I really feel 1/4 inch Ball Bearings for Torpedos is a BAD Idea in 96th scale if you want it to be a ( Cannon ) based game. The problem is some one will do one of the Jap DD that is like 40 + knots and has 15 Torpedo Tubes and pull next to your ship and BOOM your on the Bottom ) The reason it worked in Big Gun is you really couldn't arm up a DD because of the size and CA's didn't really get that many Torpedo Tubes. Here is the deal for me ( Leave the rules as they are NOW ) lets make this a Main Gun ( Cannon ) game !! It's WAY more Fun running around shooting at each other with Mains only ... if we go to the Big Gun style of Torpedos one good shot and you loose a ship for the day and how much Fun is that.... I know water tight this and that but any one that has battled and sunk knows your ship just is not quite right after a sink.... Sharky
Oi & Kitikami had 40 torpedo tubes at one point, Jap light cruisers. Would be easy to build it 1/96 scale.
if you don't like it, stay with 1/144 scale BG, arming as much as possible is the whole point to 1/96, its that simple. If you can't take the heat, stay off the pond
I can't wait to see a fully armed Shimakeze scooting around the pond, it will be a nasty little bugger for sure
I can't wait to get a Kitakami in gun range of Nevada and vaporize a whole side at 6 feet with the main battery, followed by the secondary battery, and if they get close, my own torps below the water line will be fun While I respect different opinions, the beauty of Battlestations is that you get to arm everything, and run with scaled armor, speed, and rudder size.
Someone made a 30 tube Kitakami in the South Coast Battlegroup. It's possible, which I think it a potential problem for big gun clubs. The WWCC has limited the number of torpedoes to three per side (except submarines, which get maximum four tubes total). This allows little guys to play with the big boys, while not letting them get too powerful. I would suggest a wait and see attitude, becase, except for the New Zealand guys who aren't playing any more, nobody has yet built a gun armed destroyer in 1/96 and compared it to a torpedo armed destroyer in 1/96.
I agree with Tugboat and Gascan. Don't ditch the torpedoes quite yet. I've seen my share of main-gun-armed cruisers and destroyers, and I've seen my share of torpedo-armed cruisers and destroyers. I've even run a torpedo-armed cruiser myself, and talked with many of the skippers I know who did build main-gun-armed ships. The general consensus among gun-cruiser skippers was that you were better off building a battleship than you were building a gun-armed cruiser or destroyer. The small-caliber cannons simply could not stand up to larger-caliber cannons, and the people who built gun-armed cruisers decided that they weren't fun. On the other hand, the torpedo-armed cruisers faced the exact opposite problem. Having unrestricted numbers of torpedoes (ie allowing all 40 tubes on the Kitakami) and/or loading two balls per barrel (what the WWCC did up until this year) made torpedo-armed warships too powerful, and on the open pond the torpedoboats ruled. However, the WWCC also ran some experiments to find out exactly WHY the torpedoboats were kicking butt. A highly intelligent, dedicated group of individuals (gascan, me, and a few other club members) performed several very scientific studies evaluating the torpedo-cruisers, their weapons, their tactics, and their opponents. on the weapons experiment, it was clearly demonstrated that the practice of loading two balls per barrel significantly increased the probability of a 1 hit KO, also known as a "chunk". It was also demonstrated that, even with one ball per tube, an overwhelming number of tubes could also cause a 1-hit KO. The clever scientists concluded that the best balance between too little firepower and too much firepower was with the number three. Three torpedo tubes per side, maximum, with one ball per tube. This conclusion has been adopted into the club rules, and will take effect this battle season. I can't give the results before the first battle of the season, but I firmly believe that it will reduce the threat of monster torpedoes without making them completely harmless. The Tactics evaluation examined how torpedo-cruisers acted (and the results they achieved) when they were in groups or in singletons. When in groups of two or more, the torpedo-cruisers tended to single out one target and swarm it. Multiple ships would act in concert, feinting attacks until the defender pointed his guns the wrong way, and then pouncing. With two attackers, the defender had a very high survival rate. With three or more attackers, the survival rate dropped dramatically. When torpedo-cruisers acted individually, they tended to pick on the torpedo-cruisers of the other team. In fact, over the past two years, torpedo-cruisers have sunk more other torpedo-cruisers than any other ship class. That's really saying something. On the other hand, when individual torpedo-cruisers attacked capital ships, the capital ships almost always won. The only time that a capital ship lost a one-on-one engagement with a torpedo-cruiser was when the capital ship suffered multiple catastrophic pump failures. Lastly, the evaluation of the opponents who faced the torpedo-cruisers was not very kind to the opponents. The capital-ship skippers who faced attack by torpedo-cruisers never adapted their tactics to counter the threat of torpedo-cruisers. For two years, they consistently aimed their guns at other capital ships, often ten or more feet away, rather than attempt to shoot at an approaching torpedo-cruiser four feet away. They never attempted to work together to defend against torpedo-cruisers, either. When capital ships sailed close together, it was purely by accident and not for higher density of defensive fire, and I never once heard a capital ship skipper ask for help or attempt to communicate with other skippers in a team-play fashion. This contrasts greatly with the torpedo-cruiser skippers, who consistently called out useful information to other
Realistically, no one currently in Battlestations is building a super torp boat, we all want something mostly gun-armed, with torps for flavor. I am interested in hearing how the WWCC experiments go this season, and I'm fairly confident that we will hear about them well before any Kitakamis hit the water. It takes a lot of effort to build and field a 1/96 ship, I think everyone building one so far is building a specific ship that they want to see running beause it's cool. No fleets of North Carolinas or torp whores (got the term from a video game Another limiting feature on torps in BaS is: barrel length is regulated to within like 1/4" of scale length, and the launchers can't have the dramatic downangle seen on some of the big gun or WWCC cruisers that I've seen. The mount has to be mounted in the correct location, with scale looking launchers. One could theoretically have a 20-torp broadside, but not at a 30 degree downangle. (even trainable guns can't depress more than -10 degrees)
WOW !!! look what i started ) We have some good post's here !! and thanks for the WWCC report Kotori87 , Very Very interesting read and it seems things did get a bit out of hand with the Torpedos. The reason why i Posted this is that someone thought it would be ok to set in motion a rule change idea on the Torpedos when at this point NO ONE that i know of here in the US had Battled 1/96th at all?? I plan on building my ship per current rules and after reading the Rules on the Torpedos: B. TORPEDOES 1. Torpedoes are 1/4" x 'scale length' rods cut or molded to resemble torpedoes. All other aspects of construction of the torpedo are up to the captain. They can be of any material that is not harmful to the environment. 2. They must be fired from scale length torpedo tubes. 3. Torpedo tubes must be scale with regards to trajectory and elevation. 4. Torpedo propulsion can be CO2, compressed air, spring loaded, or electric. . 5. Reload time for each torpedo tube is 5 minutes. This is to simulate the time it takes for the crew to move another torpedo into the tube and prepare it to fire. (Example: If a submarine has four bow tubes and two stern tubes, it may only make four bow shots and two stern shots within a five minute period). If the real ship had 'one shot' torpedo tubes that could only be reloaded in port (such as PT boats), then the captain may not reload during the battle. 6. If the captain has to manually reload, he must 'call five' and when his time is up, return to harbor and reload. He is not allowed to dump water from his boat while reloading This rule does not apply to 'one shot' torpedoes. They may only be reloaded between battles 7. You can use no more torpedoes in a battle then the real boat carried. I figured it would take some serious R & D to get a working Torpedo running under the current Rules so i figured it would turn into a Cannon Game which was OK by me and fit's my current ship that i am building. Now if someone feels the Rules can just be changed WITH OUT some Battling under our belts in 1/96th to really see what works and what does not work than that's a shame. If a 1/4 inch ball set up for Torpedos is what is going to be written into the Rules I WILL Change the ship i will be building and go to a Kitikami or some other Torpedo packed FAST Destroyer or Light Cruiser. I will agree with Mark on 1 point and that 1/96th scale you COULD arm everything and that is Cool, BUT the whole: If you can't take the heat, stay off the pond thinking is what drives people to look for loop holes in the Rules or look for the Most Powerfull ship in that class. Then when they get that ship running 100% and start kicking ass ( and the guys that do this have unlimited CASH , TIME and SKILL's ) everyone starts crying how unfair it is to have a 40 Torpedo Tube ship with 1/4 inch balls. I'm not sure Mike Deskin with his French BC will be looking forward to fighting his ship ( 8 1/4 inch Main Guns ) against 40 1/4 inch Torpedo Tubes ) any one ever pull a 80 pound ship form the bottom of a pond ?? I will close with this, lets keep the rules AS IS on Torpedos and AS IS on everything else... get some battling under our belts and see if changes need to be made ( I'm sure there will be some fine tunning ) and IF we feel there is a need to use 1/4 inch ball instead of what is current in the rules than lets use the R & D of other Clubs like WWCC to help us find the perfect balance. Tugboat i guess we need a Rulling on this since you have put alot of time in on the Rules. I'm in Ohio close to Mike D and plan on running and battling my ship this year in 1/96 with him and i think their are a few others in Ohio as well BUT i could do a different ship at this point and not loose alot of time so clearing this up is important to me. Sharky
read the torp rules again. 5 min reload time, not 30sec. like the other BG clubs, also ships can only carry as many reloads as the origional so what is the problem of giving capt. the choice between using the scale rods or BB? some people don't have access to the equipment needed to engineer the scale rod TT's while building Arizona style launchers is a lot easier to build and cheaper. I don't see a torpedo boat being too powerful, so what if it has a zillion TT, it goes out and pops its wad on a ship and then it has to run away from every other ship for the rest of the battle. now also keep in mind that most people are building the big boys with the oodles (did I spell that correctly?) of cannons that go with them (myself included). the only ships I think that the torp rules have any real effect on that are being built are the destroyers (which only carry so many torps) and the I-400 subs that I'm building (and yes I'm using the scale rods in the subs because I do have the access to the right equipment). the BB TT's are there to level the field $$$ wise and tech wise. on another note as soon as I have the time and the repeating torp launcher is perfected I will make the plans availible to others and might even be persuaded to sell them at the cheapest $$ possible. I'm all for making every aspect of this hobby within reach of the average Joe, I would feel that not sharing new tech to be selfish and that it goes against the nature of the game. so with that said I'm finished with this thread, no offence to anyone
I can say for my part if we do not allow 1/4 balls my tashkent is for sale and I will stop building on the emile-bertan. With the main gun on the destroyers and most cruisers being bb's we will never see enough damage done to sink a ship with our rate of fire and the larger size.Verry few ships were sunk with 5 inch or 6 inch guns it was always the torpedoes.If a ship turns out to have a grossly unfair advantage because of large quantity of tubes we can then talk about limiting the number of tubes per side.I think right now we need to get ships on the water,not start woring about unfair advantage before the first ball has been fired
Why not compromise and just not allow the torpedo ships to reload their torp tubes? The fact is, most surface ships did not carry reloads for their torpedoes, with the Japanese being a major exception, and I don't think they even carried a full set of reloads. What the torpedoes SHOULD be is your perfect shot big boom weapon. If the Capital ship makes a mistake and a destroyer/crusier gets a firing solution, then BOOM the capital ship pays. If the destoyer/cruiser MISSES, well too bad. That's how it really worked anyways.
I have a few thoughts on this matter. 1) We're all friends here, so everybody breathe deep and smile As far as modifying the rules prior to holding a battle, I wrote the torpedo rules prior to this, without a battle As far as I understand, we're going to have some battles, and look at how the rule set did. I'd be shocked if nothing got changed, really. But the first battles are planned for this fall (I think!), one up north and one down south. I might skirmish with Mike M (since we live relatively close together) to test some stuff. Suffren has 6 torpedo tubes, and I'm building the USS Nevada, so we can test theory to practice 2) Torpedoes were an integral part of naval combat for a long time. The Brits and the Argentines would argue that they still are (hasta la vista, Belgrano!). While I expend a certain amount of brainpower (not that I've much to give) on electric torpedoes, I don't expect that initially most people will be deploying such things. 1/4" balls are an acceptable substitute, subject to revision if it gets out of hand. I personally am building the type of ship most hypothetically vulnerable to a torp whore... a slow superdreadnought. I have no dog in this fight so to speak. 3) I think that allowing torps to be mounted (of either flavor) will give the destroyer and cruiser captains a chance to 'play with the big boys'... get a chance to see what the defense of Taffy 3 was like for the American DDs and DEs, only with a chance of injuring the enemy. 4) Most destroyers and cruisers didn't carry 40 tubes. A few carried more than 8, most had one 3 or 4 tube battery on either side, or a battery located amidships. Like I said above, I want to see what comes out of the WWCC's torpedo experience this season. 5) I am still wording the rules revision that applies to ball bearings, which will then be posted for a comment period and changes made. I am not a dictator of the rules, just helping the club out So here is a proposal, chew it up, spit it out, let me know what you think... 1) Ships that want to arm their torpedo tubes must have their main gun armament armed. 2) Ships equipped with torpedo tubes (except submarines) may arm up to six(6) tubes per side, or up to 10 tubes if mounted centerline. /this allows most Japanese ships* their full battery, and I think all French, German, Americans, and Russians. I could be wrong, but I've only had one cup of coffee as yet./ 3) Submarines may arm all torpedo tubes as the deck gun(s) are considered the secondary battery of a submarine. 3a)For simplicity's sake, Surcouf is covered under rule 3. * I specifically checked: Takao, Mogami, Aoba, and Agano classes. Yes, Shimakaze, Oi, and Kitakami got left in the cold. I sowwy.
