Mr. Gilmore's Navy

(The author wishes to apologize for the delay in publishing this. Life has been complicated - RRL)

Last July, I mentioned a little about this book. I felt it important to elaborate. 

In 1941, one H.H. Gilmore published a book titled "How To Build A Model Navy". This book included in its pages the plans for twenty naval vessels, all fairly simple in design, as well as a few aircraft. It also had information on the U.S. Navy itself, such as rank, battle tactics, etc. It even includes how to build a small naval base, as well as some weapons.

The book, aimed at younger hobbyists, is not perfect, of course. 

It was a good start, however. The plans for the vessels are broken up into three scales - 

Scale 1 - 100 feet to the inch (1/1200)

Scale 2 - 50 feet to the inch (1/600)

Scale 3 - 25 feet to the inch (1/300)

However, there were problems with the way the book was printed. The drawings are all roughly 20% smaller than their stated scales. This means that they are actually - 

Scale 1 - 120 feet to the inch (1/1440)

Scale 2 - 60 feet to the inch (1/720)

Scale 3 - 30 feet to the inch (1/360)

Perhaps the problem was with the publisher, who chose to reduce the drawings to better fit within the book. Regardless, the drawings are not their stated scale.

As for the subject matter, the quality is somewhat lacking. I first discovered this upon receipt of the book when examining the drawings. They are not just simplified, in most instances they are simply incorrect. This was rather apparent when I built the USS Ozark (formerly the Arkansas), a late monitor.

Mr. Gilmore's USS Ozark.

When compared with drawings of the actual vessel, it is apparent that it is totally incorrect.

A drawing from the 1890's of the USS Arkansas. Not 100% correct, but closer than Mr. Gilmore's.

After I built both the Ozark, and a corrected USS Florida, I set out to determine why Gilmore was so wrong. 

My USS Ozark (Arkansas), left, based upon Mr. Gilmore's plans, and USS Florida. They appear to be two different classes.

I didn't have to look far.

The answer was found in Jane's Fighting Ships. A quick look at the USS Arkansas in the 1905 edition showed me all I needed to know.

The similarities were immediately obvious.

Mr. Gilmore simply based the plans for the Ozark upon those found in Jane's. Not completely, mind you, but enough.

The likely source of Mr. Gimore's data is, therefore, Jane's.

This led me to suspect that all the plans in the book were based upon those found in Jane's. Some vessels, such as the USF Constitution, USS Monitor and USS Maine, all predate Jane's, though it is possible that his drawing for the Maine was based upon those found in Brassey's Navy Annual. 

My USS Maine, using the hull from Mr. Gilmore, and rest of the details from Brassey's Naval Annual 1898 and elsewhere.

Checking some of the other drawings pretty much concluded that the bulk of the plans are based upon drawings in Jane's, for better or for worse.

So the question then becomes, which ones are good, and which ones are questionable?

Most of the pre-war Jane's drawings ran the gamut, from fairly accurate (mostly Royal Navy vessels, not surprisingly), to woefully wrong (many minor combatants). The US Navy vessels vary in details as a result. 

For instance, the USS Wichita and Honolulu both have hulls that are too wide, as well as other proportional problems. In fact, taken directly from the book, the superstructures of both are very close to 1/1200. 

My USS Wichita, using a corrected hull but superstructure mostly based on Mr. Gilmore's.

Some of the plans are simply wrong altogether. The USS Warrington plans are for another class, and again look as though they were lifted from Jane's. As with the cruisers, the proportions are a bit off.

Then there is the USS J. Fred Talbot. This was a flush deck destroyer from the end of the First World War. The drawings removed its flush deck, giving it a fo'c'sle. The Jane's drawing for this class, just the deck plan, could easily be interpreted as such. In profile, the ship is given something of a clipper bow. 

One of the most interesting designs in the book was for a vessel that would have been brand new at the time, the USS North Carolina. Like the Theodore Gommi drawings found in Popular Science a few years earlier, they are wrong, though to a lesser degree. Unfortunately, I do not have access to any Jane's Fighting Ships from the 1939 - 1945 period, so I cannot say as to whether or not this design is based upon those or not (again, an article dealing with these USS North Carolina plans and those of Mr. Gommi is planned).

Mr. Gilmore's USS North Carolina. While charming, still inaccurate, though probably forgivable.

 So the question remains, are there any plans in the book that are fairly accurate?

There are three that I rather liked.

The first, the USS Stringham, is an early torpedo boat destroyer. It is small enough that if built from the plans in the book would not look too wrong. Mine is based partially upon the book plans (the hull and most of the structure). 

The USTB Stringham, one of the smallest miniatures I've built to date.

The USS Pennsylvania is rather nice. Simply changing the observation platforms on the tripod masts would go a long way towards making this model look good.

Definitely derived from Jane's, but with plenty of possibilities.

My favorite drawing in the book, however, is the USS Enterprise.

Like most of his other drawings, the bow is fairly sharp. But this model has a feature that is unusual for model plans from this period and for this scale - the hangar deck is open. Like the Pennsylvania, the observation platform should be replaced. But it is a cut above the other drawings.

As with the USS Pennsylvania, derived from Jane's but the best in the book.

Even though this book has many problems where the plans are concerned, I feel that it is still important in the history of miniature ships. All of the plans can be very easily modified into waterline models, his instructions on how to build the models, which make up the second section of the book, are practical.

Sadly, this book only saw one edition. The year it was published saw the United States being plunged into war, and perhaps for that reason, the book was never printed or revised. As for Mr. Gilmore, he went on to write more hobbyist books, including how to build aircraft recognition models, and later, submarines and rockets. Those later books played an important role in my learning how to scratchbuild, so in that way, I am grateful that Mr. Gilmore took the time to write at all.

Gilmore & Jane's

When I purchased a copy of H.H. Gilmore's "How to Build a Model Navy", I was fascinated by his model drawings, and how they compared to the prototypes.

Most of them were a bit dubious.

The basic shapes were there, but there were a variety of problems with the details.

The answer came to me by accident with the arrival of a copy of " Jane's Fighting Ships 1906-1907". I decided to look up the Arkansas class monitors, to see how their armor was distributed, something Jane's did quite well.

When I saw the drawing, I recognized it immediately. It was almost identical to the one Gilmore used for his USS Ozark, the former USS Arkansas.

As the most recent Jane's I have is 1931, I wasn't able to verify the more recent designs from Gilmore's book, but I did confirm that the USS Pennsylvania was, again, almost a match, as was the four stacker destroyer.

Knowing this, it is easier to forgive Gilmore. He simply went with the best information he had available, which appears to have been Jane's.

The Miniature Ships of Mr. Theodore Gommi

In the 1930's and into the 1940's, there ran in Popular Science a series of articles on the construction of miniature model ships. These were the master mind of builder and ship enthusiast Theodore Gommi of Hoboken, New Jersey.  While these might not have been the first miniature construction articles to run, they were the first to have possibly found a mass audience here in the United States.
He wrote these articles so that someone who possessed even the most basic of tools could build a fine model. To my knowledge, he was one of the first authors to suggest the use of balsa wood in the construction of miniature ships. He was also an advocate of the "bread and butter" method, using several sheets of thinner material to build up a hull.
Most of his articles concentrated on the construction of warships in 1/1200, though he did cover the larger 1/600 scale as well. Obviously, converting from one to the other was a fairly easy task. Most of the time, his designs were fairly sound, such as an article from August of 1934 that covered the construction of the USS Saratoga and some four stacker destroyers in 1/600.

(All Images via Popular Science/Google Books)

However, when later destroyer classes were built, he had a tendency to make their turrets slightly on the small side. This image of the USS Winslow from an article on building destroyers in the June 1939 Popular Science shows just that.

Most of the other details were there, albeit simplified, as one would expect on miniatures.
Sometimes, his model designs showed the limitations of the available information. His plans for the USS North Carolina, from January 1939, appear to have been based upon the ship's profile only. This is something I plan to cover another time in a little more depth.
The work of Mr. Gommi went a long way to advance the construction of miniatures here in the United States, yet he seemed to have put aside the articles after 1944. He appears to have continued building models, however, much as he had before and after the series.
Needless to say, his contribution stands, and indeed appear to be one of the few popular articles on the subject published in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. 

Shall I Begin Again

I suppose it was bound to happen.

As I started getting into model warships again, I strayed. My goal was pure, or so I assumed. It was to build a motorized fleet of models. To that end, I wrote on my maritime history blog about a series of small model ships that were indeed designed to be motorized (or at least had that potential).

Building A Navy, One Foot (or 30 Centimeters) At A Time

This is when I went astray.

There were three kits I wanted to build that fell outside of that purview. These kits, two Lindberg) former Pyro) kits, the Zuikaku and Yamato in 1/1200, and a Lindberg 1/1150 Musashi, were simply models I wanted to try out. The two former I had never built, though I did have experience with the origin of the latter, the original Lindberg Yamato.

These models were an attempt to see what I could do. The Zuikaku was the only one of the three to be built from the box. The Lindberg nee-Pyro Yamato is based upon the older Aurora Yamato, and needed much correction, and so I did. 

The Musashi, however, sealed my fate.

I drastically corrected the model, over-correcting in one area. The model was cut to waterline, over-corrected the bow (I made it too wide from its previous too narrow), and corrected the sheer. Yes, the model is oversimplified and has many other problems, but the end result was that it now even more resembled that legendary ship.

And I found myself smitten with miniatures.

Some clarification. 

My definition of miniature is any model less than 304mm (12") in length, less than 1/900 scale. This means that a great many of my 30cm range models, most in fact, do not qualify as true miniatures. And there are indeed many models that fall into this range.

Beyond kits, however, are the old, die cast models and toys that sometimes make a pretense towards being scale-like, others that are purely toys. There are abandoned wooden models built at some point in the past. Then there are collectibles.

All shall be welcomed here.

I suspect my output will be sporadic, but I hope that it will be nonetheless interesting.

So, welcome aboard.