R/C Naval Combat

Hello all,

I am posting in these forums for the first time at the request of Ronny Hunt. He asked me to give my interpretation of the casemate rules as I was the original writer of them in their current form for the MWC. I have been told that the new IRC rules are the same, so its interpretation should be the same I would figure.

Let me start by saying that there is the drawing you should use for the Weather Deck, Casemate deck, and Armor Belt (if you modeled the armor belt into the hull). I would include the photo here if I could figure out how. It is in the MWC rules in Appendix A (I think it is similarly placed in the IRC). It shows that your weather deck is the topmost deck starting from the bow of the ship. In your photos you made most of it removable. The casemates below it are considered part of the hull even if they are removable. The casemates are also not 1/2" from the gunwale (they are close, but not quite) in many places. Those places must be penetrable.

Some have argued that all the casemates are more than 1/2" from the gunwale on the baden, but I have the best set of plans that are known to exist (direct from Germany, and borrowed from Fleugel) and the plans show the gunwale for the casemate deck is not 1/2" in most places (Johny Adams' photos are good representations of what it should look like). Unfortunately, the problem has been that people always looked at the plans and measured from the outermost line and assumed that was the point to measure from. It is not, the outermost lines on good baden plans are the armor belt, not the casemate deck.

To make the ship legal according to the current rules and in keeping with all the other ships that have been battled in the MWC for the last year, and the current IRC battles after Jan 1st, you need to:
1. Cut the casemates out in many places
2. Make your Weather Deck the topmost deck (1/4" thick if your baden has a modeled Armor Belt, or 3/8" if it doesn't) (see the drawing of where the deck drops down)
3. The Casemate Deck should only be 1/8" thick.
4. The armor belt (if modeled) should only be 1/8" thick.

There is one caviat that was allowed and some on ships like Nagato and Baden have decided to use it. *** there is no minimum spacing requirement for decks to be apart as long as they are semi-scale**** What that means for the Baden is thus.... The Baden if built 100% scale has an Armor belt that starts 1/8" below the casemate deck. It sticks out between 1/16-1/8" from the casemate deck. So if you modeled a 100% scale baden you would have a 1/4" weather deck then an 1/8" Casemate Deck, then immediately below that would be the 1/8" Armor Belt. Essentially making that area 1/4" thick. For people refiting badens that would make it easier as long as you model the armor belt to be visible in the hull (thus requiring the stringer).

The rule also called out that penetrability of casemates is based on the plans not actual construction to keep people from intentionally moving casemates inward to make them hard. (trying to think through all possible loopholes)

When I started writing the rule proposal, the goal was to fix the inequality of ship building where some ships had hard casemates and others had penetrable ones even though they were very similar in construction (we had 4 VDT's at the prior MWC nats and all 4 had different hard area). Most people said that they didn't understand them and that they weren't clear. Many people asked for the rule to be reworded to be clearer, and most asked for diagrams to make it super easy to understand where the hard area goes.

The rule as adopted attempted to clarify and fix and to above all make ALL ships follow the rules equally. As CD at the prior several MWC Nationals I have seen ships that I have told they could add more hard area, and some that I had to Chit and have them cut out hard area. What shows up at battles now is mostly captains who know that when they fire a gun at VDT A, B, C, or D they know where a BB will pass through and where one won't. They also know that no matter what they have to do to their ship (add or remove hard area) that everyone else's ships will follow the same standard and be on equal footing. The rule wasn't written for more points or holes, it was to allow ALL captains to know they were playing on an equal field with regard to penetrability.

I know that it is hard to cut up a boat that we have fallen in love with. I myself have a Nagato that I have had to rip apart and rebuild to make much much more penetrable. I know though that everyone else follows the same standard and I also am comforted that others can know that my ship is just as penetrable as others on the water.

If I can ever figure out how to post a photo, I would be happy to mark up a drawing or scan of the casemates and let you know exactly where they would need to be cut based on the plans I have at my disposal. (hints on posting photos are appreciated)

Also if you have questions feel free to e-mail me at timothybeckett@sbcglobal.net or call me at (817)822-3407 and we can chat about any other questions.

Catch ya on the flip side,
Tim Beckett

Not to turn this thread into a debate on the casemate rules, but I personally feel that if the 'weatherdeck' moves inwards away from the gunwale and never returns to it, any casemates from the point it leaves the gunwale should be solid. To me those are superstructure. If the deck returns to the gunwale making a mere concave shape in the side of the hull, then I think that should be considered part of the hull and penetrable under the normal casemate rules.

I've battled a Kongo for 1.5 years and battled a Warspite for 6 years that both have 1/8" casement levels. The balsa sticks to this just fine. On Warspite once and a while I'd have to CA glue a section back on at a battle. On Kongo I never have to reglue the balsa.
The Kongo hull is very much like your Baden hull. The casement level has held up just fine for me. There are some photos of how I put it together on portporlarbear.com on the articles page. I too was worried about just 1/8" holding it together. But adding 1/4" rib backers and tying them into the 1/4" weather deck and 1/8" casement level worked very well. Your Baden has the added advantage of making the top of the fiberglass hull 1/4", not 1/8".
I know the MWC rule pasted by many votes, not sure about the IRC vote differance. I think it's nice to know how each ship should be cut up. Get's rid of all the grey area, interpetation issues and complaints about others ships.
George Goff plans are not very good. I can't think of anyone I've talked to who thought they were good. Good enough is how I hear them described most of the time.
On a historical note when the master plugs where made for the Baden, Kongo and Moltke the casements were on the plugs. Swampy cut them off or sanded them down. It was too much work to fiberglass them and he didn't want to get in the middle of the casement issue, way back when.

That looks pretty good Bob, that is exactly what I did on my Nagato with putting the ribs on the casemate angles to make sheeting easier.
Ron Hunt

Your Baden/Nagato drawings look right.
Didn't I meet you at Wade's first battle, like 3 years ago? I'm pretty sure Jeff Lipp took The Bike for battle and you had a VU or Espana you were working on. Maybe it was another guy.

Bob's photo for the casemate cut out looks right to me as long as you have the ribs to spare to be able to use them on the angles like he drew.

The Nagato drawing posted here looks Right.

The Baden Drawing has the Deck Step too far back. I sent Bob an E-mail with a marked up version of the photo to show where the deck should drop (I don't know how to post it, so I figured I'd ask him to do it for me). Basically it should drop inbetween the last two casemates about 4 inches further towards the bow. The weather deck is supposed to drop at the point where the casemate deck moves inwards past 1/2" and stays inwards of 1/2".

You guys appear more Tech savy then me, you are welcome to send me mockups of ships for me to work through and put together for further additions to the Appendix. Making those original drawings took me a while.... someone else helping with it would be nice If you take me up on it, please E-mail the mockups in high resolution so I can check them and put them into a proposal for Modifying Appendix A.