This is for discussing various and sundry adaptations of the various and sundry Big Gun rules sets, for us in the southeastern USA. Some topics that have been hit on are: What ships to allow on the shiplist, what sizes of projectiles to use, scale requiements, etc. I think a majority of the club (all 5 of us at this moment) have agreed that 'within reason', hypothetical ships are allowed, as long as decent plans and specifications are available. I would propose that modern ships be allowed to be built and battled, although the hitting power would have to be mooted about and agreed upon (i.e. what cannon represents a 61-cell VLS? What about the big ASMs on mid-80's Soviet ships?). We also had a discussion on simplifying the number of ball bearing sizes being used, perhaps adjusting the ROF as well (for example, we had talked about making everything from 76mm up to some size (8"?) a BB cannon. Maybe upping the fire rate for guns between 5" and 8" (to reflect the greater firepower without raising the projectile caliber) would be in order). Ideas? Anyone is welcome to comment, but the voting will be by BGSE members, down the line.
I have been using the WWCC ruleset as a guide as far as construction goes since when I started construction I was out in San Diego. I like the way they have it put together. Now all the Club president, officers and the likes things can surely be sorted out later down the line when there are enough people to actually need ruleing. But as far as construction goes I think that is a good starting point. As far as how to represent missiles and the likes... I agree with the purist... its about gunfighting. If you want to build a 500 foot DDG that has one 5", you are accepting that "hadnicap" as it were against sluggers like a Yamato. Most modern ships come equipped with ASW torpedoes. Vice the 19/21" ship killers the WWII boats carried they are normally 12.75". Reduce the caliber of round used for the lightweight fish and you still end up with boat that has got 6 torpedo tubes and a 5". Are you really going to fit much more into a hull that size? Alot of the Soviet boats had multiple guns in the 120mm range or better so its not that shabby when you look at them.
Doesn't WWCC allow an extra 3/8" depth on a hull? I usually go scale but I'm not upset if someone shows up with an extra 3/8" below the waterline. As long as it's _below_ the waterline
That would do interesting things to the handling, none of them good. I'm okay with it being optional, but totally against a mandatory extra depth requirement.
I agree with using WWCC's construction and armament standards as a starting point, since most of the BG ships in the area were built to that standard. Between just Gascan and I, we have four battleships, two destroyers, and a submarine. Now most of them need some work, since they haven't seen action in two years, but still. That's enough for a decent battle right there. An extra (optional) 1" of depth is very nice for the smaller boats. In fact, the intent of the original rule was to encourage the construction of smaller boats. And it doesn't have to be a full 1", either. Most cruisers I built had only 3/8" added. Only a few people went with the full 1" of depth. As Tugboat said, though, it's a trade-off. Extra depth means more space, more displacement, and greater stability, but you lose acceleration and turning ability. That trade-off is why the WWCC eventually ended up with two different groups of torpedo-boats, the battleship-killers and the torpedo-boat-destroyers.
My concern was that I'd heard that one club made extra depth a requirement so that the deeper boats wouldn't be at a disadvantage or something to that effect. I like scale, but won't lie... some of the tiny boats could stand a little extra depth.
Oh, that could be a problem. I remember when one of the SoCal guys went an inch deeper with a Tirpitz so he could get secondaries and torps in the thing. Optional depth. I'd hate to have to take on a handling disadvantage just so someone that HAD to do it could be treated "fairly". Why penalize the whole gang for a few that want to do something different? Smacks of feel good political BS to me. I remember comparing his Tirpitz to my H-39. Even though my designed tonnage was greater, my ship was to scale and reached top speed faster, stopped much better and turned tighter. Heck of a lot easier to retrieve, too. I could just imagine older gents trying to lift an unnecessarily heavy model out of the water, or hoist it from the mud where it stuck it deeper...
Well, in BGSE, the up to 1/2" of extra depth is strictly optional. I like to build scale hulls, but the lil tiny boats might could use it. But my cruisers and bigger are scale. A quorum of BGSE concurs so I think we're good on that. (That being Me, Carl, Eric, Ian, and James) (Haven't heard from Mike on it specifically*, but I think he's on board with it). *Mike just got home from deployment, so he's probably busy with family. Altho he DID come by to visit the shop! I should've shoved a hull off on him to lower the hull count, was too happy to see him to remember that I'm doing that. Heh.
