i have one question concerning the set up of cannon depression servos for a Richelieu, i didnt want to highjack the guys thread over on the yahoo big gun group so i thought i would ask it here, so when i start on mounting the cannons on my Richelieu, is running 5 servos off one channel with y harnesses for cannons depression ok or will i need a seperate battery to run the servos?
So you want depression on the rear cannon as well? I wouldn't bother, just set the rears at a fixed range and have them rotating.
I agree. Unless your guns are a mile high, there's no need for depression on a Richelieu's rear cannons, anyway. They're more of a fart-in-your-general-direction weapon for anti-torpedo-boat use, rather than a battleship killer that needs depression. That said, 5 depression servos at once is probably too much for the average BEC. You'll want to run a separate power source if you do that many, or build a rolling-bar depression mechanism for your cannons, to decrease the load on your servos.
haha, im just thinking of all the french insults i can use when battling, ahh, i can just see my self saying 'I fart in your general direction' every time i fire the rear cannonsnow all my ship needs is some farm animals and a catapult, if the rules allowed those sorts of things, anyway..... so you dont recon they will need depression, i was thinking that if i did have depression on them i could use them on transports and save the 1/4 bb for bigger ships, sort of like you would in real life, just use the gun approprate for the job, btw what does BEC stand for? and what is a rolling bar depression mechanism?
Not much point in using bbs against a transport, unless they're all you've got. .177" rounds don't have very good underwater penetration, and AusBG safety rules make this effect even more pronounced than in US clubs. The idea behind depression is that you're trying for underwater penetration, and mixing the two just doesn't make much sense. What bbs are good at is scoring above-water hits at medium to long range, on destroyers and cruisers trying to line up a torpedo attack. Destroyers and cruisers cannot afford to take very many hits, even above the waterline, because of their small size and low freeboard. While a battleship might not mind a dozen bb holes in the grey, a destroyer may actually sink from those same dozen bbs holes if there's waves on the pond.
whops, my mistake, the rears are 3/16 inch, so they will have slightly more farting power then .177 bbs now this is a bit off topic, so the bigger ball bearings get better water penetration?, huh i thought that a small projectile would have less water resistance, but then its got less mass, which i makes sence, plus i havent been to a battle so i dont realy know,
It's all down to velocity. Our US counterparts use a penetration test to determine how hard their guns fire, here in Aus, we have a legally mandated maximum velocity. The result is that our smaller calibers don't have the same hitting power. So you wont be shooting up any battleships with a light cruiser/destroyer's 3/16 cannon.
re: depression on Richelieu stern guns. Sure, you can, but it is just something else to break at a critical moment. The captain of the Mighty Mo in the NTXBG does not even have depression on his mains. Yes, you can maneuver under his guns if you are quick/good enough, but he handles all range issues with adjusting distance through his maneuvering. He has since become very good and subtle in his maneuvering skills - even won some awards based on this factor. He adjusts his depression the way he wants it before leaving port and knows exactly where the rounds are going to hit, relative to his ship. Just something to ponder. Cheers,
that sonds like a good training exercise for first learning how to manuver an armed ship in combat, i will keep this in mind when i first start battling, ill manuver as much as posible and try not to use the depression to much, so that i can get the hang of it, very good tip there
It's actually a very good tip overall, not just for rookies. I've seen boats with all the bells and whistles, armed with rotating/depressing primaries and secondaries, turrets poking out every direction, independent control of port and starboard throttle, automatic pump sensors, and even smoke generators and General Quarters alarms. I've also seen battleships with a single rotating (non-depressing) turret up front, and a single non-rotating turret in back, a simple Mtroniks ESC, and an on/off pump control. Guess which ships are more likely to break down and spend the day on the bench, instead of the pond? I keep records of which ships are most active and which ships are least active in my club, for our annual "most reliable ship" award. Since I started playing in 2004, only one battleship has won. Other than that, it's been cruisers (with non-rotating torpedoes) and one transport. I hope my battleship is the next "most reliable ship". I've even modified it to simplify it even further and make basic maintenance even easier. Even still, the odds of my very simple battleship winning the "most reliable ship" award are slim at best.
yep KISS is best, also i was thinking to reduce the load on the servos, could use a block and tackle, like on real ships, float-a-boat has some realy small brass ones, but again, this is waaaaaaaay to compicated and difficult to repair now back to my other question, what is a rolling bar depresion mechanism? proberbly simpler then block and tackle
Of course, you could use one of the small (standard servo size) 6 revolution sail winch servos that Strike Models sells to winch against a spring load. Or come up with a worm gear for the shaft to offload the servo load (a course thread screw with matching nut?) Some plumbing bits, like a 1/4" compression nipple might be easily adapted to such a use. Cheers,
Most cannons use flexible tubing as the joint between the barrel riser and the barrel. This works pretty well, but isn't perfect. The tubing doesn't like being bent, and the more you depress the guns, the more torque your servo requires. The rolling bar depression system replaces that flexible rubber tubing with a cylinder that rotates along the axis of depression. The barrel is stuck in the top, the bottom has an adapter to receive fast-moving shots from the riser, and and the whole system requires very little torque to go from horizontal to max depression. The downside is that manufacturing the rolling-bar depression system takes machine tools and a lot of skill, which is why most skippers use the rubber tubing system, instead. Here is a photo of the mechanism: The "rolling bar" is the white plastic cylinder, held in place by the gray PVC block. The barrels go into it, and the the entire system rotates smoothly around that axis of rotation. This is a basic example, but more advanced versions (and much more compact versions) move the rolling bar up and forward, so the axis of rotation is after the bend in the barrel. This allows a MUCH greater depression, but is extremely difficult to produce and can only be done on the largest battleship turrets.
wow, thats pritty cool, im guessing these are custom made for every ship? no supplyers of these things, but one question, cant i just use servos with more torque? or mix two channels so that i split up the servos going from the Rx, so they'er not all on one channel?
That's the most common solution. The cannon in the photograph was built almost 10 years ago, and very few have been built since. The general conclusion was that, except in special circumstances, it was too much effort for the benefits. Most cheap standard-sized servos are more than strong enough for a triple turret, or even a quadruple turret. Micro-sized servos, like the HS-82MG, are also popular choices, especially on more compact ships.
