R/C Naval Combat

Greetings,

I am a new member with some new ideas about RC Warship Combat. I am fully prepared to take some flack about my ideas. Below is my opinion of the current state of the sport and what I think should change.

RC Warship Combat, in its current state, is dying. It is suffocating under an outdated set of rules and “veterans” that fear change. Instead gathering new members, a younger, more creative generation of perspective captains are being turned away off to the sport because they feel (like I do) that so much more can be done with concept of RC Combat that what is being done at this time. I mean no disrespect to current builders or to those that have spend years working to create that sport thus far, but its time for change.

I am fan of history, and I enjoyed reading about the battles of warship from ironclads, to predreadnoughts and so on. When I see “good enough” fiberglass hulls fitted with guns of absolutely ridiculous depression flanked by “balsa block” superstructures, I see a need for change…

People have tried in the past, tried to enlarge the scale to allow more detail and a wider range of ships, but these clubs were still held back by old rules and old schools of thought.

Now before I go one any further, I must say this, I am not a nutcase or a pyromaniac or anything of the sort, I have spent years now with my ideas on the back burner, gathering ship plans, old reference books, and the tools need to construct new ships. I have spent much more money that I would have simply building a current battleship and being content to go with the flow.

When my first ships slides into the water for the first time, it will be as revolutionary next to a current RC warship as HMS Dreadnought was over 100 years ago.

Here is a list of things I believe need to change in RC Warship Combat:

1. The scale, 1/144 scale only works if you want to build WW2 battleship. Scores of people have been turned away after being told that, Destroyers are too small, Submarines won’t work, and you can’t arm Cruisers effectively. My solution is to increase the scale to 1/72. Now most people will howl this is too big to build battleships, not true at all. A ship of around 20,000 tons would only weigh a bit more than 100 pounds, and could easily be handled by 2 people. In addition, they are many predreadnought ships are much smaller and still carry reasonable weapons and armor. If somebody wants to build a ship like the Yamato, they are more than welcome to do so, however, the model will be just like its 1:1 counterpart. It will be an enormous white elephant, a huge expenditure of time and resources to put just 9 big cannon on the water.
2. Ships should be fitted with more realistic armor. Layers of balsa can be used to realistically armor different ships based. I have devised a scaling system to covert older types of armor to their equivalent thickness of Krupp Cemented armor.
3. Excessive gun depression should be eliminated. In fact, large caliber weapons should be elevated to increase the range of large caliber duels, only small weapons should be capable of some degree of depression. By giving different sizes of weapons different effective ranges, the realism of combat would increase considerably.
4. Actual scale speed should be enforced. Slow battleships should stay slow, as should merchant ships. Light, thinly armored ships are faster for a reason. No enlarged rudders or drag props should be allowed. Ships that handled poorly should stay that way.
5. No blast shields or water channeling. Thickly armored ships have no need for shielding, only expensive electronics should be protected. Lightly armored ships simply could not withstand a heavy pounding from a battleship, so a battleship should be able to riddle a small destroyer with ease. When ships took on water in actual combat, they might take on a list and loose speed and control as a result. Scale ships should do the same.
6. An effort should be made to develop safe, realistic scale torpedoes and depth charges. This is the key to making subs and destroyers effective in their intended roles. The propel powered torpedoes show great promise, and some intelligent R&D should be able to turn them into safe, effective, reusable weapons.


This is simply a start, I am well aware that some of the above listed changes require upgrading the current ways captains keep themselves safe, but I am working on that as well.

I am more that willing to discuss my ideas further in a professional manner, I have given my ideas a considerable amount of thought so please don't think of me as another one of those "Blow $hit Up Guys"... [8D]

1. The scale, 1/144 scale only works if you want to build WW2 battleship. Scores of people have been turned away after being told that, Destroyers are too small, Submarines won’t work, and you can’t arm Cruisers effectively. My solution is to increase the scale to 1/72. Now most people will howl this is too big to build battleships, not true at all. A ship of around 20,000 tons would only weigh a bit more than 100 pounds, and could easily be handled by 2 people. In addition, they are many predreadnought ships are much smaller and still carry reasonable weapons and armor. If somebody wants to build a ship like the Yamato, they are more than welcome to do so, however, the model will be just like its 1:1 counterpart. It will be an enormous white elephant, a huge expenditure of time and resources to put just 9 big cannon on the water.

A: Actually 1/144 scale works pretty well for everything larger then a destroyer. As you may gather from my sig, I have no WW2 battleships, nor will I. Furthermore, have you tried to lift a 100 pound battleship, that's full of water after being sunk? There's a reason the 1/72 Queen's Own guys don't build battleships. They don't work at that scale. Furthermore, there is no way I could fit one of those monsters in my Mustang. All of my 1/144 ships fit in there just fine.

2. Ships should be fitted with more realistic armor. Layers of balsa can be used to realistically armor different ships based. I have devised a scaling system to covert older types of armor to their equivalent thickness of Krupp Cemented armor.

A: This won't work because you have to crank up the velocities of the guns to unsafe levels. Safety comes before realism all day, every day. As it is, if you let the balsa get to hard, even at the close ranges we fight the BBs will still bounce off. Then there is always the fact that not all armor and shells were crated equal.

3. Excessive gun depression should be eliminated. In fact, large caliber weapons should be elevated to increase the range of large caliber duels, only small weapons should be capable of some degree of depression. By giving different sizes of weapons different effective ranges, the realism of combat would increase considerably.

A: I can already shoot my BBs across a lake if I want to. It's not safe though. Further more, how exactly are you going to hit anything if you are shooting rainbows? Firecontrol is hard enough on a real battleship with an entire firecontrol team, range finders, and firecontrol computer. Then you have the whole issue of plunging fire. Are decks to be penetrable too? Are the "shells" going to detonate inside? Its a nice thought, but completely un-realistic for what we can do with an RC warship.

4. Actual scale speed should be enforced. Slow battleships should stay slow, as should merchant ships. Light, thinly armored ships are faster for a reason. No enlarged rudders or drag props should be allowed. Ships that handled poorly should stay that way.

A: Most clubs already have semi-scale speeds they use. Most plans out there for ships aren't perfect so you will never get perfect scale rudders. The big gun guys already enforce scale speeds. I'm not sure what your point is.

5. No blast shields or water channeling. Thickly armored ships have no need for shielding, only expensive electronics should be protected. Lightly armored ships simply could not withstand a heavy pounding from a battleship, so a battleship should be able to riddle a small destroyer with ease. When ships took on water in actual combat, they might take on a list and loose speed and control as a result. Scale ships should do the same.

A: Real ships also had damage control teams to counter-flood, and enact repairs on damaged sections. They also had watertight compartments to limit flooding. These aren't real ships, and there really isn't any way to simulate real combat.

6. An effort should be made to develop safe, realistic scale torpedoes and depth charges. This is the key to making subs and destroyers effective in their intended roles. The propel powered torpedoes show great promise, and some intelligent R&D should be able to turn them into safe, effective, reusable weapons.

A: I seriously doubt it. The guidance needed would be too small, then there is always actually setting up an attack that would actually work.


In short, I think your heart is in the right place, but your ideas are simply not workable. Probably all of us when we started out had this vision in their head of re-enacting Jutland or Dogger Bank. For me, it was Cape Esperance and Kommandorski Islands. It's just not feasible...and if it was it certainly wouldn't be affordable or safe. The real reason new captains aren't flocking to the hobby is the generation of innovators and builders is going away. More and more people want instant gratification and are unwilling to spend the time and effort necessary to actually BUILD a ship. None of your ideas are really new, most of us proposed similar things when we first started out. Then we see what it's really like, and realize that the old vets who told us it wouldn't work really knew what they were talking about after all.

If your revolutionary combat ship slides into the water it will most likely be alone, and it won't have anyone to play with.

Just my 2 cents..

Mike D

Thank you for the reply, but I respectfully disagree with you.

A: Actually 1/144 scale works pretty well for everything larger then a destroyer. As you may gather from my sig, I have no WW2 battleships, nor will I. Furthermore, have you tried to lift a 100 pound battleship, that's full of water after being sunk? There's a reason the 1/72 Queen's Own guys don't build battleships. They don't work at that scale. Furthermore, there is no way I could fit one of those monsters in my Mustang. All of my 1/144 ships fit in there just fine.

Response: Ok, what do you tell someone with their heart set on building a destroyer? Any navy had more destoyers than any other class of ship, why should they be left out? Most clubs have rules against small, narrow ships having guns that rotate, which wouldn't be a problem in a larger scale. Destroyers should be easy and cheap to build, not battleships. Tactics would change overnight if a battleship represented what they did in real life, a considerable expenditure of time and money, the ultimate symbol of power. A fleet should be mostly smaller ships with a few large vessels. How many subs work well in 1/144? The I-400s don't count, they are huge compared to most subs and still work poorly in scale.

A: This won't work because you have to crank up the velocities of the guns to unsafe levels. Safety comes before realism all day, every day. As it is, if you let the balsa get to hard, even at the close ranges we fight the BBs will still bounce off. Then there is always the fact that not all armor and shells were crated equal.

Why do guns need to be cranked up to unsafe levels? At 20,000 yards a 6" gun wouldn't do much to battleship armor, where as a 16" gun would decimate an umarmored ship. This isn't about building super guns, its about making ships in scale act like real ships. A destroyer or light cruiser will not engage a battleship at close range because they can't take the punishment.

A: I can already shoot my BBs across a lake if I want to. It's not safe though. Further more, how exactly are you going to hit anything if you are shooting rainbows? Firecontrol is hard enough on a real battleship with an entire firecontrol team, range finders, and firecontrol computer. Then you have the whole issue of plunging fire. Are decks to be penetrable too? Are the "shells" going to detonate inside? Its a nice thought, but completely un-realistic for what we can do with an RC warship.

Response: I don't see too many pics of ships engaging at anything but point blank range. The model of the Nelson or Rodney on this site is only hitting the water a couple feet away from the ship... A small vessel should never be that close to a large ship, in real combat they would be sunk long before they ever got that close. Now I'm not proposing that ships fight at a scale 20,000 yards or anything, but battleships slugging it out a range of 30 feet or so would be more realistic. A small ship with light guns should be totally outclassed at a range when a battleship with large caliber guns is still doing damage. For a ship with light weapons to do damage to a larger, more heavily armed ship, the lighter ship should have close the range under a hail of fire from the bigger ship. Microcontroller technology has gotten to the point that a large ship should easily be able to carry the equipment to allow a captain to input the bearing and elevation for the guns and press one button to fire, adjusting his fire at range by watching the splashes, just like in real combat. The shells will still be regular ball bearings, no "exploding shells". I'm not advocating increasing elevation to create plunging fire that hits only the decks, but it should be possible to create a ballistic trajectory that increases the range but lands most impacts on the sides of a ship.

A: Most clubs already have semi-scale speeds they use. Most plans out there for ships aren't perfect so you will never get perfect scale rudders. The big gun guys already enforce scale speeds. I'm not sure what your point is.

Response: Fast gun doesn't use anything resembling scale speed, and the vast majority of battleships couldn't do much past 20-22 knots, and most merchant ships were even slower. These ships should have a considerable speed handicap vs. a 30+ knot destroyer or cruiser. Poor quality plans is a poor excuse IMO, the French National Archives have original builders plans free for download, plans from the US National Archives are not too difficult to get, and the internet offers more and more sources of quality plans as time goes on. I got a very nice set of plans from Russia last week off of eBay. Putting up with lousy $20 "RC Warship Plans" is not an excuse to not build with accuracy.

A: Real ships also had damage control teams to counter-flood, and enact repairs on damaged sections. They also had watertight compartments to limit flooding. These aren't real ships, and there really isn't any way to simulate real combat.

Response: Thickly armored ships should have no need for shields that stop shot from going in one side and out the other. I'm not saying lets smash expensive electronics, but if a small, unarmored ship gets hit with a large caliber shot, it should go in one side and out the other... A destroyer should not last long in the crosshairs of a battleship. I agree real ships had damage control teams, but looking at the sinking of the Audacious, the Barham, or the Svent Itsvan, did any of them sink on an even keel? No, damge control teams can only do so much. The German ships that survived Jutland did not come back to port straight and level, only floating deeper in the water. My rules include provisions for bulkheads to contain flooding, the number allowed being based on tonnage. A ship can take some hard hits and one area and not sink, but it will list or be down in the bow or stern, just like a real ship.

A: I seriously doubt it. The guidance needed would be too small, then there is always actually setting up an attack that would actually work.

Response: Years ago, people probably said shooting BBs at ships wasn't safe. Then years later, the Fast Gun guys probably told the outcasts that wanted to lob 1/4" ball bearings that it wouldn't be safe. The fact is, shooting projectile isn't that safe. But everybody wears safety glasses and goes on. A slow moving BB could still put out an eye. A torpedo with a functional warhead is just the next step. Safety will have to take the next step, with more rules for safe handling of torps, etc. The increase in range will also require an increase in safety. Personally, I would like to build a "Safety Shield" with a lexan screen and plywood roof. I live in Texas, so I would much prefer to sit in the shade behind a safety screen than to sweat standing at the edge of the pond with a face shield on. And I agree 100% that having locomotive torpedoes would make torpedo attacks difficult, but that is the point. Even in WW2 it was not easy to hit a moving ship with a torp, the current setup of spurt guns at point blank range is simply ridiculous, it offers no chance to evade the attack, and no chance the torpedo will not operate correctly.

A. In short, I think your heart is in the right place, but your ideas are simply not workable. Probably all of us when we started out had this vision in their head of re-enacting Jutland or Dogger Bank. For me, it was Cape Esperance and Kommandorski Islands. It's just not feasible...and if it was it certainly wouldn't be affordable or safe. The real reason new captains aren't flocking to the hobby is the generation of innovators and builders is going away. More and more people want instant gratification and are unwilling to spend the time and effort necessary to actually BUILD a ship. None of your ideas are really new, most of us proposed similar things when we first started out. Then we see what it's really like, and realize that the old vets who told us it wouldn't work really knew what they were talking about after all.

Response: I thank you for your response, but I really don't agree with you. Most of my ideas require little to no increase in cost. Most people are toying with idea of controlling their guns with microcontrollers anyway... Building bigger doesn't exclude ships, it just makes more ships availible, and makes battleships the challenge they should be. If the founders of the hobby had been big destroyer fans, everybody would already be building big.

The reason new captains are not flocking to the hobby is they arrive with fresh ideas (although sometimes a bit misguided) only to be shot down as soon as they step out of mainstream. 5 years ago, I wanted to build a predreadnought, and was immediately told it would never work, it was too small to arm all the guns, too slow, too wierd, etc. I was immediately turned off to the current hobby.

I don't need instant gratification, if I did, I would have spent years researching and testing ideas with not one ship built to show for it...

Whoever told you that a pre-dread wouldn't work was simply wrong. If you can arm and battle a WW1 AC effectively (seen one) or a large destroyer (Seen a Gearing), a pre-dread is cake.

Good luck to you.

Mike D

The trick is to rise to the occasion. In 2003, people told me I was too young to join the hobby without full parental support. I got a job over the summer and bought a used battleship. In 2004, the told me I could never refit a battleship and get it fighting. I asked a few friends to teach me the basics, then stripped it bare and rebuilt everything. I was voted "best skipper over 20,000 tons" and "rookie of the year" at the end of the year. In 2005, they told me that combat-effective cruisers are impossible. I'm currently the most feared captain at the helm of my Spahkreuzer SP-1, with 17 kills to my name. I've heard that lots of other things are impossible, but I am well on my way to proving it can be done.

Just a few other examples:
*Transports disappeared when my Spahkreuzer hit the water, because it was very adept at attacking those lumbering behemoths. They said that transports were no longer combat effective. I am currently building a fleet of 5 unarmed transports to fight next season. Unlike the last generation of transports, these new ones have the agility necessary to evade a torpedo attack and the displacement to survive any accidental collisions that commonly occur as a result.
*Several ships and skippers have claimed to be "unsinkable". While I have yet to actually put one of these ships down, I've gotten each of them dropping rapidly and running for shore. Nobody claims to be unsinkable anymore.

So, PreDread, what's the point of all that? Build it. If you can build a cost-effective underwater torpedo, extend effective battle ranges to more than 10 feet, and do everything else you say you can, then do it. If you succeed I will be the first to build another ship. But you've got to show us that it can be done, and the best way to do that is to build it.

I saw a 1/72 Tirpitz and 1/72 Deutchland today. The Tirpitz took about 30 minutes to launch and ballast and 15 minutes to pull from the water. It could barely turn around and took forever to speed up or slow down. This is not a ship that older men with bad backs and ailing limbs would be able to handle (a good portion of model warship combat participants meet one of these three categories). While it is possible, I do not think that scale is very practical.

On the same note as my brother, I'd be happy to see you prove me wrong. I have heard many people say that combat submarines aren't possible, yet I have seen three fight in my few years with the WWCC.

"A torpedo with a functional warhead is just the next step." That sentence right there needs some serious thought. You understand that the second you arm a projectile with an explosive warhead, things get very serious (like federal involvement), right? You could do it and hope the ATF accepts your argument that it's like fireworks, but more likely, they'll charge you with having an unregistered explosive device. One count for every torpedo, and every torpedo launcher. If you want to register them, beyond the paperwork, it's a $200 dollar tax stamp per round and per launcher.


Scale range? Scale range for a 16" gun is around 1,906 feet in 1/72. My lake might be that long, the long way. I cannot think of an organization that would let us battle with projectiles flying that far. A misfire would put rounds into the parking lot, and over in the playground. Think about the gas pressure required to lob a 1/4" projectile even a quarter of that distance. Far more pressure than any RC naval combat ship I've seen or heard of carries.

How much do you plan on spending per ship for this? A good class 8 fast gun battleship costs $1000 and up (mostly up) all told.

The reason some new people get turned off is that they don't want to hear that they can't build the hover-modified USS Texas from that sci-fi novel, or in fast gun they get advised not to worry about rotating turrets on their first ship for its first battle, or they hear that realistically you need to spend $400-600 for a minimal combat ship. If they get turned off because they can't use explosives or acids or remote-controlled bombers then so be it.

You can issue your refutation point by point if you like, but your ideas are unsafe in the extreme. I like bigger scale (see Battlestations) but the cannon range increases would result in projectiles that can pierce human skin and internal organs.

Welcome!

I guess by your handle that you are another Predreadnought fan. For that you are doubly welcome. We are working up rules for predreads in Battlestations. 1/96 Scale ships should give plenty of space for most of them. Though destroyers are still challengingly small.

Your points are very good. I especially like the scale speeds. I have said before that I will happily take the extra speed, but would prefer to go a more realistic velocity. I am building a monitor for the Predreads and fear it would submerge if I tried to run it at 22 knots.

I look forward to hearing more.

Working torpedoes. The only way I could see it working is something like the turn of the (20th) century idea of the davis torpedo. It was a torpedo that would fire a shell into the target ship. This was the orginal impetus for below the waterline armoring of ships. I am not sure you could make it work in scale but it would be a more interesting varient. I am really not sure it would be more effective either.

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Originally posted by Kotori87

Build it. If you can build a cost-effective underwater torpedo, extend effective battle ranges to more than 10 feet, and do everything else you say you can, then do it. But you've got to show us that it can be done, and the best way to do that is to build it.

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I agree with Carl, this is a hobby about overcoming the challenges layed in front of you. We are here to help, you don't have to go it alone; but change takes time.

--> The first thing you must do is show feasibility. My suggestion is to create a presentation displaying sketches of *one* of your ideas, and a good start on how to implement it. In this hobby (& especially on this board), we like to help design and discuss... but you have to get us started.

Let me explain my torpedo idea a bit more, since its seems to be causing a lot of heat...

First, I am well aware of the "explosive device" issue and the ATF. Let me make it very clear I have NO DESIRE whatsoever to use explosives... Let me restate that, NO DESIRE at all.

Lets step back at look at torpedoes more simply. Real torpedoes do damage because water cannot be compressed, the rapid expansion of gasses causes forces in the side of the ship because the water cannot be compressed. How does a real gun or an RC warship cannon work? The rapid expansion of gas forces a projectile out of the path of least resistance, which is the end of the barrel.

What is needed to make a torpedo work is a rapidly expanding bubble of gas under the water... which doesn't have to come from any explosive device. Do I know how to do it? No, I will admit that freely. But propel powered torpedoes do work, plenty of scale subs have them. What I'm saying is if a safe and legal way to utilize them to sink an RC Warship is found, that should be the next evolutionary step in the hobby.

At some point, somebody will figure out how to do it. When that day comes it could totally change how RC Combat works. Imagine subs lurking outside enemy ports ready to torp crippled ships or small, inexpensive PT boats making it through a hail of fire to launch there cargo...

IMO, the biggest challenge for using propel torps is danger of them "cooking off" when the exposed to temp increase. Something to think about if you live in the south like me. Submerged tubes aren't much of a worry since the water will keep them cool. But tubes mounted higher in the hull or on deck my need some cooling help. I plan to make my tubes out of brass, and it wouldn't be too difficult to create a cooling system out of a on-board resevoir of ice water, an aquarium pump and some flexible tubing.

And as far as scale range, I'm not suggesting anything close to scale range. I'm suggesting that specific weapon sizes have specific effective ranges. Small caliber guns should lack hitting power at range, and large guns should be useless point blank because they cannot depress low enough to score hits near the water line. My goal is to have small guns fight effectively at something like 15-20 feet, medium caliber guns to work well at 20-35 feet, and big guns to rule past 35 feet. I'm not suggesting that ships battle hundreds of feet apart with super guns.

As far as speed goes, I'm suggesting using the scale speed that produces realistic wakes, Froude creating a formula for this, which I can't remember off of the top of my head. I seem to remember in 1/72 scale, 21 knots is about 4mph... I do realize we cannot scale down water molecules and surface friction. But at the proper scale speed with the correct size rudder and props a ship should handle as close to the real thing as is actually possible.

There are some major problems with ranged fire.

The largest currently is abilty to hit a fairly small target.
While this might be able to be resolved, it is not a trival project.
It would involve some pretty carefull work with sensors and auto-controls.

The other issue is once you can hit something, you can't do critical dammage, as the bbs or ball bearings will not be hitting below the water.
BBs bounce off the water when fired with less than 5 degrees of down angle.
This is why you see ships close to each other making huge splashes- they are trying to get underwater hits.

As for effective range, the projectiles just don't slow down that fast. If the bb (or ball) can penterate at 10 feet, it is going to pentrate at 50 feet.
Unless it hits something to lose energy- like water.

For froude scale speed at 1/72 scale, I think that is about 24 sec/100 feet for a 21 knot boat.
A DD would be really fast, and need some serious drive motors, kind of like the real thing- Tashkent had over 100,000 shp.

One of my goals is to create a fire control system.

I want to create a system using microcontrollers for rotation and bearing of the guns, elevation and depression, and firing.

My goal is to have one knob to adjust bearing in relation to the bow, one knob to control elevation, and a single firing button for the guns on the ship. The microcontrollers should be able to rotate all cannon that can fire on that bearing, and know which weapons to fire based on elevation. The microcontrollers should also "shut down" turrets that don't response to the commands. This would prevent damage to turrets jammed by BB's or debris.

My goal is to create a streamlined, "smart" control system that is easy to use. I want to custom build my own hand held "console" that has:

A stick to control the rudder.
Twin throttles, to steer with the props if the rudder is damaged.
Main fire control, bearing knob, elevation knob, and one firing button.
Torpedo control, a selector switch for different tubes, and one firing button.
A few other buttons for things like bilge pumps.

The #1 problem I have with what you are saying is the complexity. You are biting off a huge amount of work. It is probably better to take on a "Sashimi" approach, doing small bits at a time.

I also think you should first consider torpedoes... I agree they have their place in our hobby and I think they would be widely accepted if the concept of cost is overcome. Torpedoes are going to cost more than BBs, there is no getting around it. But Torpedoes also carry with them the problem of manufacturing. WHO'S going to make them? I could with my lathe, but I'm not about to spend 1 hour turning each torp only to loose most of them to the murky pond. You figure out the logistics, and you have a strong argument for getting your torpedoes.

--> explosive (not incideary) torpedoes <--- Sorry, there is no way around it... You want to create a reaction that creates a lot of gas, very quickly. That's an explosion, with or without fire. Also IMHO, the only way you can create a "puff" of gas with that kind of force is to use a spark.



--->BTW: Have you seen Big Gun rules? They might be a better fit for what you are looking for than fast gun.

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Originally posted by specialist



For froude scale speed at 1/72 scale, I think that is about 24 sec/100 feet for a 21 knot boat.
A DD would be really fast, and need some serious drive motors, kind of like the real thing- Tashkent had over 100,000 shp.

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I'm hoping that an increase in scale and the use of Froude's scale speed will large, fast ships a bit of challenge.

Imagine a 1/72 Renown:

A ship just over 10 feet long, needing huge motors and massive amount of battery power to make its scale speed. You would end up with a huge ship, with powerful guns, loaded with motors and batteries, all protected by a thin strip of 6" armor, easily riddled by ships with smaller guns.

Kinda sounds like the real thing [:D]

Renown would also be bloody heavy.... something like 250 lbs.

Having lugged around a wet, slimmy 50 lbs boat, that is certainly heavy enough for me.
At 1/72 scale, anything over light cruiser size become impractical.
You need to be able to get the things off the bottom of a pond. When they weigh more than 60 lbs you just can't.
If you try, you sink into the muck. Or you wind up limiting your useable ponds so much that you can't play.
Plus you have to transport the things, 6' boats can fit most cars/SUVs. When you get over 8 feet, it just won't fit.

The concept sound cool, but to actualy do it is a problem.

Oh, and you need to find a few other people that think it is cool too.... The harder it is to do, the less people will.
I suggest sticking with 1/144 scale, there are plenty of others doing that... enough to have some pretty good battles.

quote:

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Originally posted by JustinScott



I also think you should first consider torpedoes... I agree they have their place in our hobby and I think they would be widely accepted if the concept of cost is overcome. Torpedoes are going to cost more than BBs, there is no getting around it. But Torpedoes also carry with them the problem of manufacturing. WHO'S going to make them? I could with my lathe, but I'm not about to spend 1 hour turning each torp only to loose most of them to the murky pond. You figure out the logistics, and you have a strong argument for getting your torpedoes.

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The best way to build a torp would be with a lathe. I want to machine rear part on a lathe, the center can be something like brass tubing that the rear part is soldered to. The rear 2/3s of the torp should be a rugged assembly that holds the propel charge and some wood or hard foam that makes it float. I would also solder the fins on.

I would make the front 1/3 expendable, cast from resin, it should fit snuggly enough on the rear piece to keep water out. The front should hold whatever creates the gas bubble and way to trigger it.

I want the torps to have positive buoyancy so the float after they hit a target or run out of propellent. I would paint all torps a bright color, one for each team so they are easy to spot when floating around. Being a bright color doesn't make any easier to evade when running, since propel gas will leave a bubble trail, like a real compressed air torp.

At the end of battle, all ships still afloat should launch all remaining torps into a large net for collection, all spent or floating torps should also be collected with nets on long poles. My rules list 4 "standard" torpedo sizes. If everybody builds them the same way, dividing them up at the end of the day should be easy. If not, torps could be marked with who built them so everybody gets their torps back.

A safe way to defuse all "live torps" depends on what they are armed with, but that is #1 on the research list.

PreDread you said you're a new guy. How many battles have you been to? It does not sound like you've built any ships yet, have you? You have a few interesting ideas that lots of people have had. You have to remember that you need to have other people to play with. It would be nice to have 10,000 people in the hobby, but since you can't go to Walmart and buy a ship most people will not want to put the time into it. This hobby takes a lot of time. No one has time. I've got e-mails from two guys yesterday that said they can't take their vacation at work, too busy... So they can't go to battles that last a whole week. They can hardly put in the time to get their ship ready for a weekend. Would your ideas be fun, sure they would. But think of all the extra time and money needed to make your ideas work. Never will happen. Have you ever done air planes or Heli's or even race cars? If so you'd have found that there are a core group (Very small) that always is out there with their stuff. Then there is the larger group that shows up for a while and leaves, their stuff never works, they give up. They did not take the time to become good at the hobby. The plane crashed, never won a race just toss the stuff in the trash as part of the disposable country we are. The warship hobby is the core group of dedicated guys. We don't get very many people that come in for only a year as it takes too much time to build a ship. If you could buy it at Walmart you'd see 10,000 people in the hobby. Then you could have the pro group and the goof off group like the other postings have talked about.
The best thing any of you can do is go out and find more people to join the club. This hobby is NOT very well known. Advertise the hobby, get more people. When you have 30+ guys show up at a local battle, 50+ show up at a regional and have to qualify to go to NATS that's when the hobby will be the most fun.

Have you looked into big gun at all? They use a system kind of similar to what you seem interested in. They run at scale speeds, have various calibers of weapons ranging from BB to 1/4" ball bearing, have various thickness balsa to represent armor belts, use 1/4" ball bearings to simulate torps, etc.

there is also the 1/96 battlestations group that is trying to get started...basically big gun at 1/96 scale. I think Queen's Own is 1/72 scale big gun, but they do mostly destroyers due to the size of a battleship.

Mike D

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Originally posted by crzyhawk


there is also the 1/96 battlestations group that is trying to get started...basically big gun at 1/96 scale. I think Queen's Own is 1/72 scale big gun, but they do mostly destroyers due to the size of a battleship.

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At least 2 Battlestationers are indeed PreDreadnought fans. We are even working on a rules subset for ships back to 1890. And if I get a good response back from the NMM I will be doing an HMS Benbow (1885).