Age of Sail

Heh. Gascan qualified for Nuke EM, and I'm even smarter than him. Of course I'm going for nuke
In other news, today the USS Constitution circumnavigated the WWCC's Battle Pond. She started in the Axis port and ended in the Axis port one hour and fifteen minutes later, after visiting every harbor, point, and location of interest around the pond. Constitution skirted sargasso seas, dodged sea monsters, and weathered mighty storms to complete her voyage. And most impressive of all, the entire voyage was completed in manual mode and without use of her emergency motor.
I paid extra attention to how I used independent control of the foremast. What I found was that during a tack, I would actually brace the main and mizzen yards around first, and then the foremast. This would help arrest the ship's downwind turn, preventing it from losing ground by overshooting the desired point of sail. I know that this is contrary to historical practice, but it provided better results in this small scale than the historical practice of bracing the foremast first did. I did very little wearing, but I confirmed that my previous statement about squaring the main and mizzen during the downwind turn is correct.
I cannot wait to begin construction of my 1:48 scale USS Constitution. It will be interesting to compare how the handling changes when I go up to a larger scale. But gosh darn it, I've got to finish the Mikasa first

 

I commend you on your endevour to bring the age of sail to life, I would very much like to build a tall ship myself, thanks for all the info you posted during your pioneering of the sailing combat. Good stuff!

 

I've been looking at my nice shiny new set of 1:48 scale USS Constitution plans hanging on my wall, and thinking about how to arm it. Or more specifically, how to usefully arm it. My experience with chibi-Constitution has been that the ship spends almost its entire time heeling somewhat, so I plan to make big Constitution have as wide a range of both elevation and depression as possible, and use some sort of auto-leveling device to prevent her guns from aiming above the horizon. I've got some ideas, but I've got a few other details to determine before that

The fact is that I have only a theoretical knowledge of how Fast-Gun style cannons work, and no practical experience whatsoever. I have no real idea how much barrel length, riser height, airflow, etc. is necessary to get a decent result. I'm not looking for UbeR-pWnZoRz-sidemounts-of-DOOM, but I do want to be able to hole my opponent when I hit. Looking at the plans, I am distressed to find that I only have a beam of 10-point-something inches. This places a hard limit of 5 inches from tips of barrels to backs of cannons. Less than that, if I want room to place a CO2 bottle amidships. I also have no real idea about CO2 consumption. How much gas would I need to operate all twelve 50-round guns that USS Constitution is allowed? Can I run one long accumulator and have all the firing valves branch off from that, or are separate accumulators necessary? (remember the 4-second ROF)

From a tactical standpoint, my goal is to have my guns aimed a few degrees below horizontal at all times, no matter how far the ship is heeling. Thus, if I am downwind from my target I can shoot farther because my guns are higher, but when I'm upwind I'm more likely to put holes closer to the waterline because my guns are lower. I also haven't decided if I want two stern chasers, one bow and one stern chaser, or a full six-gun broadside. Battles will most likely consist of ships "climbing" upwind to gain the advantage, then "diving" downwind to make attack runs on less handy ships. With a nice breeze blowing, it will be interesting to see whether the ship with more sails set (faster, but more heeling) will have better overall results than the ship with fewer sails set (slower, better gun platform).

 

Oh yeah, one more thing. Gascan and I discovered a very interesting ship, HMS Java. If anyone wants a truly generic ship, HMS Java is the way to go. She started out as Renommée, a standard French "forty-gun" frigate. In actuality, she carried closer to 50 cannons, putting her in the same class as USS Constitution and other heavy frigates. Like many French frigates, le Renommée was captured by the British and bought into their navy as HMS Java. Like many British frigates, HMS Java was then captured by the Americans. Alas she was too badly damaged to be repaired and put into service by the Americans, but I'm quite sure with a little creativity an enterprising skipper can come up with an American name for the ship.

Perhaps most interesting of all, I have some nice digital plans for HMS Java. Since she was originally a standard French frigate, one of her sisters can be found in my French plans archive as L'Armide. Tugboat, I bet you've got these plans in your collection too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Java_%281811%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallas_class_frigate_%281808%29

 

Gascan has asked me to build him another 1:96 scale USS Constitution, to be ready for the WWCC's annual campaign game on labor day weekend. It will be an improved version based on lessons learned from the original. Most importantly, it will be designed to be easily disassembled and transported. I might also be doing a 1:100 scale HMS Victory conversion for another WWCCer, as well. So Tugboat, the race is on. Who will have an RC square-rigger in SC first, you or Gascan?

 

Just to keep everyone inspired, here is a thread someone posted about building a 1:50 scale Santissima Trinidad, almost the same size as the ships we'll be (or are) building.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1213742

 

Impressive and very neat.

 

Got a little video of my own here, HMS Victory sailing in light airs:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgHGXCpgjEk

 

That Santissima Trinidad is absolutely gorgeous! Pity the builder had back surgery that knocked him out of the game... but good heavens, what inspiration!

 

Hi from Canada
Big sail fan
I've built a 3 foot long frigate that sails and fires (don't laugh) a broadside of 4 spring loaded bb's - only once. Also has two bowchasers.
It's a lot of fun to sail and it has a one time emergency use anchor in case it's blowing out of range
But this idea of sinking another ship is neat.
My two boys are just getting excited about rc stuff, and this might blossom. One idea I had for retrieval is to set up barrels and crates on deck
that would float, but which would actually be long lines anchored to the keel - for pulling your ship off the bottom of the pond!

I won't be joining any clubs, but I'm wondering how to get a servo to fire a bb cannon?

 

Here's a little vid of my ship-sans-guns.
Copy and paste . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZpLwHuKUZk&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

 

Ahoy there tclark, very impressive! It is great to hear from others who enjoy the fine art of square-rigged sailing. Gascan and I just took our two square-rigged ships, USS Constitution and HMS Victory, sailing together for the first time on Sunday. It was a most interesting experience to finally have an intelligent, mobile opponent to practice combat maneuvers against, and it gives me much hope for the future of this variant of the hobby. Not only is combat possible, I now believe it is quite practical so long as there is wind to sail with. Alas it is late, so I will write more, and hopefully post a few iphone pictures, tomorrow.

 

Wouldn't say no to a UK subforum lol
Might push me to find more people over here who might be interested in joining, lol.

Daemon.

 

I did a quick search with "age of sail" and found a few that would go nicely in a new sub-forum, mostly old stuff though.


Back to something that was said earlier in this thread. If the guns on the broadside were hinged near the front and linked to a weight,possibly the battery on a fore/aft pivot rod then they could be made to stay level as the ship heels. The weight would swing and lower the guns. You could put a small shock absorber from a RC car to control the speed of the tilt.

Thoughts?

 

I think the gimbled cannons are the trick - I've sailed my square rigger for a few years now, and the heeling factor is always present. How would the rotation work with all the gas lines and tubing below deck?

 

It wouldn't work, but mainly because you would need to have slits for each barrel running up the side of your ship, or you would have to pivot at the hull, which is impossible without an external counterweight.

Daemon.

Ps. Anyone else seeing 2 of this thread in the subforum?

 

I'm looking to put my cannons on the deck, not protruding out the side. So a foster breech mounted to the top deck of the ship could have a wider through-hull opening with a pivot point on deck where it would accomodate heeling forces. But I've never used these guns, so I don't know how loose the lines are below decks. At best, the weather side of the ship could only hope to fire horizontally, but this is age-of-sail appropriate. Maneuvering with wind - even with only a puff - while strategizing your gunnery to the elements of water AND WIND . . . that's what I'm interested in. Forget propulsion I say. And as Captain Aubrey would say (from Master and Commander): "Fire on the up-roll!" The winning captain is the one with the most seamanship. My sons are about the age to start construction on their topsail schooners - and then a fleet we shall have.