Admiral Benbow Fastgun Rotate's

When I first got involved in the hobby, that exact interpretation was made to me; ie I was told I could not have a rotate in my Invincible because it was too short.

The way I understand the rule is that ships class four and above may have one rotate. If the ship is 60" in length or more or 40k tons or more, it can have two guns firing into the same quadrant, provided one of them is a rotate.

My understanding is that no ship can ever have more then one rotate.

EDIT: Frankly, I disagree with the rule as I interpret it. I think the IMPORTANT thing is that the number of guns per quadrant isn't violated. This is why in Treaty, we specifically allow multiple rotates provided the number of guns in a quadrant rule is not violated.

 

I think Greg is right, that's a clarification justifying two guns in a quadrant. I also agree that rules are poorly worded on the subject. As far as US ships that wouldn't have them , all the older battlewagons (the pearl harbor ships) would have the ability to use it so the three turret ships would suffer. It's not like they don't have so many advantages already. An interesting debate and no doubt one that would end up in a eboard discussion, I'm guessing.

 

That's not exactly true. The NC CAN take advantage of the rule, just not as optimally as can the Nagato. For example, you could put a fixed sidemount in turret I pointed to the port side. In turret II, you could put a rotate. On the port side, you now have the ability to have two sidemounts, but your starboard side will only have the rotate to cover it.

Once again, not saying it's optimal, but it is possible.

 

In the MWC, the NC is over 720 ft, so it could use a single gun in both forward turrets, and have them both rotate together from side to side. Rick's new Scharny is setup that way, and they hit no more than a inch apart, so it should do well for him.

And the NC, has triple sterns, which most Axis ships cannot have, so it has a preceived advantage with the triples, every ship is different, they all have their advantages and disadvantages. Of course the ships I thought that it may help the most on the Allied side, was a NC, and a KG5, with the quad sterns, and a forward rotate. A Warspite with a 75 haymaker will be quite good.

 

Don's and mine are not quite setup the same, the wiring is a bit different. We will see which is more effective at the next battle.

Don's is wired so that his forward gun is always fired by the right button, and the stern by the left. I tried that during testing, but was not real happy with it, kept getting confused on which button to press, of course he has like 20 years or so in the hobby.

With mine I added a relay board, so that the right button when pressed fires which ever gun is pointing to the startboard side, and the left fires the cannon facing the port. For me I just think it will be easier to keep tract of which button to press when I want to fire the guns.

But we will see after the battle, and make a decission then.

 

"In the MWC, the NC is over 720 ft, so it could use a single gun in both forward turrets, and have them both rotate together from side to side. Rick's new Scharny is setup that way, and they hit no more than a inch apart, so it should do well for him. "

I don't think we can do that in our rule set:

The IRC rules list:

11. Authorized exceptions:

a. Any ship over 40,000 tons standard displacement or 60" scale length (in 1/144 scale) may cover all four quadrants with firing cannons.

b. Any ship over 40,000 tons standard displacement or 60" scale length (in 1/144 scale) may have one rotating turret with one cannon. When so equipped a ship may have no more than two side firing cannons, one rotating and one static, covering the same side quadrant.

The above means to me that only one rotate is allowed. So... perhaps a NC could rotate one forward gun (gaining one additional sidemount on one side) but not both.

Marty

 

"When I first got involved in the hobby, that exact interpretation was made to me; ie I was told I could not have a rotate in my Invincible because it was too short."

I wonder who made that rule interpretation? Actually, there was a rotate in an Invincible years ago that worked really well on Steve Bakers boat. He had two sterns and a forward rotate that switched sides about as fast as the ships in the video. Quite effective.

Marty

 

Here are 3 pic's I took.
Actual gears I'm using. These were made by Charlie at BC, he sold off the moulds, the fellow that had them decided that I could buy them from him, since I was pestering him to make me some more. He's getting old, and said he was afraid that his wife would just throw them away anyways when he passed.

Side shot, since the gear are a 1 to 1 ratio, I did cut the inside of the wood away so that the gear fit between the wood sides of the servo mount. I found that the wood was the perfect height for the servo with the gear mounted on it. The servo is not screwed down, just floating in the hole.

I was going for the simplest, and easest to maintain mount possible. You can see I had cut away a bit of the one gear trying to make it lift over the stern turret, to keep the barrel longer, but as Rick said, your only shooting a foot, cut the barrel off. He was right, keep it simple.

I used the grey pvp pipe as the outer barbett, with the white as the inside, added a layer of teflon tape to the outside of the white pvp, and she turns very nice, plus it filled the slight gap between the inner and outer barbetts. If you look real close you can see the little black hair band I took from my daughter to act as a tensioner to hold the gun down at 20 deg.

 

A nc could have two front rotates but would only be able to fire one gun because the other would not be a "static" gun. You could have two firing on one side if one was fixed. It's a slight advantage over the norm.
I think the wording here needs to be cleared up. If this is to clarify one rotate and one static per side shot (2)

B. Any ship over 40,000 tons standard displacement or 60" scale length (in 1/144 scale) may have one rotating turret with one cannon. When so equipped a ship may have no more than two side firing cannons, one rotating and one static, covering the same side quadrant.

b. Any ship over 40,000 tons standard displacement or 60" scale length (in 1/144 scale) may have no more than two side firing cannons, one rotating and one static, covering the same side quadrant.

 

What if you rotated the triples off the back of a Sodak
Hmmmmm.

 

NC is actually long enough to have two guns in the same quadrant, provided one of them is a rotate and the other is fixed. With only one rotate, both of those guns would be live. It seems that Marty reads the rule the same way that I do that a ship can only have one rotate period. With several veteran captains are interpreting the rule different ways, so it probably needs to be clarified a little. My hope is that you are indeed correct Greg, as it allows captains more flexibility.

Marty-

As for who told me that it was Ken Kelly who said that. After he asked about it, I seem to recall asking about that on the email list and several captains cleared it up that the Invincible not only could have a rotate, that there had been at least one in the past built like that.

 

I really like his rotate set up, I think it offers an awful lot of flexibility.

I'm waiting for someone to build a Richelieu with all four guns armed in turret 2 in a rotate with a three position switch. Left has 2 guns disabled in, right has the OTHER two guns disabled...center position has quad bows.

That would allow twin sides on either side, but quad bows. 1 unit pump and a secondary armed as a stern gun. I dont think that's legal anywhere but treaty atm, but with all the interest in the French navy in treaty, it's only a matter of time until I have to deal with something like that.

 

The FN Gascogne I'm building is scheduled for triple sterns and a dual front rotating sidemount. It should be a pretty mean ship in Treaty.

I mentioned someplace else that when I built the Richelieu, the plan was to have both front turrets rotate from the sides to either left or right 15 degrees off the bow for a quad cannon setup. The idea was to angle in towards the target ship with quads blasting, then rotate each turret to the sides for dual sidemount while pulling alongside the target ship. I shelved the idea due to complexity, lack of time, and the turrets didn't rotate as free as hoped.

Of course, this would have only been legal in MWC.

Someone else mentioned using pivoting front turrets on a Richelieu. I like that idea a lot! One of the things I don't like about the Richelieu cannon setup is the compromise between sidemount angles and forward angled cannons. There are always situations where I could use a 30 forward angle on the cannons for approaching a ship. Then there are times I need 80 - 90 degree angles for pure side to side slugging. Pivoting turrets would let me preset and switch between angles for which ever situation I'm in. It would be simpler to set up due to less rotation required than a full rotating turret.

It's also legal in most formats because it is a pivoting turret in the same quadrant, not a rotating turret between quadrants.

So, do not be surprised when the Richelieu shows up at a battle this coming summer with pivoting turrets. Heh.

 

I love the pictures! Will BC make new molds?

 

This is for MWC rulesets, and should explain the logic behind my interpretation of the Iron Duke in question.

If I had a pair of fixed guns in different turrents firing into the same side (lets say port) but could only fire one gun at a time in a class 5 ship under 720', would that be considered legal under the "not at the same time" principal? Certainly not, I would have more than one sidemounted cannon covering a side. The words "at the same time" do not appear in the rules after "any specific side" leading me to believe that the intent was to have one cannon firing to each side. Period. Is that a very narrow view of the rules? Yes it is. Do I think that this particular ship will become some sort of super weapon with the current setup? No I don't. My concern is for my first example, that of the "At a time" syndrome. The question becomes, how quickly can I rotate the cannons from side to side and when does the speed of roatation become too fast? Instant transitioning between the two states (a full roatation) would clearly be too quick as it would be the same as a pair of fixed guns firing to the same side. Is one second for rotation enough? two? three? How and where cannons can be fired should be looked at over the entire range of motion of the cannons, if they have any. In regards to the Iron Duke in question, before the cannons move the stern sidemount is firing to port. After the cannons moved the bow sidemount is firing to port. They cannot fire to port at the same time, however they can both still fire to port. We can repeat this exercise for the starboard side with the same results. It is because of this fact that I see this particular rotation setup as a violation of section 7A and 7D. As I said earlier, I may be in the minority in my view, but I wanted to clarify why I maintain my position.

Second point, I would support a rule change to add "at a time" to section 7A. With those three words added, I would have no problems with the Iron Duke in question. I think Mr. Ranier has presented a fantastic case for working rotating and/or pivoting cannons to permiate the fleets. Clearly technology has advanced to the point that it is small and light enough to fuction yet durable enough to endure the stresses of combat. Innovation should be encouraged, that is how the hobby combats stagnation. However as the rules are written today, I view the setup as illegal for a ship in the MWC.

 

I have the molds, and I plan on just having BC make and sell them, easier for me. I plan on going to Rick's saturday, I will see if he has moulded any, he said he had planned to do some moulding this week if the weather was good, he hates the cold so he may not of got any done.

Now since a standard servo will usually only do 90 deg rotation or so, I also added a servo extender I found, that costs $9.99. From it I Y out to the 2 servo's that control the rotates.

Here is the link where I purchased it.

http://www.rcdude.com/servlet/the-1...her/Detail