With the rule proposal made at NATS, I'm seriously considering building an ACR as my backup boat. Strike has the plans available for two of the impacted ACRs (Tennessee and Blucher), if they ever get back to printing. they're Goff Plans. Taubmann's has them as well, but their new ordering system is weird and glitches out, so I haven't been able to order them. Does anybody have a PDF of some plans for the ACRs impacted by the proposal? those are: US: Tennessee (ACR) DE: Blucher UK: Minotaur RU: Rurik JP: Kurama I'd heard @Nate G has a TN plug? and Will T. is looking at doing something with Minotaur. Granted, the proposal may or may not pass on the 2021 Ballot, but if it does, I think Armored cruisers would be a fun little boat to run with that half-unit sidemount, and they could be a decent beginner boat (affording the novice enough firepower to have fun, but not enough to get themselves in trouble)
that the 3.5 unit armored cruisers with a beam over 73' be allowed to have a single half-unit sidemount. see above list for affected ships. In other news, I heard back from Taubmann's and am hoping to get some plans on order. and @Beaver shared a source for Tennessee plans: https://maritime.org/doc/plans/index.htm but my question still stands. If the rule makes the grade, it'd be good to have some plans available, and possibly some plugs if there is enough interest.
Yes. I will start a thread as soon as I can find the pictures. I experimented with this class more than 6 years ago when brushless was relatively new and had some ESC issues that should be easily fixable with today's gear. My mold gives a smooth hull and the various features can be added with molded components or dowels depending on how much detail you wish. My USS Charlotte is in the box in my loft and should be refitted once I get current battleships put back together for battle. The mold is in great shape and I used plans and lots of pictures on the net thanks to her history of being run aground in Santo Domingo by a "tidal wave" and photographed by the Navy as she was deconstructed. there are also excellent detailed models of her class in marine modeler sites.
Thanks Nate! Say, if you're at any point interested in making a few hulls with that mold, count me in please!
Will do. I have to see if I can do producton or if I should "farm it out"/sell the mold. we shall see.
No worries either way. I'm going to see about doing a Blucher Plug this winter too, but priority will be toward getting *an ACR* ready for action by next year I have both TN and Blucher plans en route from Taubmanns. But I'm really hoping somebody gets Kurama and Minotaur plans up as well. the Japanese pig boat looks like it can turn on a dime, and the Minotaur's gonna be a beast. I'm betting Rurik will be similar to Blucher, given the length
Those armored cruisers are certainly interesting. The Blucher has lots of options for armament, a raised forecastle to improve seakeeping, and lots of hard area from armor belt, casemates, etc. The Tennessee also has lots of casemates for hard area if you want. Drawings show its armor belt at the bow and stern right at the waterline, but I cannot tell from my brief google image search if it had an external armor belt that gets a stringer or not. Warrior seems similar to Blucher, but with single turrets instead of twins. The inclusion of a 1-unit pump vs the 0.5-unit pump commonly found in predreads improves survivability for rookies, too. I cannot tell you how much trouble I had with the 0.5-unit pumps in my Deutschlands the first few years I don't know how much time I'll have for new construction over the next few years but I really hope this proposal passes.
Hey So Taubmann's crapped out on me. they won't even respond to my emails now. That being the case, I'm working on a set of plans/ Fusion360 file with @bsgkid117 for Tennessee that I will make available open-source here as soon as I am done. Seeing as how it's been a monstrous pain to get this class of boats on the water, I think it's time we start pooling our resources. I have Tennessee in the bag. consider it done, I'm enjoying this little project. the boats we need Deets on: DE: Blucher UK: Minotaur RU: Rurik IJN: Kurama If you guys have any ganky old plans, or *anything* that could help to build a set of plans for these boats, I'd appreciate if you'd share them. I'm sure we can find somebody with Fusion360 experience who'd be willing to take on the project of using them to produce an operable set. these suckers would make a great beginner or backup boat, and if we have open-source downloadable plans for the entire line of sidemount-capable ACRs, I think it'd be a great thing.
I could do Blucher plans.. It wont be till late winter or early spring though. Need to finish my Derf and a few other parts/super structure requests first.
No worries, I have projects too. FYI, Bob H. got me a set of actionable stuff on Kurama. So I should be able to crank out both boats digitally this winter. hopefully. Ice Fishing is nice too. I'm doing pretty darn good learning Fusion right now. Here's my progress on Tennessee:
Tennessee coming along. Hoping to start getting the blueprinting stuff for the hull started here soon.
Do you ever have issues lofting with that many points? also, it is so fascinating to see everyones different methods of drawing a hull in CAD.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA do I ever! @Beaver and I were just laughing about how that latest salted nutroll of a lofting just went down. It literally looked like a giant ate the ship, then crapped it out as a twisted, mangled wreck. Don't presume I have any skill. I'm ridiculously incompetent at this. But every day I suck less! I spent about six hours today cleaning those ribs up.
Can I give some tips on how I do mine? On the origin, I make a center line and horizontal grid. Then I project that sketch into each rib section and set them as construction. Then I spline point on the intersection between the rib plan and my static grid. This way there are only 10-15 fixed points that align. Fusion will look for the closest spline point so having them match up gives it an easier time of finding a ‘matching point’. This also keeps the keel and hull half's (I do only half then mirror) on the same plain.
yeah That pic is old. I spent the other 8 or so hours yesterday redoing frames like that. Also making more frames. I managed to derive over 20 frames using the original nine the shipyard plans came with. It's astonishingly easy to spend 14+ hours tooling around with this program. Will T and Caleb have been talking me through, and basically every time I send them a screenshot, they're like "Aw that's right, we gotta teach you how to do (insert thing here) so you don't have to do it in that goofy way" Fun process. lots of repetition, good learning. But the one thing the team's concluded is that we have to put the TN to the test with @Nomercy at the sticks by luring @kgaigalas onto the water in his I-Boat with promises of easy points.
pictures, measurements and the hundred year-old shipyard plans. the plans have the location for every single frame annotated, so I just used that same number system. if you're asking re: lofting, I'm not Lofting anything, just coming up with a set of usable plans to publish here on the site. that way people can just grab them, print them out, and go about their merry way. I'm gonna see if the blueprint function on Fusion will allow me to set up the rib prints etc so that you can print them out on 8.5x11 sheets at home. I'll do the exact same for Kurama, and then once I learn enough about Fusion, I'd like to start building 3Dp models of them and leave those as open source on the site as well. BTW, in case anyone is curious, the Tennessee is COVERED with stringers and casemates. it's absurd.
Two frames down, 13 more to go you can already see the notches for the stringers that run the full length of the hull. This is probably going to be that one case where the American design is superior to the Axis, because I'm seeing hardly any such protection on Kurama. Speaking of which. I have a rules question regarding Kurama. @Kevin P. @Panzer or somebody who feels like giving me a hand with the rules, could you check something on this hull below? you see that raised forecastle? what counts as penetrable in this case? I remember the Baden was a Pain in the butt to get penetrable. is that same rule going to apply here? I just want to know so I can build the ribs etc properly to account for it.
(lol I just checked my most accurate plans for Kurama and it looks like she has a full length belt too! these things are gonna be hilarious)
