Introducing the CAA : French naval archives centre

bgire · Post by **bgire** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 9:55 am

Visiting the C.A.A.

For years I've been searching for official French warship plans in CAA files. I'd like to present this centre now...

The Centre d�Archives de l�Armement et du Personnel (Archives and Personnel files Centre) is by now the main public source for official French Navy (Marine Nationale) warship plans online. Following is a short survey of this 37year old establishment.

The CAA is located in the mid-town of Ch�tellerault, about halfway between Paris and Bordeaux, on the Vienne river. It is housed in the former Manufacture d�Armes de Ch�tellerault (small arms national factory) or MAC.
MAC was founded in 1819 following a decree from the king Louis XVIII to produce small arms for the Army. It was closed in 1968. In the 1820�s 40 workers produced rifles, pistol, bayonets and personnel increased to 7,000 during WW2. Famous productions include the Lebel rifle and the 50�s 9mm French Army handgun.

The CAA opened in 1970 to hold technical archives (Air-Land-Sea) as well as archives for the civil servants of the Defence department (from 1880).

Now let�s follow a new batch of archives upon its arrival in CAA :

Files come from various Defence Ministry establishments or defence related organizations (DCN for the Navy). Every week truck loads of documents and plans are received here :

Batches are then opened and specialized personnel begins the lengthy task of reviewing, purging, sorting thousands of documents.

Sorted archives are placed in these thousands of black hard cardboard boxes for final storage.

The CAA holds a large, growing part of the so-called � Ship Atlases �. A ship Atlas is a large plan book which holds plans for each French warship (mostly to 1 :100 scale). These are plans certified � as build � which have been drawn when the ship was commissioned.
Below is the weapon atlas for pre-war treaty cruisers Suffren and Colbert. This book is circa 90 x 60cm in size with plans folded inside.
The Navy produced such atlases for every warship (before 1940) : hull atlas, weapons atlas and machinery atlas..

Pre War atlases and post War separate plans are being digitized using this large scanner. Atlas have to be un-bound before, so the lengthy and delicate work. The digitized file are offered for free download from the SHD (Service Historique de la D�fense) website (URL on bottom of this post).

Archives finally come to these store racks. As of today, CAA holds about 45 linear km of archives, or 400,000 boxes. Each box can hold about 1,250 A4 size sheets : this makes an ever growing total of half a billion sheets !

CAA staff includes 23 people.

Naval archives include some gems with surprising stories. Below are pictures of the plans for the never-launched battleship Cl�menceau of 1940. These belong to the � Postdam Fund �, a 143 linear metre of archives captured in various French Navy Yards when the German invaded France in June, 1940. Documents were sent to the German Hauptamt f�r Kriegschiftbau in Berlin for study. In 1945, these archives were again seized by the Soviets who sent them in Moscow for � study. At last they were discovered in Potsdam after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and sent back to France in 1990.

Each plan has written German and Russian rough translations on it.

Here are German and Soviet stamps as found on the plans of sub Archim�de.

Many thanks to Harold for the pics taken during our meeting in CAA.
Many thanks to Martine Destouches who welcomed us.

The CAA list of downloadable plans can be found here :
http://www.servicehistorique.sga.defens ... entral.htm

masch3 · Post by **masch3** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 10:06 am

Thanks for the post!

I like the posts where info is shared spontaneously.
/Magnus

Post by **Cadman** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 12:23 pm

Wow that was fascinating. Thanks for the post.

TTTTTTTTTT · Post by **TTTTTTTTTT** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 1:20 pm

What an amazing resource! Thanks for sharing it.

Post by **JIM BAUMANN** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 3:36 pm

TRES BIEN

Oh My god...

>>>CAA holds about 45 linear km of archives, or 400,000 boxes. Each box can hold about 1,250 A4 size sheets : this makes an ever growing total of half a billion sheets ! <<

and I dared grizzle when my plans were a little slow in coming..!!!!

Thank you so much for the most enlightening post!

Jim B

Laurence Batchelor · Post by **Laurence Batchelor** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:00 pm

It seems its smaller than the UK National Archives, but then its more focused on Military stuff.

The genius over there (who ever it maybe) must be commended who thought of the idea to digitise their warship ship plans and make them freely available (albeit in small scans) online.

If only the National Maritime Musuem was a public (like this) and not a private institution!

Post by **Dave Wooley** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:03 pm

Thanks for the information I shall mark that one down for future reference .

Dave Wooley

bgire · Post by **bgire** » Fri Jul 27, 2007 4:30 pm

It seems its smaller than the UK National Archives, but then its more focused on Military stuff.

Of course : CAA only holds -growing part of- technical documents (plans, technical studies) and is exclusively devoted to the military (Air-Land-Sea). All the more historical military archives (from the 16th Century on) still are in SHD (Service Historique de la Marine) in the Vincennes castle in Paris.

The genius over there (who ever it maybe) must be commended who thought of the idea to digitise their warship ship plans and make them freely available (albeit in small scans) online

AFAIK the CAA got its scanner initially for demonstration purpose. Due to limited staff and budget and growing demand from modellers worldwide they decided to offer free download of already digitized files as a "time and staff saving measure" so they could have more time to help visiting historians, writers and researchers.
Downloaded files are true full scale reproductions of the original large plans. You can zoom in to the smallest details as on the originals except when it is too much damaged or discoloured.

I've seen here magnificent plans of 19th Century ships : they're drawn on oiled silk paper with china ink with watercolour colouring. True gems, but I doubt scanning will do them justice, halas

Following this success (thanks to you all worldwide who downloaded plans... and proved this was feasible and useful), they plan to open next year another free download section devoted to armour (tanks, vehicles of the French Army)

Jose Chaica · Post by **Jose Chaica** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 4:21 am

Great Post !!!

Many thanks for sharing such precious information !

.

RickF · Post by **RickF** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 5:42 am

Thanks. I've been accessing the SHD for a while now, but it's nice to see the faces and organisation behind the scenes.

Rick

linux · Post by **linux** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:07 am

Laurence Batchelor wrote:The genius over there (who ever it maybe) must be commended who thought of the idea to digitise their warship ship plans and make them freely available (albeit in small scans) online .

If only the National Maritime Musuem was a public (like this) and not a private institution!

You said it. Twice in fact!

I wasn't aware that the NMM was private; according to their Corporate Review 2006 they are funded by an annual Government grant. But it would explain why they place onerous restrictions on access to their plans, particularly for commercial interests.

Jean-Paul Binot · Post by **Jean-Paul Binot** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 6:18 am

Laurence Batchelor wrote:The genius over there (who ever it maybe) must be commended who thought of the idea to digitise their warship ship plans and make them freely available (albeit in small scans) online .

If only the National Maritime Musuem was a public (like this) and not a private institution!

Indeed, one can be happy and proud of what has been done with our tax Euros. This is a happy side of our "Big Government" system.

Now, if only the various French museums and archives holding photographic memories of warships would relax their extortionate reproduction fees, that would make publishing books on French naval subjects much more manageable from an economic standpoint and undoubtedly encourage a new generation of writers to explore France's rich naval history.

I have seen at the ECPA in Paris a series of photographs of Strasbourg in drydock in 1941 that I have never seen in print anywhere. ECPA has many photographs captured post-war in Germany, including many of German warships made by Propaganda Staffel photographs in Brest and elsewhere. I saw a series of shots of Scharnhorst during a training sortie out of Brest, with several close-up shots.

The Musee de la Marine has an extensive collection of rare photographs of many ships, including many of my beloved Normandie. Inall cases, the copyright fees are very high for private use and out of reach for publishing, given the limited circulation of such books.

bgire · Post by **bgire** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:10 am

I tend to keep optimistic in that field.
I'm convinced we're at the eve of a worldwide major rethinking of "how to keep and open archives"

In every country (France is but no exception) we're facing gigantic and faster growing archives, rising costs of handling and storing, concern about keeping these Time-resistant... and ever growing demand from people worldwide.

1- Archives get gigantic : over the last 40 or 50 years the amount of published materiel (text, pictures, videos) has sky-rocketed, thanks to our computerized World.
2- Archives centres simply can't absorb and hold any more loads of stuff which come everyday
3- Time is terrible : paper's decaying, colours fade out, negatives and films slowly degrade and videos get fuzzy and decayed. Even microfilms are decaying.
4- Thanks to the Internet, today worldwide researchers, writers... even model makers feel natural to ask an archives centre for data. Twenty years ago you've to get an appointment, go to the archives to search : this contributed to maintain a low charge on their staff. This thread on CAA has been read by 300+ people over the first 4 hours (I posted it on other forums too) : should one out of ten of you just ask the CAA, this would probably multiply by 10 their daily workload.

All this can get a -not so temporary- solution by digitizing and storing in computers. In the next decades maybe their support will change (CD, DVD, flash memories, quantic memories, what else?)... but they'll still be on a numeric, digitized form which is far more Time-resistant than papers, pictures or films. A digitized document can be stored and handled at far lower costs than its original. So let's go numeric !

Public and private organizations worldwide have begun this mammoth task : National Archives in UK, France and many other countries, even Google with its controversial enterprise.

For example, here in France we've the public founded Biblioth�que Nationale (National archives) with its huge website where you can download rare Middle-Age manuscripts as well as Diderot's work. Also the INA (National audiovisual institute) with hundredth of hours of downloadable TV programmes from the 60's to present, even the Geoportail (an equivalent of Google Earth limited to France and French territories).

Those tasks are enormous, lengthy and costly... but they'll have simply to be done. The alternative will soon be : put (=waste) more money in the traditional way, then get blocked in a few years and take the decision to stop everything and destroy the archives... a solution any Nation simply can't endorse.

We, the users, have a mission : to put and keep pressure by asking for documents and researches. Its clear in my mind the more we'll ask the CAA, the more they'll get money from "above" to extend their digitized world. I don't know NMM as well as my British friends, but I'm convinced they'll take the new train, maybe next year, maybe later... they've no choice.

And Time doesn't count so much: I'm remembering in the years 2002-2003 with all those posts on ours forums about "naval plastic model building is decaying" or "no more new ships kits". Just make a count of injection and resin kits which were issued or are being planned since 2004... my VISA is just getting frightened, so my tiny home.

Just my two (euro) cents
Bruno

Laurence Batchelor · Post by **Laurence Batchelor** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 11:43 am

I think its unlikely the National Maritime Museum at Woolwich would ever be so thoughtful.

They are sitting on the largest ship plans collection in the world, much of which had to be acquired from their hard work and salvage efforts.

If they digitised their plans, surely they would loose this most valuable (to them) revenue stream?

Did this CAA before sell copied plans to order?
If so how do they now generate money?

bgire · Post by **bgire** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:00 pm

Did this CAA before sell copied plans to order?

CAA still sells paper plans on order... at NMM-style prices.
But to reproduce a plan on paper they'd first to scan the original and keep the digitized file... so why not selling the files? They did it until 2006 (one euro per plan) until they probably realized the cost of recovering one euro per plan was superior to the cost of free download.

But... not already digitized plans can be scanned at higher prices than before!

Also the trouble is first getting enough money to buy the large scanner... CAA's can scan up to 93cm wide to unlimited length. Their record so far was a 1:1 scale drawing of a German (?) torpedo with a paper length of 12m (39feet). They posted two weeks ago on their site a plan for CV LaFayette, ex USS Langley, the original of which was 4.5m (15feet). Unfortunately this has too many pixels and will not open on our ordinary computers. It should be cut in two parts for the next Xmas update.

Laurence Batchelor · Post by **Laurence Batchelor** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:27 pm

This is where the NMM differs when you order they don't scan, they put it through a large pure copying machine.
So each time they are not getting a digitized version to work with.

Does the CAA offer large colour copies (at rocket high prices) like the NMM also?

Jose Chaica · Post by **Jose Chaica** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 12:31 pm

bgire wrote:...Unfortunately this has too many pixels and will not open on our ordinary computers. It should be cut in two parts for the next Xmas update.

You�re talking about the biggest of them all (file named LAFAYET1943PL443715)???
So, that�s the reason why I couldn�t open it...

.

bgire · Post by **bgire** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 1:51 pm

Does the CAA offer large colour copies (at rocket high prices) like the NMM also?

I'm not sure, but they'll have to order from a local private shop... at geostationary orbit price.

they put it through a large pure copying machine

I can't understand this : if each time they put the original (?) plans in the copying machine, this implies handling of the old sheets... what about further damaging those precious documents (or, at last, taking the risk to damage them). This reminds me the Middle-Age manuscripts at the Biblioth�que Nationale : some were digitized simply because they couldn't be handled any more without serious risk.

Laurence Batchelor · Post by **Laurence Batchelor** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:08 pm

They have done it this way for decades, and have a very expensive specialised machine for this and well trained staff.

Like French naval plans some of the ones they hold are ink on delicate papers and some are very very long.

People don't buy plans from them every 5mins (because they charge the earth) so they don't have to put them through this poltentially damaging exercise very often.

Jean-Paul Binot · Post by **Jean-Paul Binot** » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:25 pm

Laurence Batchelor wrote:I think its unlikely the National Maritime Museum at Woolwich would ever be so thoughtful.

They are sitting on the largest ship plans collection in the world, much of which had to be acquired from their hard work and salvage efforts.

If they digitised their plans, surely they would loose this most valuable (to them) revenue stream?

Did this CAA before sell copied plans to order?
If so how do they now generate money?

More relevant for the powers that be who decide on such matters in France is public service and to a lesser extent cost of operation, although a lot of it is either fixed cost (mostly civil servant staff, who would be on the payroll no matter what and buildings that the state needs to retain and maintain anyhow).

The French view on such an issue is not likely to be influenced by any level of customer-generated revenue in the first place. It is not even obvious that any such revenue would be credited to them and put against their cost of operation, as the CAA is not an autonomous entity. They would probably never think of themselves as a profit center.

I would imagine that what matters to them is on the one hand the service they provide, and on the other hand the cost of running the CAA. There does not need to be any relation between the two. We seem to be lucky that in the case of the CAA, the people in charge are truly willing to provide teh public with the best possible service, and that they have been able to secure appropriate funding enabling them to do so.