I read a story online and the person was saying 1/72 scale combat was the first scale to play RC warship combat due to the limited technology of the day and after science evolved the more advanced scale of 1/144 was possible. I would like to inform those who do not know, but this is far from the truth. The 1/72 game was created by people with 8 years of Big Gun combat and they developed most of the technology used today. Queens Own sold their Big Gun boats in the early 90's (Western started playing 1/72 in 1993 but we kept our 1/144 boats) and started playing a game that uses Big Gun's guns (rotation and depression) with a limited number of guns and ammo with no rate of fire. It is a cross between Big Gun and Fast Gun but in a scale that gives us room to work with. As for damage, our main goal is quality and having fun(we still sink) and not just trying to sink the weak with one hit one kill weapons so we run two and three gun boats in most of our battles and you can have any where from zero to forty hits in the hull alone, closer to 0 if you are Axis and closer to 40 if you are Allied and this is not as much damage as fast gun but more than the last Big Gun battles attended at a much lower cost. We use 3/16" ammo for guns 0-7.99" and 1/4" ammo for 8" and up.The hull construction is pretty much the same as Big Gun.
I saw that online article as well. The post implied that everyone stopped using 1/72 scale ships because of their size being 12 feet long and weighing more than 400 pounds each. Technology had micro sized everything where the large ships in that scale were no longer necessary. This could not be farther from the truth. In most cases the conversion only allowed us to build smaller ships. Below is my fleet of PT Boats in 1/72 scale. This picture is prior to arming. Each one barely a foot long and weighing maybe a couple pounds each.
OH, and Mr. Z boat, I'm looking forward to putting a few more holes in your boats next year. I hope you and your family had a great holiday season, and I you and Gary have time this winter, I would ebjoy getting together with you guys for a build day,
Of course there are exceptions, but I'll bet that the size of boat is pretty similar in the two size formats. The 1/72 scale build destroyers and cruisers. 1/144 scale makes cruisers and battle ships. Anything smaller than 3' is very challenging size and weight. Approaching 6' they become to heavy.
Maxspin; 100% correct! My 1/72 Sumner Class destroyer USS Shannon is about the same size as my Fast Gun North Carolina. We do get a little out of hand and build the occasional 8' Cruiser or 10' Battleship. Cruisers have, but rarely play in combat. Battleships have so far only been used for display and recruiting purposes. That's why the article that Z-Boat referred to has been so offensive to us.
