The Ship Model Forum

Yuri,

Great pictures! I'm sure every one here thinks the same. They seem to have solved the railing issue I believe.

Hi Dmitry and Yuri,
I think you're both right, in a way.. I think Slava did not have any railings on its seconday turrets for what must have been a lot of her carrer as I can't find a single photo shwing anything and many close ups that show nothing. She did however have railings on the primary turrets, VERY difficult to see, they must be set slightly further back or are lower or something. It took a while but I fond a photo that just shows it and no more. Having said that, there is a fantastic model 1/100 of Slava award-winning even, anf it has railings on the secondary turrets, so I don't feel exactly confident to say she never had any.

But yes Yuri's right that both Knyaz Suvorov and Alexander III had railings, certainly on the miship turret (the photo of Alex painted white on trials shows it pretty well and there's another one of KS with railings on the miship turret too, but I'll post them tomorrow). The forward and aft secondary turret are more difficult to see, I tink I've seen it on the aft, ot so sure about the fore.

Now this leads me to yet another puzzle that Yuri's photo has just cleared up I think. The railings on the aft secondary turret for Borodino did not go round the circumference as shown on so many plans but did in fact start on te circumference by the guns, then came round behind the rangefinders, then back to the circumference to the ladder and the back. Would that be correct? I was about to write that Orel's midship went round the circumference but looking at the photo after the battle, it looks like it passes inside the rangefinder on Orel too.

Here are a couple of photos of Slava
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=9cmfmdpmfjz&thumb=4
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=asjgdmyjh9i&thumb=4

updateThe photos were deleted by mistake so here they are again to give you an idea of what I mean about the secondary turret railings

oops yes there's railings on I alexander's forward secondary turret obiously. I just hadn't checked that photo yet...

I think to compare sisterships with Slava is not correct, Slava was built later, and it was modernized several times. Slava is the ship of WW1.

Imperator Alexander III in white

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=3mptjvzqu9q&thumb=4
and Knyaz Suvorov
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=3tmwju9xeci&thumb=4

For me I don't see anything wrong with discussing Slava, my only reservation is that it is fairly complicated already with the differences between the four ships that were a part of the 2nd Pacific squadron. Personally I am mainly interested in Brodino and Orel but I do want to find out about the others so I can understand what I'm looking at, Otherwise you can get very confused if a photo has been misidentfied or misled by reading things into a photo from a plan and if it hadn't been for the model of Slava, I would have assumed that the railings on Borodino and Orel went round the circumference of the secondary turret, like the primary one whereas Knyaz Suvorov's and I Alexander's come inboard of the edge at the guns

To be honest aesthetically I prefer them round the circumference.....

This is the model of Slava..

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=00mdtemzmd1&thumb=4

update
the pictures were accidentally deleted, so here they are again as attachments

Great photo of Aleksander III Yuri! It certainly proves that all 4 Borodino "sisters" (or near sisters) did have railing on their secondary turrets. It also seems to prove something else - I am writting more about it in the last paragraf.
I can also see that I was wrong and that all ships did have low level railing on their primary turrets.

John - the unusual railing on secondary turrets of Slava's model is the one and only image of this type of railing that I have seen so far. I have photos of two different large scale models of Slava and none of them has any railing on their secondaries. Four things to underscore:

1- a model of a ship (even award winning one ) can't be IMO used as a reference without access to the references this model was based on;

2- I tend to agree with Yuri: one has to be extremly carefull when comparing Slava with other 4 ships. Slava did have much longer career than her sisters and went through many modifications. So, even IF her secondaries ever carried railing like the one in your photos, it is impossible to be certain about the time period without (once again) further references;

3- you can't judge the exact shape of railing on Orel's midship turret based on the well know photo of damaged Orel after the surrender. The railing on this turrets could have been simply mangled by an explosion or shell splinters (notice the big shell hole near by) and what you see could be the railing in its damaged and not original state. There is just no way of telling for sure!

4- last but not least: look at the big photo of Alex.III that Yuri posted. It looks to me like raling on secondary turrets on this ship run the circumference of the turret from the rear to the points just slightly in front of two sightings hoods and with no railing on the turret front. Which is exactly how those railings are shown on Alex.III "builders drawings" also posted by Yuri! Take a good look and tell me what you think

As an enthusiast of the Russian Imperial Navy, I find this thread, with its strong flavour of mystery, totally fascinating!

I would like to suggest that in the interest of preserving all that good stuff being debated here, we gather all that information in a single repository somewhere on the web that could be a table listing all relevant items (dimensions, bow shape, turret railings, etc.) across all five sisters. We could note areas of agreement between the various enthusiasts, and the areas still requiring investigation. Ideally, we would want to link each item to drawing of photographic evidence.

I believe that Darius has a considerable head start in that direction already.

_________________
Jean-Paul Binot

I have a some what silly question.......I was a ground pounder while in service so I have no real knowlege of ships. Where was the coal loaded at on the Orel? I see plenty of vents and things on the deck but where were the chutes?

I am all for it Jean-Paul

wildspear - look at this simplyfied plan view of Borodino: http://img160.imageshack.us/img160/9857 ... iewdt3.png - I have added (rather crude) arrows to point where coal chutes were. There was a matching set on the other side of the ship.

Hi Darius,

I fully agree that the railings for I. Alexander III and Knyaz Suvorov don't follow the rim at the front as shown on the plans, but I wonder if they do go in front of the gun sights, if you look at the midship turret, the gun sight on the right has a dark vertical line running through it, which suggests to me that ther coud be a railing there, same for the forward turret, what do you think?? I think the railings in the midship turret don't seem to follow the arc of the rear of the turret only. Above the left hand lump there are two lines, the lower is the top railing going round the back of the turret as it curves down, following the arc of the rear of the turret. The upper one is lets say alongside the gunsight bump and curves up and continues to the other side so must be going from one side to the other via some route.., Anyway my brain is about to explode, I think I'll concenrate on Borodino and Orel..

I'm afraid I'm going to be stubborn about the Borodino turret.

Have a look at the shape of the railings on the secondary turrets on the photo from Yuri of the Borodino, photo 3

1-look at the secondary turret and at the sailor standing just above the right-hand (or outside) gun. There you'll see the railings don't follow the edge of the turret. They turn a fairly sharp right-angle away form the viewer, they are not following the curve of the turret but are running parallel to the centreline of the turret.

2-The railings reappear at what must be the turret edge to the right, but further back, at the point beside or behind the gunsight bump. But whether or not they pass behind the gunsight I don't think there is any doubt that they don't follow the rim of the turret.

Okay, the Orel turret is far more difficult to interpret, but if you accept Borodino's aft turret railings follow a "t" shape I couldn't help but wonder if the Orel's railings were the same too. I think they could because:-

1- The railing closest to the viewer (the bent one to the middle of the turret) seems to cast a shadow on the central bump on the turret top, whch suggests it is nearer to it than the edge of the turret. The sun is not so low as to cast long shadows I think.

2- if the railings followed the edge, the one closest to the viewer would be slightly larger than the one on the next right. Also the top would be at a higher level than say the one next to it due to perspective. Although it is bent, I think it looks like it is the same as the one next to it so could be in the same plane.

Okay, all of this is a stretch of the imagination and you can't base a change in Orel's railings on one photo of a battle damaged ship. But at the same time I don't think it's out of the question as both Borodino and Orel's plans show the same thing, they are close sisters built at the same yard and it probably makes more sense that the railings don't pass in front of the sights. Really I'm just proposing Orel as a possiblilty.

However, I really don't think there's any question about Borodino. I know the builders plans for Borodino show the railings round the edge of the turret (the same for Orel) and have always thought the railings went round the edge. As I say, I prefer them if they did. But I don't see any other way of interpreting the photograph of Borodino's turret.

I don't base any research on models (I've seen all sorts for railings or lack of railings on all turrets, its a free world) I do go for photos first, plans second and good models as possible sources of inspiration for areas of further research when there's a lack of easily available concrete evidence. Maybe the builders have found out something we don't know and good information is not exactly easy to find on the Brodinos.

I only really mentioned the Slava model because I wanted to say I did not know if Slava did not have railings for all her career. All the photos I've seen of her were without railings and this model had them. The person who'd made that model had obviously done a lot of research and was good enough to win an international award, so I don't think it deserves to be dismissed completely out of hand. I wasn't saying it was concrete proof, just a possible clue. Also I'd looked at the photo of Borodino's aft turret a thousand times and never noticed the corner in the railings until seeing the Slava model.

I still don't see anything wrong with discussing Slava though, I just don't think there's much point unless people are interested. I'm not that interested in discussing her. There's enough to discuss already!!

Hi Darius
the "wheels" on the Knyaz Suvorov plan I meant were these

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=digtjlyy2wx&thumb=4

I have a copy of another builder plan of "Orel" which has a similar but much large "wheel" labelled "17" under that overhang above the stern main turret and the key in Russian describes it as..

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=f8nmyzxvtvm&thumb=4

If anyone can understand Russian I'd be grateful to know what it says. Maybe it's something different, who knows...
here's the location...

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=14xtnmqutgp&thumb=4

Thanks
John

Here's a photo of coaling in action if you're interested
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=3y5h1j21jtt&thumb=4

Cheers

update
th picture were deleted by mistake so I have re attached it 6/4/08

Darius,

I was wondering what those circles depicted.....thank you, that helps a great deal.

cerberusjf,

Thank you for the pic, that was very interesting.

Ok John, you might very well be correct about railings on Orel's secondary turrets..... I have checked my photo archives again and come up with this photo of Orel aft secondary turret (this is a cut-out from a larger photo). You might have to enlarge the pic a bit and/or tweak with brightness/contrast to see the details but it appears to show exactly what you were talking about! First photo is untouched so anybody can have a look and make their own minds:
http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n96/ ... turret.jpg
On second one I have marked relevant stanchions with white arrows and the run of the top rope (as I see it) with white line: http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n96/ ... rret01.jpg
Unless I am seing things, it sure looks like it follows exactly the same line as in the pic of Slava's model!

Thanks for the photo Darius, that makes it pretty clear for Orel and Borodino. It's a relief to get some more conclusive evidence at last.

That's what is so great about websites like this! It is sometimes impossible to come up with right answers on your own but, if we can discuss it and exchange infomation, we get much better results!

BTW the "wheels" you asked about are indeed reels ("Вьюшки дла троса" means "reels for the rope") however, without drawings (or views) which show more detail, it is impossible to know about their exact shape because, from the side view, you can't tell how wide they were and they could have been quite wide - like this example http://i110.photobucket.com/albums/n96/ ... Reel01.jpg taken from drawings of Poltava class.

Here is my Borodino (WIP):

No details yet (there are no details to show )





I am using WEM and GMM etched parts.

Note drilled out barrels and drilled out port holes with sanded frames (to be replaced with the WEM parts).

I will probably avoid the blue colour on the roofs and use red brown linoleum colours instead.

Ship will be black with red anti fouling paint.

BTW The Askold and the Varyag had green anti fouling paint. Why did the Borodino have red anti fouling paint??

//M

_________________
** lurking after abandoning all projects **

Masch looking good! But are you planning to replace original kit's funnels? I am sorry, but they look so damn awfull.....

Anti fouling paint - green (if it was ever really used*) was an exception rather than a rule in IRN.


* I have never seen ( doesn't mean they don't exist) any first hand references to green anti fouling paint in IRN. The only examples of Askold and Variag painted like this that I have seen are artworks which can't be used as primary source.

Hi Darius,
yes I couldn't agree more, groups like this make all the difference!!

As for the "wheels" I'm just happy to have them confirmed as reels. I am curious to find out what kind of reels, but if not then it's okay. The one above the aft turrent doesn't look very wide, here is a (very poor quality) picture of Orel if you're interested....
http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=dyfaobvym10&thumb=4

I like Jean-Paul's idea too..., but for all five sisters it is a pretty big task. I started going through the little I know and came up with a pretty big and unwieldly list. Making comparisons between A and B, C and D, then A and C and so on begins to get too complicated.

I was wondering if maybe it could be done with reference to something standard, say the Zvezda model? Or what about one of the resin models? hmshood.com do a nice site comparing the accuracy of different kits to the ship, I thought it would be good to do something similar, but comparing the accuracy of Zvezda's kit (which is the same for all of them except the transfers/decals) to each of the different ships.

i.e Borodino vs Zvezda kit, Orel vs Zvezda kit, Knyaz Suvorov vs Zvezda kit and Imp. Alexander vs Zvezda kit

How would people feel about this?

We could forget about Slava for the time being for reasons metioned earlier...

Masch3 I found a picture of those doors for the primary gun turrets, it is of the wreck of the Slava, but the door was the same for the other sisters. This is the only photo I have of a real ship that shows this..

http://www.mediafire.com/imageview.php?quickkey=bjumgm1bjnn&thumb=4

By coincidence I was doings some rough calculations for what the height the funnel (the aft one), from the top of the square base to the top should be at 1/350. I got 4.50 cm (edited) high and 1.22 cm wide. This is from the Orel's builder's plans, the same as supplied by Kronma. They show all the internal detail so it is possible that they were not very strict on details such as funnel height. Has any one else tried this? That reminds me I have to measure the "anti-torpedo net shelf"...

u]update[/u]
one of the pictures was deleted by mistake so I have re attached it 6/4/08

Hi, all!

Add my cents to the discussion.

Also never seen green painted hulls on Varyag and Askold except on some models made by "non-Russian" modellers. It looks a bit strange for me. I read quite a lot about Tsushima in Russian as native speaker and saw a lot of pictures on the subject. Never seen green hulls. Some proof below.

Varyag model in Central Navy Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia has red painting of the hull under waterline. So do the Oryol, Suvorov and Borodino. There are photos from this Museum made by Vladimir Yakubov on this site can be found in the following way (can not give you a direct link, may be moderators will help):

Main Page, "Feature Articles", look for "year 2004", look for article "Central Naval Museum St. Petersburg by Vladimir Yakubor", Photo 46 (page 4)

Photos of Suvorov are on page 3 photo 34 and on. Museum model of Suvorov has some pinkish color for the bottow of the hull. But the picture of Oryol (31) on the same page 3 shows the hull red. All artist paintings of these pre-dreads show the hull red. I plan to do the red

Hope this will help.

My concern about Borodino which is in my to do list is which paint to choose. I would like to make the model look as much as possible similar to St.Petersburg Museum one. If you look at pictures you will see gloss painted hull and everything else. From what I read I understand that modellers consider gloss painting of ship as a bad taste or something. What are your opinions on the subject? (I plan to make it a special thread on choise of paints in general and on choice of matt/gloss in particular).
Hope you will help me.

Nice modelling with Russian pre-dreads! Great subject!

Yevgeniy