Destroyer

[angelah]

Oh, my! Just when I thought the ships could not possibly get any better.....they do! Where am I going to put all these beauties? I send you a shot of my dockyard (don't laugh!).

Have a nice Easter, Angela.......don't eat too many sweets!

Cheers....Rick

Hi Rick,
Me, sweets!! never....haha. Well not too many anywa. Had a hot cross bun earlier but that was my ration for today. Then a fisn & chips dinner with wushy peas and a cornetto, mind you that was much later for dinner.
Now I am watching Cirque du Peking, Mulan, quite amazing and the contumes are fabulous. These I think are an offshoot of Cirque du Soliel which I love and have got hooked on. What better way of passing a couple of hours.

As I said in my last post I will have to see how the anchor chains effect the polys, pretty drastically I should think and I only halfway along. A bit more than that shot now as I have begun working aft of amidships. This ship will have the second set of torpedo tubes removed and an extra deckhouse planted in between the midd one and the after gun platform. I have yet to make the Bofors for this ship, they are in a different mounting to the ones I have already made.

Enjoy Easter and I hope it is warmer there than it is here, minus 2C tonight.

God bless, Angela

 

[CRO]

The model of the Daring class looks fantastic. This is the 2nd type of class that I served on in the R.A.N. that you have modeled. First was the Majestic class HMAS Melbourne, now you have re-created (for me anyway), HMAS Vendetta-D08. HMAS Voyager which was sunk in a tragic collision with the Melbourne, was a Daring - D04 also. Unfortunately, apart from a couple of modified Leander class frigates, the R.A.N moved to US sourced ships in th '60s, so no more "surprises" for me.
Just finished my Hot Cross buns on Easter Sunday - so happy Easter to you when you catch up in 10 hours :hehe:

Bob (CRO)

 

[angelah]

Good morning CRO,
It's blinking freezing here.... minus 4C overnight and it is not much better at 0849 now.

Do you have (not personally of course) the Daring Class Vampire in preservation down under? I read somewhere about it but cannot remember where that was.

Anyway, thank you for posting in this thread, I do really like to hear from people and that gives me impetus to keep on going. While I am not creating any other navy's ships many of the British ones were sold off or loaned to quite a wide variety of countries worldide, especially after hostilities ended at the end of WWII when suddenly lots of ships were surplus yo requirements, mainly the smaller to mid sized ones used for escort duties.
So keep your collective eyes open.
I really must get round to an RFA at some point, at least get the hull liad down and filed away.

Thanks go out to all who show interest in my work.

Angela

 

[angelah]

Hi all ship fans,
At last I have her completed and she is out on trials at the moment... Yes, it is HMS Daring...

She is maybe my best effort yet and she loos great in TRS2004. I have yet to do the later configs so maybe I an get on with that job tomorrow.

File size is just under a meg but poly count is high due to the extra work on her at just over 40K.

Angela

 

[CRO]

G'day again,

Might have to repaint those decks on the Daring to 'blue-grey' as used by the R.A.N.. Never could understand why the RN used green. It always amazed me when we met up with RN ships in the Far East to see those bright green decks. Perhaps the government of the day got a "special" on green paint!
HMAS Vampire is proudly on display at the Australian National Maritime Museum along with the O class submarine HMAS Oberon. Follow the link for pics and a tour:
http://www.anmm.gov.au/site/page.cfm?u=1371
You will note that Vampire is radically different to the open bridge Daring you have modeled. Vampire and Vendetta underwent major modifications during the half-life refits,
enclosed bridge, LWO2 radar, and many equipment and habitability mods.
My time on the Vendetta was pre refit, so I enjoyed the 'benefits' of an open bridge from the WWII era.
Easter Monday, and it is forecast to be 27C today with showers on beautiful Macleay Island: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Two1NhpS_5Y
Best wishes and good health

Bob (CRO)

 

[angelah]

G'day Bob,
Weather there sound great, unlike the minus figures on the thermometer we have here in Wales. Will winter even end here????

Thanks for the link, I will look at it once I am washed and dressed as it is still morning here. I was pretty sure the Vampire had been preserved so a big well done to the Aussies for taking good care of here. An an 'O' Class sub as well, icing on the cake for me.

You're right, the deck colours on UK ships are really odd and from above must stick out like a sore thumb, very helpful for enemy aircraft to pinpoint them. There were some ships with different paint schemes but not many. Now then, if you want one with the RAN scheme then send me 2 thumbnails of the 2 different colour tones and I will do it for you and send you the CDP back. Just let me know which version of Trainz you are using and I will make the latest config I can, although even older ones still work even in 2012. So first thing to do is PM me and then I will return an email address for you to use.

Other news :- At present working on a cruiser, HMS Exeter of River Plate fame in fact. Have the hull done and am blocking out the superstructure to get an idea of spacing and sizes to see if everything will fit. Once happy with that the real upperworks will be made and placed on the hull. Some new gun turrets need making as well for secondary armament.
In between I have a whole gaggle of smaller ship's boats to make for the Boat Deck of the Hood which is still on the stocks but making steady progress, there were quite a few different small boats on her so a fair bit of work to do.
I have also begun an RFA named Rame Head, but it is in its very early stages so don't hold your collectives breathes. Plans ahead are for an Assault ship, a fleet tender and a tug of some sort, a vessel sadly missing for the UK. As a Londoner during and immediately after the second WW I remember the Sun tugs that plied the docks when taken there by my father, I think it was just an excuse for him to go really but I didn't mind so maybe it will be one of those, it depends on what info I can find. Also there is a need for a couple more aircraft for the carriers that will work in 2004 and upwards, a Seafire and a Sea Fury are possibles.

No news as to whether or not Daring is working on remore PCs yet but once I have confirmation she will be sent off to the TPR first and the DS secondly, only because I have not done the config for 2010 yet. I must check the download stations to see where I am up to as I have lost track a bit.
And on the subject of the Daring; the anchor chains may have to be changed on future ships to a simpler form to keep down polys, I am working on it.

So keep an eye on the two downloads stations in the coming days.

Blessings,

Angela

 

[rickf77]

Hi Angela:

Good gosh, woman, what a pile of projects! I'm heading downstairs to sweep, vacuum, and wash the floors....just to get away from Trainz for awhile. I'm a bit of a slacker (a word you must not know) with the route building at times.

Cheers.........Rick

 

[angelah]

Hi Angela:

Good gosh, woman, what a pile of projects! I'm heading downstairs to sweep, vacuum, and wash the floors....just to get away from Trainz for awhile. I'm a bit of a slacker (a word you must not know) with the route building at times.

Cheers.........Rick

Hi Rick,
I am guessing a stacker is somebody that cannot stop.... enlighten me otherwise please.

The first version of Daring had a small fault in the config which has been sorted out now and it goes into 2010 no errors at all as does the Ark Royal. They are probably now residing on the TPR UK Buildings section. Both files have also gone to the DS as v 2.9 assets.

Angela

 

[angelah]

Hi all,
And an apology....
I uploaded HMS Daring but for some obscure reason it went as 'Untitled'. PLEASE DO NOT download this file, it has an error in it.

A new CDP has been sent to N3V and should be with you all soon, that IS called HMS Daring.

Sorry about this,

Angela

 

[rickf77]

Hi Angela;

slack - loose, sluggish, careless, not busy, idle or lazy.

slacker - most of the above!

Cheers, stay well........Rick

I'm referring to myself as a slacker. You, my friend, may very well be a "stacker", hee, hee.

 

[angelah]

Hi all,
HMS Daring has been approved for the Trainz DS so should be showing soon.

Thanks Rick for clearing that up for me, I was completely wrong... haha.

Angela

 

[Southern1581]

At present I have miles of British ships to do so nothing of any other nations.

That's too bad, I was vaguely hoping to see this one get out there: http://www.bing.com/images/search?q...CF407289EC0C9DDE9DD388234030&selectedIndex=25. I wonder how many differences there are between one of Britain's battleships (not familiar with the ship classes) and a US South Dakota Class battleship... I'll be picking up your latest release, looks solid. Gotta have my naval power!

 

[angelah]

Hi Souther1581,
Firstly, is there a significance in the 1581 part of your username?

Secondly there is surprisingly little basic difference between the British HMS Hood and your Dakota Class ships, although it may be that the US one I looked up is the pre-Pearl Harbour one, I think they were substantially altered after that.
Dakota weighs in at 35,000 tons while HMS Hood came in at 46,680.
The US ship mounted 9 x 16 inch main guns and 20 x 5 inch secondary.
The Hood had 4 turrets with 2 x 15 inch guns as main (8), 7 x QF 4 inch AA, 3 x 8 - QF Pom-Poms AA and 5 x 4 - 0.5 MGs.
Lenghts OA were Dakota 680 feet x 108 feet 2 inches beam while the Hood was 860 feet 7 inches and 104 feet 2 inches beam.
These figures surprised me in that the Hood was a long ship, a WWI Battle Cruiser so not a true Battleship as were the Dakotas.

But the problem is Gmax, it starts throwing a wobbler when polys start to mount and I often have to Select All and Save Selected to another fresh file because the one I am working on has gone weird by jumping about all over the place. With the Ark I think it was about 7 times. And sheer time creating such large models makes life difficult, just moving around them is awkward say from the bow to the stern may take quite a few moves on a locked-down mouse button.

What you need is an American creator to take these on as they may well have access to better info than I do. I am very fortunate in that there is an extremely kind and knowledgeable man who sends me a lot of pictures via email that allow me to make models to a fair standard but I have never asked for anything other than British ships. He is kind enough to forward a grand selection od plans and other info and I don't want to pester him too much, he has a life as well.

And summer is just round the corner (I hope....), although there isn't much sign of it yet here and then I will be out more shooting so content creation will drop off.

I do hope you can find somebody better qualified then me as I feel those ships are so impressive they should be made. I wish I was able but sadly I am time limited.

Blessings,

Angela

 

[angelah]

Hi all ship fans,
Been a bit quiet on this thread....
So here is a shot of the cruiser I am presently working on.....

Still a lot more to do of course but it is just a taster of things to come. She is HMS Exeter of River Plate fame and about half completed so far. As you can see I am working on the aft director tower (the green boxes) but have yet to make the Walrus aircraft that will fit just forward of that. There is a double angled catapult there and a crane (yet to be fitted) on the starboard side of the aft funnel for lifting the plane about and back on board after it lands alongside.
The main guns have yet to have the ends put on that will make them look more like guns than just blank cylinders too. Foremast is a bit high so that wants sorting out.

But with sunshine each day I am off out shooting and getting my eye(s) back in after a winter lay-off. Thinking about a new rifle as well....

Angela.

And thanks to Photobucket for hosting my pictures for free.

 

[Southern1581]

Hi Souther1581,
Firstly, is there a significance in the 1581 part of your username?

Secondly there is surprisingly little basic difference between the British HMS Hood and your Dakota Class ships, although it may be that the US one I looked up is the pre-Pearl Harbour one, I think they were substantially altered after that.
Dakota weighs in at 35,000 tons while HMS Hood came in at 46,680.
The US ship mounted 9 x 16 inch main guns and 20 x 5 inch secondary.
The Hood had 4 turrets with 2 x 15 inch guns as main (8), 7 x QF 4 inch AA, 3 x 8 - QF Pom-Poms AA and 5 x 4 - 0.5 MGs.
Lenghts OA were Dakota 680 feet x 108 feet 2 inches beam while the Hood was 860 feet 7 inches and 104 feet 2 inches beam.
These figures surprised me in that the Hood was a long ship, a WWI Battle Cruiser so not a true Battleship as were the Dakotas.

But the problem is Gmax, it starts throwing a wobbler when polys start to mount and I often have to Select All and Save Selected to another fresh file because the one I am working on has gone weird by jumping about all over the place. With the Ark I think it was about 7 times. And sheer time creating such large models makes life difficult, just moving around them is awkward say from the bow to the stern may take quite a few moves on a locked-down mouse button.

What you need is an American creator to take these on as they may well have access to better info than I do. I am very fortunate in that there is an extremely kind and knowledgeable man who sends me a lot of pictures via email that allow me to make models to a fair standard but I have never asked for anything other than British ships. He is kind enough to forward a grand selection od plans and other info and I don't want to pester him too much, he has a life as well.

And summer is just round the corner (I hope....), although there isn't much sign of it yet here and then I will be out more shooting so content creation will drop off.

I do hope you can find somebody better qualified then me as I feel those ships are so impressive they should be made. I wish I was able but sadly I am time limited.

Blessings,

Angela

There isn't really any significance behind the 1581. My name refers to Southern RR no 1581, a High Hood SD40, second SD40 Southern bought. I would've been Southern1580, the first one Southern bought, but I sent that to the wrong email (oops). Doesn't matter, I think Southern1581 has more of a ring to it anyway. Hmm, your HMS Hood sounds very similar to some of the earlier class US battleships, a few of them had the 4 15-16" turrets. I'm reminded of the USS New York here. I think I have a model of the New York already, can't remember, I only have one route which uses a fleet, which I believe still uses 4 of your ships (all the HMS Solebay with different numbers if I remember correctly). If it were anywhere, it'd be there. I might try Military Trainz, they have all sorts of crazy stuff, American, British, German, French, pretty much anyone in either World War. They have a model of the USS Missouri there (not one of their better ships), which is a Iowa class battleship. South Dakota class battleships and Iowa class battleships are pretty similar, they might be able to pull it off. I could always try, I know a thing or two about content creation, but I'm already choking on projects as is, and adding the USS Alabama to the pile would all but sink me (figuratively and literally). And I thought making locomotives was hard . The "Lucky A" is covered with details, and unlike an engine, which is roughly 70 ft long, the Alabama 680 ft long, and detailed even more thoroughly than the engines I work on, which are oddballs on rails. That's why I'm always so impressed with your work, I know how hard it is to get all of those details right, only you do it on a much larger scale. Keep up the good work, maybe one of these days the Alabama will sail into Trainz.

 

[angelah]

Good day to you Southern1581,
Thanks for clearing up your username numbers, I was just curious. We pick names that are really odd sometimes but there is usually a reasoning behind them.

You are very right about detailing ships, they can be a bit of a nightmare to get right and moreso with older ships due to the poor quality of pictures taken of them which makes it hard to see vital points and exactly where things are or indeed what they are. This is the case with HMS Exeter and I am struggling to get things right. A Trainz member kindly sends me pictures of the ships or of superb models that have been built of the chosen subject and without this help the colume of vessels would not be as great or as detailed, and even then I probably get things wrong.
And of course it is necessary to pick a time period as well because very many ships had alterations/upgrades during their lives, especially during a war period when such alterations became an urgent necessity. A typical example was the upgrades to AA guns during WWII. This applied to both the US and British ships for slightly different reasons but the end result was about the same, high angle QF weapons to get as much lead in the air and in the right place as quickly as possible.
I am aware of the US battleships, obviously through the events I lived through during the period 1939-45, although at such a young age those events did not hold the same significance as they do now. Am I right in thinking the old battlewaggons that suffered such appalling damage at Pearl were rebuilt to a more modern format (for that period) than they were when the attack happened? Judging from pictures I think the old style of lattice masts were changed but I am not sure what to, a more simplified lattice or tripod?
And I have to admit that personally my knowledge of all those US ships is still very limited other than of the more well known Iowa Class vessels because of their involvement in more recent clashes. So when was the last Dakota Class used in anger? And why pick this class over the Iowas?

My plan was for a British battleship, possible the Prince of Wales, Rodney or King George V and I bought the Tamiya KGV kit for that prupose, i.e. to get a better insight into what the superstructure included. The Hood was started because of its fame or infamy, depending on how you look at it. It was a large ship and the bigger the model is the more complicated it becomes in a 3D program. Just moving about from place to place takes time and a lot of mouse work and the sheer volume of parts required to make the whole model is far and away greater than those needed for a locomotive, even a steamer. The only saving grace being it is not necessary to make the model 'active', at least I do not. Ths applies to a cruiser as well but maybe not to the same degree. The amount of pieces of course influences the poly count and even taking out surfaces that are hidden does not reduce that count very much, so I have to live with this fact.

Now summer is coming (hopefully....?? no gaurantee here is south Wales) I shall be out more at my local gun range blazing away at bits of paper or metal targets so PC time will be more limited. Being disabled I like to get as much exercise as possible and be in the community when weather permits.
Route building has taken a back seat since I began in Gmax as I find it gives me greater satisfaction creating models than making routes.

So maybe I won't discount a US battleship at some point in time, but due to the sheer numbers of ships involved I had intended to do just British ones. Certainly I have made Canadian ships and the Daring Class just released would help the Australians a little, although their Darings were a different than ours. But taking on countries outside of the Commonweath had not ocurred to me, the figures are mind boggling.

I have to research the Walrus seaplane for the cruiser, that was the ship's eyes when on patrol and very noticable on her decks abaft the second funnel (stack to you). On top of this there are the other 2 aircraaft I ought to make, the Supermarine Seafire (a carrier borne Spitefire) and the Hawker Sea Fury.

So stacks of work on my plate.

Enjoy your day,

Angela

 

[rickf77]

Hi Angela;

As much as I love your ships, I'm happy to see you're getting outside. Spring is a little late, High of 7 degrees so far.

Cheers.......Rick

 

[angelah]

Hi Angela;

As much as I love your ships, I'm happy to see you're getting outside. Spring is a little late, High of 7 degrees so far.

Cheers.......Rick

Thanks Rick,
Have been out for the last 2 days shooting and enjoyed it very much. My BSA R10 is playing up though so that might have to go, a sad moment for me as I really like the rifle but there is (yet again!) a magazine problem that is causing a round to dsrop forward as the mag is inserted and so jamb the gun. Bloody hell of a job getting it sorted out yesterday and another chap who had the same rifle also experienced this and PX'ed his for a new gun. I am thinking of doing the same.

Anyway, enough of guns, this is a Trainz forum....

As you can see the Exeter is moving along, but slowly.... I have got a problem with Gmax changing to wireframe all the time without me asking it to and that is difficult. I need to see detail in Perspective Mode and this is preventing that to a great extent. Gmax will also suddenly change the textures I put on the model to it's own basic palette which is even more annoying and is slowing me up a lot.

Weather here has taken a dip again although fairly mild still, I mean by that it is above freezing....!! But not at night, minus 4 last apparently. I have a heater in the greenhouse but even that is struggling to keep plants sufficiently warm.

Hope your weather breaks for the better soon,

Angela

 

[Southern1581]

I personally picked the USS Alabama because I live in Alabama, and she's a solid ship. The South Dakota ships really are similar to the Iowa class, once they used the Alabama as a stand-in for the unavailable USS Iowa during a news report, in one shot the hull number 60 was clearly visible (the Iowa is 61), but from what I read the people watching the show were convinced, before I did the research I was convinced. If I were able to drive any two ships around in Trainz, they'd be the USS Alabama, the ship named after where I live, a solid fighter, and from what I've read, never took a hit from an enemy in her WWII career (didn't have much of a career after that, she was sold into her current museum life in 1965 and didn't do much in the years between the War and 1965). The other would be the USS Missouri, quite possibly the greatest ship we ever built. If you've ever seen the movie Battleship you know what I mean. All 4 of the South Dakota Class battleships were retired after WWII, 2 were scrapped (the South Dakota and the Indiana), and the other two are museums (the Alabama and the Massachusetts), and in the Alabama's case, also a hurricane shelter. If I looked around enough, I could probably get some plans, and being a fairly big tourist attraction down here (how often do you get to be on a battleship?), there are quite a few pictures. Next time I'm at the beach I might give her a visit. I hear what you mean about the cold weather, I live quite a good bit south of you and it's just now starting to warm up down here too. It keeps raining and getting cold again! Normally it'd be in the 80's right now, but today it's right around 70. Not that I mind, I would take 70 degrees over 80 degrees any day, but it still is way too low for April down south. Having gun troubles? That sounds awful, hope you find a good solution. The only thing I ever use my gun for is squirrel hunting, they steal the birdseed from my Mom's bird feeders and bug me to no end. Not that it does me any good to try and shoot them, I couldn't shoot the side of a barn (well, my aim has gotten better, I just haven't shot at any squirrels in a while). I've only killed one squirrel out of the dozens that I shot after. Took me 8 shots to pull that off (ugh). Obviously I'm no marksman, but it sounds like you're a pretty good shot. Good luck!

 

[angelah]

Hi Southern1581,
We talk again... What you have told me sounds very interesting and I do like the big American battle wagons a lot, who can't, they are super looking bits of kit, how the bow sweeps up is a beautiful thing to see.
I have a picture of one of your big babies firing a full braodside as dusk settles and woweee, what a sight to behold..!! I bet that rocked the old girl a bit.
I just love warships, more inclided to the older ones rather than the modernIkea looking ones, so I may just start laying down a hull. If you can get any details that would help.
There, and I had not intended to do other countries ships but this will have to be an exception.

Yep, I am a deadly shot but only targets, I never shoot a living thing, leave that to others. I actually don't agree with taking an animal life so there's the reason. I may go for an FX Royal, hankering after one of those, they are very military looking and that suits me perfectly. There is a rifle called an Edgar Brothers XVI (sixteen if you aren't too good on Roman numerals) but I remember this being out a few years back and it had problems. It has a 16 round magazine hence the name. They claim to have solved those problems .... yeah, right..! Then there is a Parker Hale Pheonix, much like the Winchester underlever 1894 but without the lower barrel that takes the cartridges so it looks pretty mean. So choices, I'll be out tomorrow investigating.

Again, thanks for all that info, most interesting.

The cruiser has advanced a fair bit, have the Walrus crane made and on now and have made the catapult ramps as well. Next job is the plane I suppose. Then the secondary armament and maybe a few teaks and that should be it.

Blessings,

Angela