Arming an Edgar Quinet

Thanks to rcaircraftnut and shipcrazy, I've got a French cruiser that needs to be weaponized ; )

I'm wondering what is the best way for a newbie to plumb and battle this boat. It seems to have been setup for dual sterns at one point. My gut instinct is dual bow guns but, I'm sure there's a good reason that I keep reading about dual and triple stern gun setups?

I'm wondering if it's worth the hassle to have each gun fire separately or just use one solenoid for both?

 

Each gun needs its own valve regardless of if they fire together or not. Bow guns are generally not a good idea as to fire them you are heading towards danger, and with an armored cruiser you don't have the speed to run away from fast battleships or other cruisers. I'd stick with dual sterns or at the very least bow-stern.

 

If you look at the spaces where there are gun barrels, ie dowels in the front, you will see that both ends of the ship are armed the same. The empty spaces in the stern are where I was going to put the cannons.

 

So I'm making progress but, it seems like I'm going to have add a "ton" of weight to get this ship to float at the waterline that is on it.
Even with a good sized 12v SLA battery in it for ballast, I still had to throw in a dozen 1/2"x4" bolts to get it close. I'd rather use the LiPo's I picked up but, it seems like I'll be adding dead weight if I do? The ship list for IRCWCC states 13.12 lbs. as the max weight, but I can't understand why building to the max weight would be desirable. Is there a minimum weight or an expected weight for an EQ ?

 

The lower it sits in the water, the less target area, more stable, ect.

 

The quicker it sinks, the worse it turns, the heavier it is... Just to name a few of the tradeoffs.

 

So I've kind of been procrastinating with building more cannons because I'm not sure how to get them to fit in the confines of an Edgar Quinet well : (
The cannon that Ming let me borrow just isn't going to fit in there. I've mocked up some all brass fittings cannons and they end up being too tall and awkward to remove with all the rest of the gear in there and I'm not sure how I'd tweak them without removing them. I'm curious how other people tackled this? Does anyone have pics they could share? I started drawing up an idea for a compact 3DP cannon, but I doubt I'll get those finished in time for the Battle for Ming's Moat Part 2.

 

If you want come down to the Moat (like now) and we will beat the crap out of it so it fits. That was only a sample from the stern of the Moo (it had plenty of depth) smaller can be made. Bring what you have and we will fix it.

 

The cannon in my Mogador is pretty shallow. You can see various pics starting on this page of the build. Ignore the plastic mag. It's an idea that hasn't panned out yet.

 

I got them to fit pretty well. I ended up digging out the foam and cutting out a section of stringer on both sides. On to the next challenge : getting the pump to fit someplace.

 

I think I need a clarification before I go any further with this build. A couple of the captains at Ming's Moat today questioned the legality of putting cannons in the bow or stern casemates under IRCWCC rules. One argument was that if the vessel had turrets then the BB cannons had to go in the turrets. The counterpoint was that if the guns in the casemates on the real ship were the same caliber as the guns in the turrets that it would be allowed. It was noted by Carl that there was a precedent for this but, I can't recall the name of the ship. I did find a drawing of the Edgar Quinet from the Marine Nationale that shows the turrets and the bow and stern casemates and specifies that all of them are "Cannon de 19 c/m." Based on that, it would seem that the guns in those casemates on an EQ are a part of the "main battery" and not secondary guns.

Rule 9 from the ircwcc website states :

9. Cannons shall be placed in the appropriate turrets or casemates occupied by the main battery of the ship being modeled.

a. Cannons mounted in turrets shall extend from the face of the turret in the same manner as the actual ship being modeled.

b. Turret barbettes shall be of scale size and shape and shall not be modified to increase the down angle of the cannon.

c. Turrets shall sit flat on their barbettes.

d. No cannons shall be mounted near the waterline or below the waterline.

e. Cannons may be mounted in the superstructure if the main turrets are physically too small to house the cannon.

f. Ships in Class 4 and above which had their actual main armament all located forward of their superstructures may use an aft secondary battery to mount a single stern cannon.

This is the pic but, one needs to download the high-res .tif version and zoom in.

Can anyone tell me what was done in the past and what is legal now for an EQ in IRCWCC?

 

I remember asking about 9d a couple of years ago and could not get a straight answer. I hate vagueness.

 

There were two Ohmahas that had casement guns armed in MWC like 5 years ago. As I recall Dave and don built them but they were too tippy to use.
Frank also had a Russian predread or armored CA that used casement guns.
All had the same Cal guns as main in turrets and casements.

 

There was a WW1 Scharnie at Nats 2011 that had its guns in the casemates, again using the same caliber as the turreted guns. Nobody had a problem with it.

 

My EQ is armed in that manner. Guns in the rear casemates.

 

Probably not because there have been plenty in the hobby, just not all at one time. Scharny WW1 comes to mind Ken Kelly built it for his son to run and it was very reliable, and he did well with it.