Blucher v. other ACRs

In reading "Castles of Steel" last night, there was a fair description of the Blucher, and her departure from the standard ACR model. 12x8.2 inch guns or something, nearly Battlecruiser sized, she seems to be a pretty remarkable little ship. too bad she was with the 1st Aufklarunggruppe as the most diminutive member rather than the core of the 2nd, or better yet, conducting mischief with the East Asia squadron or something, but given her size and comparatively immense capabilities, I'm surprised she's not featured more with the advent of ACRs and PDNs in the hobby.
Those wing turrets would make delightful 15 degree psuedosidemounts. I imagine with those advantages, the half unit gun rule, her increased length, and increased speed, she'd be like the Coors Light Nassau.

Not the most fantastic boat in the world, considering the Nassau's inherent advantage is her low, highly maneuverable, bathtub hull. But *if* that measure passes for a backup cruiser in the ballot, it'd be sweet backup for a Nassau driver.

But in comparison to other ACRs, she seems like an utter beast. Has anyone an active Blucher? How does she measure up in, as Kevin so eloquently puts it, the real world and not the typed world?
How does she stand against other ACRs? too big to fight them on the pond, or what?

 

Also. if anyone's curious about plans. Strike has Goff plans, and apparently so does this website. Has anyone dealt with Taubmann's?

http://www.taubmansonline.com/GERMAN-144SCALE.htm

 

I think she could be viable, would not have the same elusiveness of a sms scharnhorst or nassau. Armored cruisers haven't been too popular so there aren't many points of comparison, I'd say that Scharnhorsts have been the most popular AC and can give more damage than they take, but the upside on effectiveness is pretty low. Like most boats, it would depend most on the builder, captain, and tactics vice on the specifics of the ship. As others have said, there are captains like Tim, Jeff, or Charley that could put guns on a loaf of bread and kick everyone's behind.

I think there would be potential for guns in the wing turrets, downside would be that it would have a good deal more target area than the more common boats with that setup and could get in trouble if the enemy can work together at all. The ram bow is also a concern for me, since to use the forward wing guns as sidemounts typically requires ramming the target first, so if they are glancing blows you can get away with it more than with a traditional ram bow. If someone made a hull they could probably sell a few, would be an easier build than a predread (hull volume wise), but no real sidemount.

I'm trying to remember my thoughts about Taubman plans, I think they are a slight step up from Goff, I know I have some somewhere (too many sets of plans). Really just depends on how good the hull sections are, might need to do some interpretation to get the hull to look right

 

The model, like the original ship, falls into a strange region of the rules. The real ship was designed as a response to the Invincible, before the Germans knew what the Invincible was actually capable of, and so she was no real match for the more powerful British battlecruiser. Her fuel demand made her unsuitable for use on foreign stations, and her relative uniqueness made her unsuitable as a lead for a 2nd squadron. The model suffers in many similar ways. Being an armored cruiser, she is not allowed any sidemounts. Given her relative size, that's also a lot of target area to be lugging around for the number of guns you're carrying, and the forward wing turrets are not all that useful, as Kevin has pointed out. Against other armored cruisers, she is larger, sluggish, and less maneuverable, and against heavy cruisers she is slow. It is still a very pretty ship, and could be made into an effective battler, but it would take a lot of effort for the amount of firepower you get.

 

yeah I was wondering about the effectiveness of anything on the bow with that much area exposed. but from what I have seen, she has a fair amount of hard area mid and aft. *If* I were to build one, I would at best put the half unit in one of the forward facing turrets and use it with standoff in mind, like chasing a boat on five or some other task where there is minimal steel coming back at that big billboard of a bow.
Those stern wings would be nice for rear-facing psuedosidemounts. Yeah it stinks a *tiny bit* that the Blucher doesn't get true sidemounts, but I see her value as a second-string ship, and as a way to get a bit of variety as a backup boat. Hearing people say "Well, that's different" is a good thing to me. especially in the midwest sense of the phrase. It'd be boring if everybody used the same five or six boats.
In an interesting note, Blucher, like the American ACRs, meets the width requirements of the PDN sidemount criteria. That goes nowhere at the moment, but it's interesting.
I'd really like to see Scharnhorst and other ACRs go up on the "Stem to Stern". Well, I'd really like to see a TON of things go up on "Stem to Stern", but in this particular instance, the ACRs would be handy, just to get a better idea of the utility, layout, and impressions of these little buggers. I found some 1/350 models of the ship online, so it'd be a good sanity check to have sitting next to the plans. Kevin, whenever you get that recollection about the quality of the Taubman plans, hit me up. Those guys have a ton of 1/144 combat plans and it'd be nice to have something better than the Goff plans. Yeah, I'm not the most "scale" guy in the world, but I ran into some spots where the Goff plans *DID NOT MATCH* Mark Jenks' hull (most annoyingly, C turret and the mainmast), and there were several spots where the lines were shoddily done.

 

Wing turret stern guns are more of stern guns then any type of sidemount. The geometry usually doesn't work to be able to reliably get them on target if you want to hit a boat along side. This is a case where the argument on the internet is strong, but doesn't work too often in practice. If you value splash-making ability over hole-making ability, then they can work great. As stern guns, you can usually get them to hit at or near the waterline at the stern of the boat. They can be effective in that arrangement. I use dual wing-turret stern guns on Rivadavia for several seasons, and they can do damage, but I would by lying if I said they could be considered any type of sidemount-proxy. If I was going to arm a Blutcher, I would use dual guns in one of the wing turrets, and a single gun in another, probably aft facing. Going up against allied billboards makes it much easier to score points then going up against axis submarines. I'll check my stock of plans to see if I can locate them. It might be the set of Tiger plans I have, which I think are not-bad

 

Ah yes, the magic of the digital world. I've been wondering about the effectiveness of Steve's AA cruiser psuedos for a while, given their angle of attack, and especially after his experiments. no rush on the plans BTW. I've got a Texas under heavy refit, and an Idaho in the pipe behind her, so at best the Blucher is an FY20 or FY21 consideration.

 

Maybe you could convince @Bob Pottle or @modelshipsahoy to make a hull, I know that Bob has a soft spot for armored cruisers

 

that's definitely an option. Personally, I like working with wood, and my workshop's literally my apartment's dining room, so any FB boat would have to wait until I moved. but if the demand were there, I'd definitely be fine with sending my copy of the plans to somebody who wanted to do a fiberglass hull.

 

If you build a wooden plug that’s on the lines and send to me, you get back a fiberglass hull. More details the better. Deck; Superstructure and turrets are a premium as my target market is the scale builders.

I have 25 plugs in que... no time for oddball plug building. Pulling molds costs me less time and money. I will do that for well built plugs.... send pics before plugs. Lol

 

At 3.5 units, I don’t see that having better appeal than the Florida at 4 units or Nassau at 4.5.

 

This boat serves a different purpose. As Class 3, it could serve as a backup ship in campaign battles and possibly in fleet battles if a rule proposal passes this year. In campaign Class 3 and below get unlimited reloads. Also both Nassau and Florida have 4 units, not 4.5

 

Thanks Kevin. Don’t know how I thought Nassau was 4.5. Feel much better about the Florida we will start production of Tomorrow... unless the FedEx truck crashes and burns.

 

Oh jeez, I hope Taubmann isn't selling goff plans then. I'll email them and check before I do anything. Also, anybody know who to hassle that has an armored cruiser?
I know there's a build thread on "how to build a ridiculously cheap boat" up. maybe one of them, I'll check if any of them still have theirs.

 

I think the RC Combat plans listed on Taubmans are Goff plans, so probably not the best available. I think Taubmans gets most/all its plans from elsewhere and resells them via its site.

Taubmans does have another listing for SMS Blucher Here:
http://www.taubmansonline.com/LWIBLUCHER.htm

Somebody here (@PreDread )bought them about 10 years ago and said they were good:
https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/putting-a-ship-where-my-mouth-is-1-72-sms-blucher.407681/

They are probably by Lothar Wischmeyer, though I can't be sure, but at any rate better then Goff plans.

 

yeah, they'd just have to be resized from 1/100. Which would be a pain for me living on the outskirts of civilization, but it's doable.

 

For your question about an armored cruiser build, I would recommend looking at builds for ships with similar dimensions, such as a predread or a class 4 dreadnought. The Blucher is really just slightly smaller than a Courbet (inch shorter, inch less beam, but 6 lbs lighter). Where the guns point is the only real difference between the builds

 

Oh, good point. Hey btw, how was it to mount the rudder post etc in that sharp pointy stern?

 

If you want a secondary ship with a side mount Radetsky is the ship to get. Very good turning just enough room and weight. I like mine a lot.