Martin S-C

I like the little group of what I assume are cyclists camping in the field and frying breakfast on an open fire. A very nice touch.

I can recommend all three of these. "Jutland - An Analysis of the Fighting" is just about Jutland and deals with the combat in intense detail. It actually analyses the impact and result of every single large calibre shell hit on both sides in the battle. Its nonetheless a fascinating read and draws what are now thought to be the correct conclusions as to why four British capital ships exploded at the battle. It also demonstrates conclusively that heavy calibre shell hits can cause severe damage even if a ships armour belt keeps the main burst of the explosion out which is something the "rivet counters" in the wargaming community often fail to appreciate - both in naval big gun combat and in armoured warfare on land. The other two are more general histories of the arms race, the whys and wherefores of the British-German naval war and are comparable. Both are excellent. All three books are oldish now though with "Rules of the Game" being the most recent at 2006. I haven't read any more recent accounts but there may be some newer revisionist stuff worth reading. I can't find my copy of "The Great Gunnery Scandal" and that is a good read too and discusses the politics and in-fighting of vested interests in the RN in the build-up to war over rangefinding and fire control computers with an allegedly much better design offered to the navy by an "outsider" being dismissed in favour of a cruder less effective FCC system developed in-house. The conclusion being that Jutland may have had a very different tactical result if the RN had been equpped with different fire control computers.

Good points. I had completely forgotten the Falklands action. I feel that Graf Spee had become fatalistic by then, however. He possibly could have continued his raiding campaign into the South Atlantic but probably knew that soon the RN would respond with force after Coronel. Churchill was however very wary about sending Sturdee to the S Atlantic with two I class battlecruisers because it left the Grand Fleet with almost no excess of dreadnought numbers over the High Seas Fleet. The German high command was not to know it but after Audacious sank and while Invincible and Inflexible were away at the Falklands the schedule of refits of RN capital ships meant that for a few critical weeks the Germans actually had exact parity of numbers with the Grand Fleet. After the start of 1915 when more RN dreadnoughts joined Jellicoe's fleet however, the Germans lost the race and never again had such a good opportunity to face the RN in a set piece battle. Discussion about the North Sea Barrage is interesting but if we head off into hypothetics, the dreadought type was just a logical extension of all the incremental design advances of the last several decades, so without dreadnoughts WWI in the N Sea would have seen two pre-dreadnought fleets standing off, so the advent of big gun vessels on both sides wasn't actually a necessary or even useful thing, it was just the arms race doing what arms races do, pushing ever onwards, almost blindly, to try to always be stronger than your predicted enemy. Whatever force the RN had at its disposal to support the blockade between the Shetlands and Norway, the German High Seas Fleet would have faced the same problem. The RN in the first two decades of the 20th century was always going to outbuild the Kriegsmarine due to the imbalance of industrial output and technical knowledge and experience of ship building. That was really part of my argument about the (lack of) usefulness of the all big gun battleship. It took another war and a mass U-Boat production schedule to really threaten Britain and strain the RN to the limit. Even then we didn't quite break - very nearly but not quite.

That's an excellent point which I had overlooked. When blinds were mentioned I was considering issues such as security, privacy and sun-fade on scenery but photography is a separate issue. I can probably hang some net curtain style material up to act as a diffuser or more carefully select my time of day or sunlight conditions for photography. There is in fact no direct sunlight into the room as the south and east walls have no windows, the west window has a tall hedge just adjacent and the door and other window face north. Its probably going to be a good room to paint and model in, come to think of it, much better than my existing modelling desk which is next to a west-facing set of patio doors and which in summer is hopeless as the sun comes round.

Its a huge improvement over what was. Your crew don't seem over-impressed however!

Not really, no. They carried about 8 to 12 super heavy artillery pieces at the speed of a modest train but were insanely expensive with crews of around 1500 to 2000 sailors and once an opponent had them they effectively cancelled each other out. They were so slow and expensive to build that if a nation owned a few, the loss of just one or two could seriously affect the balance of power (as it was then calculated) so almost no-one was prepared to risk them in battle. The mine, torpedo and submarine made their use off enemy coasts extremely risky and their use as shore bombardment weapons wasn't effective (in the same way that mass bombing wasn't effective 35 years later). Their construction did push technology onwards a little (mettalurgy principally, used later in engineering) but other weapons that became effective in war later such as aircraft, radar and so on were not driven forwards by the naval arms race. Ther ewas some advance in mechanical computing and optics driven by their need for rangefinding and accurate fire at 10+ miles but really they were hideously expensive white elephants. Having said all that I still think its a great pity that not one British dreadnought was saved as a museum piece. I think Dreadnought herself should have been, or perhaps Tiger or Lion in the mid 30s or Warspite after 1945.

As usual Wiki does report things in full and fairly accurately but in a section I didn't quote. Dreadnoughts prior to WWI were akin to having nuclear weapons today in terms of the political clout they conferred on a nation, hence why Brazil, having one under construction, was so surprising and caused ramifications in diplomatic and alliance circles. If nation X with no dreadnoughts formed an alliance with Brazil who had one then that gave nation X that much more political presence. It was all nonesense of course but that's they way it was.

Of Austro-Hungary's four dreadnoughts, two were sunk. The Szent Istvan during an operation to breach the Otranto barrage on 10 June 1918 by a tiny MAS Italian torpedoboat costing a few thousand Lire: Viribis Unitis was sunk at her moorings in Pola on 1st November 1918 by an Italian mine during confusion over handing over the Austrian fleet to the new state of Slovenes Croats and Serbs. I feel a sense of deep tragedy and waste over how much money and effort was poured into battleship fleets in the first 20 years of the last century. most of which was militarily almost useless, not even as a deterrent as it turned out.

I believe the Austro-Hungarian empire was the fourth great power to commence construction of a dreadnought after Britain, the USA and Germany. France was very late into the naval arms race, being thetenth nation to have them under construction. I think the actual third state to have a dreadnought class vessel under construction was, incredibly enough, Brazil. The south American nations of Brazil, Chile and Argentina had their own (very stupid) mini-arms race. From Wikipedia: "Brazil was the third country to have a dreadnought under construction, behind the United Kingdom, with Dreadnought and the Bellerophon class, and the United States, with the South Carolina class. This meant that Brazil was in line to have a dreadnought before many of the world's perceived powers, like France, the German Empire, the Russian Empire, and the Empire of Japan.As dreadnoughts were quickly equated with international status, somewhat similar to nuclear weapons today—that is, regardless of a state's need for such equipment, simply ordering and possessing a dreadnought increased the owner's prestige—the order caused a stir in international relations."

Fatal. Do that and you end up with bolt-heads on your Dean Goods splashers.

So pretty much what was going everywhere else in German speaking Europe regarding principalities, duchies, grand-duchies, bishoprics and whatever else, and which Bismarck and others used as leverage to expand Prussia's later borders. The story of the HRE, its politics, religion, noble families, dysfunctional assemblies and gradual decline from about 1650 to 1918 is a really fascinating subject. If you're that way inclined, of course.

Fantastic top picture - ghost-like in its own right. Brrrrr!

The standard lamp can save you all that carrying of a layout lighting rig to shows. Any vertically challenged operators can stand on the upturned laundry basket. You can cut down the G-Scale brake van into some kind of bothy probably. The weedkiller spray filled with deoderant can be squirted at the more unwashed spectators... Lots of useful detritus in my shed. 3D print them for the team uniform? GRANTHAM - THE CHINTZ YEARS

I've got some I can let you have. Yep, got one of them as well. Am I being helpful? Am I?

Right now I have no plan to fit blinds. Our garden is completely private and not overlooked from any direction. The end window is shaded completely from sunlight by a 4m hedge (hence our privacy) and the other window and the door face north so both in terms of visual security and heat from direct sunlight there is no need for blinds. If I do fit any I will put wooden Venetian ones up but I will be okay dealing with that when/if its needed.

Yes. This suprised me too. Two people can pass in reasonable comfort, even with one of them wearing a pillow under his shirt a I am regularly wont to do.

I really like the hotel in the left background. Might we have a closer view please?

Datum is 40". The highest track above that is +8" and me being only 5 ft 7" its going to make a nice operating height. When we had a break and Neil and I were chatting we both said almost at once that it was a nice comfortable height "just about bar height". I much prefer this to the height of, say, a kitchen work surface, which makes my lower back hurt after a while. Yes, the legs do look spindly but the layout is also braced by the walls and the bases of the leg-frames are screwed to the floor so in fact its quite sturdy. If it ever gets to a quality of presentation where I think it could be exhibited it will need different legs of course.

Oh. Not that GN&SR.

Were the strange slurping noises related in any way to the drinking of the tea, or were these alarming sound effects unrelated to that activity?

Church bells have been ringing out across Peterborough this morning as Messers. Neil and Alan cut the first sod on the NM&GSR. Baseboard frames for the colliery end going up first. Lifting flap over the doorway on the right and quarry and exchange sidings on the left. Alan and Neil hard at work. Well, Neil is; Alan and I are supervising and planning the next tea break. Loose frame clamped in place across the lifting flap/door where Puddlebrook Junc will be. Nearer frame on the right is for Witts End branch terminus. Looking "east", main frames for Green Soudley and Nether Madder going in. Quarry and exchange sidings frame to the right, Witts End to the left.

First proper modelling I've done since nearly sawing my thumb off at the beginning of December. The Bachmann tanker is a simple hand-painted rename by changing a few letters. The Dapol GPV is being repainted and lettered into a GSR wagon. A yellow warning X will be applied across the doors. The Dapol PO tar tanker getting a repaint and new lettering for the greaseworks. I decided to have a go at using HMRS transfers but one letter at a time its something I don't wish to repeat. However, I've started now so I'll finish. But no more like this. I'll arrange a set of made up transfers if I do any more PO wagons needing this much writing.

I like the traditional sequence flip sheets so the spectators know what is going on. I don't like watching a layout being operated without having a clue what is happening. The trend in recent decades inspired by the Rice "theatrical presentation" philosophy means sequence flip-cards have gone out of fashion but I think they're one of the most useful and helpful things an exhibition layout can have.

Yes, Looe branch which is where that photo is taken. It worked the Highworth branch around 1922-23 as well. Withdrawn 1926.

He was at Warley but since I went on Sunday the aisles were empty enough so I could give him sufficient... personal space.