2 Little Duke's sank a Yammer at Nats which had dual pumps! Come to the southeast regionals in NC in October Curt, will be warmer for you. We sank Mike's Erin this past weekend, can't help his pump stopped working, But he was suprised at all the holes I put into his boat. But I have to admit he put quite a few in my Duke too. Luckly most were above's. I sank Leaf's Bis last year one on one with my little Duke. He asked the second day, Dave can you please go shoot at someone else for a bit. Tonight I started working on my Radesky, it will be a great boat for convoy battles, can't wait to showup at next years Nats with it.
Heh. I put the Erin on the water without a working pump and still managed to survive long enough to expend all of it's ammo. Between sorties, I fixed the broken pump wire and put it into the next sortie with a working pump and without patching ... the Erin didn't come close to even being in any danger of sinking. Like dave said though, I do need to work on my shooting accuracy! On the little to big ship food chain, the Verite used to rule the pond for manuevering around the bigger ships. Not any more! Tim Krakowski's little Mississippi/Kilkus can turn circles inside the Verite's turning radius. Watch out for that ship!
I like that the little ships are making waves these days. Great to see. I enjoyed seeing all the class 4 and 3 ships at IRWCCC Nats. They looked like they were having too much fun. Hope to get to the next Nats with VDT along with my buddy's Konig and GF's VU .
Well I had an excellent opportunity to sail Bismarck and try out the new drag discs today along with sailing Yamato. Unfortunaly none of my recievor battery packs were charged!!!!! What a wasted day. I been waiting since August to get the ships out for sailing at a particular lake but with life intervening, weather and getting the right day off for it it came down to this today. Arrgghh!!! Well I took the ships back home. I pulled out Bismarck's internal armor which showed many bb dents and also lots of pentrations through the armor. It looks like it held up but it appears that someone's guns were firing too hard. Looking at the balsa sheeting from the inside out I was actually surprised at how much little damage there was below the spinter belt but the area above the armor belt to the deck edge was riddled. I could sand the sheet and replace a couple of panels but I think I will just reskin the entire hull. I removed the waterchanneling and the internal components. Bismarck will go for a refit/ repair for a possible trip to Nats in 2012. That is if the Missouri doesn't work out. Improvements will be to modify the cams on the firing servos so that I can fire faster. Add a redundant or back up pump switch and install a electronic water sensor for the pump. Better internal armor protection. Better waterchanneling. And make small improvements to the internal systems here and there. The good news is I won't have to scramble to get the ship down to speed and fabricate make shift drag props. I have properly made drag discs which I can remove. I'll keep the large prop and Jim Pate Style rudders as I got fantastic maneuverabilty from it. The firing barrels from the dual sidemounts will be cut down to scale length and reinforced to keep the barrels from being knocked around. I may make a change to the armament style by setting up D turret as a dual range gun stern gun, make instead of a single and make A turret a single sidemount. Just thinking about it for now. However I was very pleased with how the aft armament performed . Yamato will be reskinned too during 2011 and refitted inside in case I decided to go to Nats with it in 2012. Curt
Sounds like what is happening with my bis also. The internal armor on mine is good, I use a material like termite armor. It is a bit heavy but I have never been shot through. I decided to rework the guns and am running three off the back (y arrangement 15') and two and one in the front. I found the undefended rear portion of the ship to be a disadvantage. Pump has a backup autoswitch and all systems inside have been cleaned up a bit. Next project is back to my Arizona. I'm gonna bring it up to speed with improvements I made to the Bis and duplicate the delta mag switch/pump/autopump arrangement. I guess I should make up some more drag discs as mine were all lent out at Nats. : 
Looks like we thinking alike there Rob with the gun arrangment. Paul Mckinnon used a shower curtain wrapped in duck tape I believe and he had no penetrations. Best of all it was easy to slip in and secure.Simple but effective. I just tested out my batteries and their fine. I think I have a bad connection somewhere in Yamato for when I turn on the switch I get the ususaly servo movement at the start but right afterward I try to move the servos and none are responding. I hope the receivor is fine. Well more reason to do a refit of Yamato's internals. It's been 8 yrs since I looked at the receivor. Rob I believe I had some of your drag discs. Thankyou for loaning those to me. They helped bring the speed down. I 'll bring plenty of spares for you when I go to Nats next time. Curt
It is been that long since the yammer had an internal refit? I just have to get the garage cleaned up a bit so i can go back to work on the Tennessee. The internals will be rewired. No more rats nest. On another Note the South Carolina will be coming down and will be coming out of retirement.I hope to get it on the water for next year. The PE definitely needs a re sheeting. Also needs a complete servo replacement.
I saw your rear guns on the videos of nats and was impressed on how many rear shots you landed. I fought a couple more battles and saw how many times people were on the undefended corner of the ship. I just redid the power connectors on mine so hopefully no power losses. I'm glad the discs were useful. I have a huge piece of plastic I cut them out of. Next time I think I will make some propeller shaped ones.
Hey Curt why not go with a quad stern with 2 guns at 15 degree off the centreline and 2 singles up front. Alot better protection and all around goodness.
I was thinking of that option as well. I was very surprised to find myself using the aft armament for offense and the dual sidemounts for defense. It worked out perfectly. The Allies were extremely persistent in coming up on my stern and maybe they didn't realize I'm a pretty good shot with the aft armament and didn't figure ther rounds were doing anything. Even if they weren't it had a psychological effect and many times you could see the ships just giving up and pulling away to find another target. Eventually they got around the stern but it worked out in my favor as the advantage was mine though they could shoot faster I was more accurate and dealing out double the damage in a broadsides. If Bismarck was able to carry just one extra unit I would use it as a dual haymaker 15 degrees from the stern centerline or a dual stern cannon. I was thinking of another option of going Duals in B turret, Duals in C turrent Haymaker stern and just have A turret as a single and D as a single 15 degrees stern. Death Y pattern kept the same but balance out the firepowre between both forward and Stern Arcs. What I like about 4 turret ships with many units is the options. I found out why Yamato isn't working. The Ballon that the receivor was in was basically mush. The Antennea on the back of the receivor the tool dip had cracked wide open. Not surprised I did have it kinked at an awful angle and it stayed that way for many many years. I guess with a half dozen sinks and rough water sailing , moisture finally got to the recevior. I started pulling off the old dip and will clean up the receivor. If it doesn't work no problem I have a spare radio. Looks like my entire fleet is going to be very busy right up to the end of summer. Least they will be all fresh.
I left the option to switch the duals in front from left to right depending on where I was seeing the most pain. I was thinking about quads in the back but I realized it would put the c turret inside gun right on the top of the d turret. That also made for a pain tweaking guns this year as I had a gun laying on top. The determining factor was the weight balance and room. I was running out of both at the back of the ship. There is something to try to fit the guns in and build the ship around them. I am coming up on round two with the Arizona.
That's what I was thinking too Iceman. I think I will leave the gun arrangment as is. It worked very well and I like it. Well I took apart the receivor for Yamato and found non corrosion. THe waterproofing was still intact. I think the receivor is just dead. I tested my other backup 2.4gh spectrum receivor and 3 servos worked. The throttle servo didn't work and one of the gun firing cams worked but not so great. Also I noticed the poppets had no snap back to position when released from depression so they need to be lubed up. Looks like it's time for an internal overall of the electrical system and co2 systems. Not bad though the ship saw 2 Can-nats travelling back to Nova Scotia and has seen many many runs many of rough water cruising so I am not surprised. Seems with the hard use I get about 6 to 8rs of good use between refits.
At least you got life out of them. I saw my poppets stop returning after firing also. The speed and reliablity thing might turn into gun boards.That's what happened with mine. Now the poppets are my pressure blow off when I drain the system.
It was a pain putting Craig's quad in his bismarck but once in they were amazing, and easy to use and nobody can up on his stern for fear of death. If you were using your side mounts as a defencive weapon I would drop it down to a single in a and b and the quad stern for maximum effect for you cannons.
I remember the pain of installing those and I found that once they got around the stern quarter and alongside the ship was too vulenrable and with too much target area. I was fortunate I had combat expereince with Bismarck for 9 yrs before I sold it near the end of 2002. What sold it for me was taking out a panel in the NC at Nats and watching the Sodaks take a list after a sidemount exchange. The Saratoga didn't fair too well after dumping both sidemounts into it. I was able to use it well to defend succesful on 3 occasions and survived but the 4th time I was able to defend but it was too late for Bis as it sank. The set up back aft is easy to deal with with just 2 single cannos then 4. I also feel good that in a sidemount exchange unless it's a Richy , Yammer Or Moe, the rounds are hitting below the waterline and causing major damage. Now that being said the stern single haymaker landed a lot of belows very well in fact in the One on One it's what put my score way ahead of the NC, mostly the hits I scored on NC were below WL single holes. NC outshot me and landed tripples everwhere but where it counted and only scored 240 pts. I think the arrangement works well for now. If I go with duals in the stern it would be most likely dual stern D turret though I found based on my experience with this it was great for hitting but didn't have the same kind of effect as dual sidemounts.
I can't say enough good things about my d turret. (others can't either) they're the closest to the water and deadly. having either dual up front will keep people guessing
Some gun setups are better than others, but then it really comes down to how you fight your boat I think, some like to hug, others are snipers, so the gun setups will be different. After I decided that the Duke was a hugger, and clubber, since I could not outrun most the fast Axis boats, or out turn the slow ones, I reinstalled my guns taking advantage of the casemates on the Duke, and for a class 5 boat I think it is the best gun setup available. Plus she is very hard to sink.
Looking forward to one day "Duking it out" with the Iron Duke. Your right though it still comes down to how you play your gun setup with your ship. I can go either way , close in or snipe or combinations . Keeps it interesting.
BTW djranier. I am building another VU for RC Combat. Need to help Mr. Mckinnon get some revenge going. The indignity of being flagged as an Allie ship with a dead fish..err Shark on the bow as a Allie Mascot is unforgiveable.
