The recent mini-heatwave has driven me out of my toy/wargame room. Even with all the windows open and the tower fan going full blast, it is just too hot to sit in there for any length of time. As a result, I’ve been going in there, grabbing what I can, and retreating to our dining room, which is the coolest room in the house.
What it has meant is that I’ve had time to look at a couple of things that I can do online using my laptop. This includes looking at producing a spreadsheet based on the warship ratings Fred Jane used in his first JANE’S ALL THE WORLD’S FIGHTING SHIPS. This was published in 1898, and I own a facsimile of it that was published in 1969 by David & Charles Reprints.
Jane graded each ship using a letter system for its guns (upper case letters) and armour (lower case letters), with A/a being the best grades in each category. Guns were groups by equivalence of 'hitting' power (i.e., their ability to penetrate armour) and armour was expressed in equivalence to thicknesses of iron armour. This equivalence is illustrated in the following chart:
As this chat shows, 7-inches of Harvey nickel steel armour is equivalent to 15-inches of wrought iron armour.
I tied a circular fan to my ceiling - right over my work bench but generally it doesn't get hot enough, in Summer, to need it. I have plenty of trees casting shade over the garage and wargame room. At the moment the main issue is the cold. I have an electric oil heater next to me bench.
ReplyDeleteQuantrilltoy,
DeleteUnfortunately the back of the house gets no shade from any trees and bears the full brunt of the sun. There is no breeze at present to alleviate the problem, so I have to rely on a tower fan to get the air to circulate. Right now I’d love it to be winter!
All the best,
Bob
It is front of our house which is the blazing sun trap, but we had some thin (voile?) blinds fitted last year which still let light in but block a lot of the sun's energy. They certainly help.
DeleteMartin Rapier,
DeleteI have blinds fitted to my toy/wargame room, but I think that the actual problem is the flat roof ... which is covered in a black asphalt-like material that absorbs the heat. Once it gets hot in there, it seems to stay that way. Great if one is expecting another ice age but not so great if the world's surface temperature is set to rise!
All the best,
Bob
Bob -
ReplyDeleteAh ... the dear old heat wave. Christchurch often gets 30+ degrees in summer, but they last only a day or two whilst the nor'wester lasts, and is often reduced by the easterly sea breeze off the fuh-REEZING current coming up from south of Stewart Island.
When travelling around Greece in midsummer (a zillion years ago) we found it simplest to 'do as the Greeks do': drink lots of water, and zizz out in the afternoons.
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteWe are not used to longish periods of heat - or cold - in the UK, which is why so many domestic buildings are not fitted with air conditioning and our transport system stops working when it snows.
People living around the Mediterranean have a different way of dealing with the heat. It is partially helped by the fact that their heat is usually not very humid whereas in the UK we get humid hot air, which in London then gets mixed up with pollution to make things even more uncomfortable.
I am of an age now when I often have a doze during the afternoon, and it seems to coincide with that time in the day when the air temperature seems to be at its height. Perhaps that, coupled with the very Mediterranean-style food that my wife and i prefer, is turning me into a southern Europeans!
All the best,
Bob
Have you considered an air con unit?
ReplyDeleteNigel Drury,
DeleteWe had a couple of water-filled air coolers, but they were more expensive to run that the tower fans, so we got rid of them. With hindsight, that might not have been a good idea.
All the best,
Bob
I seem to recall the Fred Jane adjusted his gun ratings between the 1904/5 and the 1905/6 volumes. I have a reprint of the latter and when I scanned pages from the former (for some of the ships sunk in the early part of the RJW ) I noted some discrepancies.
ReplyDeleteNigel Drury,
DeleteSubsequent editions of Jane’s book saw changes in armour and gun gradings. For example, by the time HMS Dreadnought was included, it had a main armament that was graded as AAAAA and had aaa armour.
I have had some interesting input on this topic from Toby Ewin that I hope to draw upon for a future blog post.
All the best,
Bob