, so scuttling wouldn't even be my first choice either......can anybody say "Ramming Speed!"

Oops!! Almost forgot my next questions. Can't have you guys start 'slacking' now can I?

#1) I've been to my fair share of modeling shows, and I've seen a good amount of ship models gracing the tables beside the armour and the figs....here's my question. Why do the vast majority of ship models, (some made by real talented buggers) almost invariably sport paint jobs that only show the ship as if it had just come off the showroom floor??
Seriously, I've seen many a photo of ships at port, at dry-dock, at sea and at war, and not one of those photos as I can recall show the ship in this pristine state of appearance!
No rust stains where the anchor chains drape across the deck, no ugly dripping marks where the bilge(?) holes express themselves, no dusting of cordite fumes, gun barrel carbon, etc, etc.
Why? Does it have something to do with too many ship builders thinking in terms of 'Museum Quality ' display standards or something?
Just curious.

#2 ) (and I'm trying to come up with good ones) The habit of putting a 'notch' on your gun handle for men that you have killed harkens back to the wild, wild, west. Tankers have been known to do it, certainly ace pilots did it, and even snipers did it.
Do/did sailors do it?
Whether they have shot down a Kamikaze, or sunk an enemy ship, or even scored a direct hit on a land-based bunker as they did on D-Day, do/did Navy gunners keep track in any way the number, type, or difficulty of targets they vanquished? And if so...how?

Tread.

I'm trying to keep the quality of these questions as 'gold' as I can! Please, feel free, anyone else 'lurking' out there, to ask a question and help me share the load!

Tread, I have seen pics of ships marking "kills" usually aircraft, though I think some of the PT boats did it for barges.

Unless the ship were in direct combat a lot, with those huge crews, they would do a lot of spot painting. Rust on a ship happens a lot and have to agree that few of us weather them. I think they are just to beautiful to behold and none of us wants to detract from it. I' do very minimal when I do it which is rarely.

Tread. Partial answers to some of your questions.

Destroyer depth charge loads. My best sources of info Roscoe's Destroyer Operations in WWII and Worth's Fleets of WWII both let me down on this one. I can tell you that there were various types of depth charge launchers. Simple racks that just rolled them off the stern, Y guns and K guns that shot them out over the sides. The usual pattern was to roll a half dozen off the stern the three or four on either beam. There was also hedgehog, I believe the Brits also called it Squid. This was an ahead throwing weapon that had to actually hit the sub. The advantage of it was that if it didn't hit anything it didn't explode. One big disadvantage of depth charges was that they would go off at depth and the sound and disruption of the ocean made it hard to detect the sub for a while after.

As to your question about paiting ships models the only thing I can think of is either they are trying to match ship models in museums or that it's hard to shot weatering in such a small scale.

Finally your question about sub depths and depth charges. For the very reason you say subs didn't always go to their maximum depth. They would vary their depth so to keep the escorts quessing. One thing I've heard is that the American Gato class had several sub types. The latest types could go about 100 feet deeper than the earlier models. The Japanese, who were pretty poor at anti sub work to begin with, didn't catch onto this right away and in that case it was safer for the subs to go as deep as they could.

Yo Tread, good questions!
#1 I to have noticed the lack of weathering on a lot of ship models. In my earlier years of ship modeling I also was guilty of this. Here is what I do now for general technique on my models. Starting at the bow, this area is always rusty. The anchor chain mortices, when the anchor is winched in it scrapes away paint, and also the anchor bangs against the side of the hull chipping paint and scratches. Any bare metal areas is where rust will gather. I paint rust streaks flowing down and back slightly, because after the anchor has been pulled, the ship is on the move, water will run down from the mortice then spray back.
I also add a little rustat the bottom of each port hole on the hull, where water gathers then runs down. Realy , any place water has a chance to gather it will leave rust stains, the hull, superstructure, turrets. Mainly just use common sents!
#2 Yep fighting ships put kill notches on there handles to! On turrets and gun mounts, even on the bridge and conning tower.

HTH,
Garry

LOL....thx guys. O.K., time for an observation. Don't worry, it's a good one. I have noticed in the short time I've been visiting the Warship Forum and sharing with you guys, that, generally speaking, you guys are extremely proud of your ships!...aren't you? Don't misunderstand me, I think it's GREAT! But it's just a funny thing when I ask some of my questions, I can literally feel the pride you guys have for your bloody ships! I mean this as a compliment........it's a good thing.
I pose a bit of humour about surrendering my ship to the Chinese, and foxroe makes sure to add that no skipper worth his salt would surrender, they'd rather scuttle, I ask about paintwork and blaster's sharing the fact that they are "too beautiful to behold"!
You guys are great. You love your ships! Good on ya mates.

Anyway, moving on.
Your answers to my questions are just fuel for my brain to come up with new questions. You only have yourselves to blame!!

During the assault on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, there were many ships (especially Destroyers) that participated in the naval artillery barrage meant to soften up the german fortifications. Amoung them was (a ship that seems to be haunting me) the Warspite amoung others shelling the beaches. I have read many stories relating to D-Day, but remember a handful of facts regarding the naval barrage. My questions are these;
One of the Destroyer's (?) fired so many shells at the beach that morning, that she had to withdraw from the engagement because she had literally fired her holds dry!
Which ship was that??? Anybody know?
Next. Another Destroyer (?) came so close to the beach to aid in destroying a german bunker, which by the way she was guided to by a Sherman tank commander that had managed to actually make it to the sand, that she nearly went aground!
Again, which ship was she?? Anyone know this one.......hehe.

Tread.

Tread, Stephen Ambrose, in his book D Day talks about the destroyer USS Frankford and how close she went into the beach to direct fire. He doesn't specify that she ran out but that she, and other detroyers, expended nearly all their ammo. I think this was also the ship you describe firing with help from a tank. He tells about how the Frankford moved to within 800 yards of the beach. Thety saw a disabled tank on the beach fire at a target on the bluffs. By seeing where the tanks rounds fell they knew where to direct their fire. If you're interested this is on page 387 of the hardcover edition of the book.

Garry is right, as usual, about the "kill" marketings on turrets and such. In Ballard's book about the lost fleet of Guadalcanal there is a picture of some sailers on the South Dakota with a picture on the turret barbette behind them. It shows a cartoon of a sinking Japanese ship with three hash marks under it, indicating three ships sunk, and a Japanese plane with 23 hash marks, 23 shot down. I've also seen ships with campaign ribbons painted on their bridge areas, showing the ribbons they'd won for campaigns, unit citations and such. Finally the submarines had a tradition of flying little flags on there arials showing the ships sunk, and also hoisting a broom to the mast head, indicating a "cleen sweep."

Howdy HalfYank,

As the saying goes..."You are correct Sir!" (should have known better than to try to stump you guys, but, a guys gotta try right?)
And speaking of trying....

Just after WW II, a significant alteration was made to U.S. submarines, allowing them to spend more time underwater, and therefore less likely to be detected.
What was this 'alteration'?
And secondly, what was the name of the first Submarine that sported this new 'alteration'??

Tread.

Maybe I can get ya with sub questions! #:-)

As a hint, this sub sunk just off the coast of Norway.

I'm sure you're probably referring to the Schnorkle (sp). I'm not positive but I almost think this was a Dutch invention that the Germans picked up on. Like so many other devices it could have been a case of somebody else thinking up something, and the Germans refining it and then everybody points to them as being so smart. I have no idea which U Boat used it first.