Jack12477

Forgot some photos
 

Some updates: I have been working mostly on installing all the deck structures, guns, railings, gun port covers. I didn’t install the block and tackle rigging on the guns; too frustrating,  so I settled for just the recoil ropes. 
 
Some photos follow:
 

After completing the deck, I started installing the gun port covers. Had to come up with some jigs to hold the covers in place till the glue set.
 
jigs

 
Final results
 

The last port at stern and bow require a split cover with sling which I have to figure out how to rig. Then I have to turn it around and repeat on the port side.
 

Yep that is the one weakness all tanks and tracked vehicles have on the battlefield, loss of mobility... The Abrams though is a fast repair, just remove the offending damaged road wheel and repair the track, and she can rejoin the column... This happened several times in Desert Storm.... 45 minutes was the longest loss of mobility.... In Iraqi Freedom this happened to the Abrams several times as well from IED's, once the fires went out, they winch it onto a C-het and send it home where it is rebuilt into a new updated tank... It is the most survivable tank in the world today... The main weapon Insurgents use in an urban setting is knock off a track with an IED or RPG and use Molotov's dropped on it from above to set it on fire... It gets the tank out of the battle line true, but doesn't destroy the tank...
 
But your correct, a tank without the ability to move is a sitting duck....
 
 

What always makes the difference in combat are the establishment of effective standards and the training/discipline to maintain those standards in combat.

If you drive it into a mine field, and the tracks "fly in the air". Then it does not matter which model of tank you are in.
You are, as they so aptly say in English,
a sitting duck. 😪

I dont quite understand the question.  Perhaps a photo?

Hmm ! Over a year now since my last post! I'm still here, model too, just got bored with it and decided to try some plastic kits as a change of pace.  As MacArthur said at Corregidor "I shall return!" 

Short update - but the other thing I accomplished today were the jib boom horses. Nothing particularly complicated about them - they go over the end of the jib boom with and eye and loop, then have knots every 2' which translates to about 9.5mm at 1:64. I went with 10mm because it's easier.  The aft end of the horses loops over the jib boom behind the cap and seizes to itself. I then use a liberal amount of diluted PVA to get the to hang and hold their form.
 
 
 
 

Ammo.... Not completely happy but it's not too bad and will hardly, if at all, be visible, but I know it's there so worth the effort.

 
Bombs are in the bay.
 

 
Seatbelts are attached 
 

 
Not too far off putting the fuselage together now.
 

 
Slow progress, in fits and starts, but still very enjoyable. 
 

Once upon a time (30 or more years ago), I painted quite a few 1:1 cars and trucks in my garage/spray booth. I learned that when I got a run or sag, I just applied more paint until it evened out and pooled as a drip or drops along the bottom. I would lightly sop those drips and drops from the rocker panels or wheel opening to remove the drip and when it all dried, you never even knew there had ever been a run or sag. Invisible. You can actually do the same with your model though it's best to not get those runs or sags in the 1st place, but accidents do happen every now and then.
Practice on an old model as an experiment and intentionally make a run or sag. Then "spray it out" like I described above and try it yourself. Of course, it's not desirable to make runs or sags intentionally as a practice because too much paint can hide or obliterate detail in the molding you want to be able to see. It's just another thing to know and keep in your bag of modeling tricks and workarounds. 

Uwe,
many thanks for your input and your words
Relating to the lightscreens I asume that during its duty the ship was updated acc. to Colregs, and after Roels comment I looked up the color of the sheets (photos) on the real thing, it looks like they are realy matt black, and the ship was on duty and on position until 1988.
for me it was always clear that the lightscreens would be red /green because I thought the color would increase the illumination of the nav. lights, also I never heard of the Colregs regulations before. Now my decision is to go for matt black.
 
Nils

I sprayed the wheels and made some corrections with mini brush. Perhaps it should be better if I had  sprayed them before glued in one piece. Too late. Hopefully the way I put them in place and the side skirts along with the tracks and usage of oil washes will minimize the imperfections.
Side skirts also may need to be removed for positioning the tracks easier. Will see.


 

Nice going, as usual, Chuck. BTW, those are not pissdales, but the heads! I think one would want discharge tubes for sure....

That elegantly puts in to words a feeling I had but I couldn't quite put my finger on what it was.
Fred

I did provide some holes under the roundhouses and some seats of ease on the Bellona:
 

 
The holes are hard to see under the roundhouses, but they are there. Same for the seats on the bow....
 
Yves

I made them on my Speedwell according to David's plan,the largish diameter would make sense for solids disposal. The question of these being discharge points for only pissdales intrigues me.
 
If there were only pissdales on Speedwell where/how was the solid waste of the ordinary seamen disposed of ? Using the headrails would be rather dangerous,the channels maybe,or just hang their rumps over the side ? Just asking  
 
Dave 

Nice take on the saw table Jeff - as well as the rest of the shed!

Absolutely, this is in the works they already have a contract ready to go for the Israeli system of rocket/drone defense which is reported to work extremely well in the combat examples they have seen... (took their armor losses down by 85%) but they are holding out for a couple of US defense contractors developing their own system right now before they commit... It's supposed to be in the next round of upgrades... They are very optimistic about it...
 
The design thinking right now on the new MBT is for an unmanned turret with autoloading guns reducing the crew to three,... automatic targeting for the light weapons and remote control for the main gun... upgrading the engine to hybrid electric making it more fuel efficient and almost completely silent without losing any of it's speed... and a lower profile to make it more hideable....
 
If all this works, the next MBT will be an awesome weapon system...
 
These kind of systems are always a balance between firepower, speed/mobility and protection... in '68 protection took a big hit with the tow missile which could turn any tank in existence into a pile of scrap iron, the Israelis learned this the hard way against soviet wire guided tow missiles during the sinai campaign against the Egyptians, but once the missiles ran out, the Israelis kicked A** They developed the reactive armor system to counter hollow charged missiles, then this was countered by first Tow II and then the Hellfire missile... two hollow charge warheads in series, the first takes out the reactive system and the second takes out the tank... then they combine the reactive system with wire cages over them...
 
One day the missile has the upper hand the next day the armor has the upper hand... the Drones are just one of the steps in the constantly evolving process... cause right now the firepower is the dominate thing about tanks there is no defense for that Rhinemetal gun especially firing the US developed DU special shot ammo and the infrared targeting system... A tank appears on the battlefield today it's usually a pile of junk in a matter of a few minutes...
 
Unless it's an Abrams or a Leopard II

Looks like the 500$ Iranian drones worked pretty well against the M1A1 in Ukraine. Of course this is a downgrade version but Ukrainians did also improve it with additional armor. For a 10 millions a piece you can have 20.000 drones instead.
The gun of the M1 is no doubt a success thus the powerful and accurate shots. But its a German one by Rheinmetall, same mounted on Leopard. A verified Leopard shot at the target at 5.8 kms, back in 2017 proves this.  I have worked on these during serving but on a 30mm AA guns, pretty impressive back then.
A think the new M1 need to be equipped with self defense active system like Merkava, Leopard, T14s, even the new Turkish Altai has a domestic produced one. The passive armor protection belongs  clearly to the  battleship age, though its useful for protection against smaller caliber. Needless to say at the moment, companies are working on anti drone mini weapons, Rheinmetall has already produced the SADM, (Small Anti Drone Missile) with more to follow.

Yep, they were the first receiving M1A1's in '88 they currently have over 1300 of them in service and a plant that assembles them from local parts and purchased high tech parts.. (mostly M1A2's)
 
Australia was next...  Saudi Arabia is 100% Abrams supplied, (over 600 in service) and Iraq also has several hundred as well as Poland has turned in all it's T72's to Ukraine in exchange for M1A2's and Romania is slated to receive them this year..
 
Understand one thing, NONE of the export versions have any of the special upgraded armor that US issues do, no DU backed composite armor and no DU ammo...
 
It is also reported that a Russian armor display near Moscow has a captured M1A1 on open display... (not something the Russian's destroyed it was something captured in Afghanistan and take to Russia)
Right now the only ammo capable of destroying a US operated upgraded M1Abrams consistently is fired by the M1Abrams itself... And of the nine tanks completely destroyed by tank gunfire in Iraq, 8 of them were friendly fire incidents...
 
The earlier models of the M1 are beginning to take casualties in combat, in Syria, (yes Syria) Iraq and Ukraine, mostly to upgraded antitank missiles and improved Russian DU armor piercing rounds, usually in the side and rear armor areas, the front armor has never been penetrated by any weapon known to be used on the battlefields today...
 
It is still, a US operated Abrams, the best most survivable and operable MBT on the planet and is about (2026-8) to undergo another upgrade... Also they are now designing the replacement for the Abrams, seeing as it is now approaching 50 years old as a design and is over 40yrs old as an operational weapons system... 

Roel,
Many thanks for the explaination of the appropriate Colregs chapter.
I`m looking for my little can of Humbrol matt black already
 
Nils

Hi Nils, 
 
here you go, Colregs Annex 1.5
Colregs Annex 1
 
In point 5 it says:
"
5. Screens for sidelights
The sidelights of vessels of 20 m or more in length shall be fitted with inboard screens painted matt black, and meeting the requirements of section 9 of this annex. On vessels of less than 20 m in length the sidelights, if necessary to meet the requirements of section 9 of this annex, shall be fitted with inboard matt black screens. With a combined lantern, using a single vertical filament and a very narrow division between the green and red sections, external screens need not be fitted."
 
As mentioned, I do not know when this particular requirement was written in the rules or where it originated before that. On the other side, your light vessel did operate until well after the Colreg implementation, so I do believe they would retroactively adapt to these rules. 
 

Thank you very much Roel,
I never heard of "Colreg regulations) before, . Good to learn something further and especialy with resp. to Nav .lights housng dull black backround. Good to learn something new for my modeling. You`re right, at this stage I can easily correct that.
I looked up Colreg regulations in Google and found a listing of these regulations, but unfortunately not the passage where it stipulates the matt black neccesity to nav. lights containment background.
Please could you kindly copy me that passage, if you found it there. Many thanks. I believe this is also of interest for fellow modelers as well.
 
Nils

I completely forgot I included them on my model Chuck. At any rate some research shows that the pissdales were made of lead, copper or occasionally wood. There was a lead small discharge tube directly under the pissdale. This 1.4" tube would exit through a small scupper in the waterway. My discharge tubes are comically large.  They should only be about twice the diameter of a treenail. The pissdale discharge scupper holes on my model would be more appropriate for a herd of horses. They were discontinued after 1765.
 
I'm going to have to fix that now damn you!

Thanks…very interesting but boy that would be an ugly fixture on a model.  I think the old masters who built these contemporary models had a great eye for what looked good….and not so good.  I believe they might have left off many of these features because they would just not look good.  
 
I think I may just follow that same logic and sensibility.