R/C Naval Combat

Hello gents,

I absolutely love this thread. I ordered plans for SMS Schleswig-Holstein and will build her for big gun. I'm building DKM Kormoran right now and she's my first ship. I intend to use her first as a convoy ship, then as a convoy escort whenever I get around to arming her. As far as the predread goes, it'll depend on the ruleset of the club I battle with, but I specifically picked a predread so that I could arm all her secondaries, have a watertight compartment, and possibly a pump in each compartment. Hopefully that'd make her a tough SOB, and along with her relatively small size, might make a contender out of her. I guess it remains to be seen, but I had to speak up as a pre-dread fan also.

Cheers

Hello again,

I pressed send before I was totally done. Talking about ramming, read up on the battle of Lissa, 1866, between Austria and Italy. It was the Trafalgar of the Adriatic.

Cheers

Hello gents,

I live on Long Island NY, and the closest club I can find thus far is the ESBG in Rochester, but I haven't looked carefully yet. I want to get a convoy boat on the water first so that I can participate in a few battles, then worry about arming her for the club I will join full-time. To start out, my intent is to only have basic systems active: A pump, a motor and a rudder. As I get more experience, I'll arm Kormoran as best I can and I guess do convoy escort, or whatever.

Only once I get to the point where I don't embarass myself, then I'll build Either the S-H or another combat ship depending on current rules.

Cheers

Battle between the ironclad "huascar" and wooden hulled frigate "Esmeralda" commanded by Capt Arturo Pratt  Huascar rammed the stern of esmeralda, Pratt and 2 sailors jumped on the deck of Huascar who had slid away from the esmeralda, 1 sailor was killed right after jumping on deck of huascar , Captain Pratt was killed a few yards away from the command bridge of Huascar.

Capt Pratt is still honored as a naval hero, his example led to the young and inexperienced crew of esmeralda to nail the flag to the mast and fight till the death.

(sea hunters episode )

Krijn

Posted By BoomerBoy17 on 07 Oct 2008 03:04 AM
Almost decisive as the Italian ship that fired a torpedo, then sunck itself

uhm

the british cruiser Trinidad also plunged 1 of her own torpedoes into her own side (the gyro was frozen on the torpedo) she was later attacked by planes and german destroyers, then scuttled and survivors taken of by the destroyer matchless

 

Krijn

Posted By crzyhawk on 29 May 2009 11:05 AM
"4) ramming: perfectly legal! Ramming was considered a legitimate tactic back then, so most ships had beautiful reinforced ram bows. It'd be a shame not to use them."

This is where things really fall apart. The excitement of this hobby is sinking enemy ships with gunfire. Taking a ship out and just ram sinking everything on the pond would really destroy the fun of battling.

The more I think on it the more I have come to the conclusion that the bows should be weaker than the rest of the ship.  Would give one a more accurate result, but It would require a good bit of experimentation to get the right bit of destruction on both sides of the ramming.

 It was attempted probably fewer than 5 times (intentionally at least).  Usually equally damaging to the rammer as rammed.  I personally don't think it ads anything to the sport/hobby to have ramming.  It was considered a valid tactic in the 19th century and if you are going to accurately reflect that era you should have it as an option.  It was the reason for all the "end on" fire designs after all.  Some Russian designs had foredecks that sloped down towards the bow to give the fore turret greater depression for the ram attack.  Apparently the plan was they would fire the main guns only once or twice during the battle anyway so why not do it just before you hit.