Were there any ships back in teh day that were equiped with bow thrusters? I can't seem to find any history to them on the internet. I think a bow thruster could make a convoy ship more interesting to play with.
um... I recall hearing that certain icebreakers, minesweepers, etc. were equipped with bow thrusters. the aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was equipped with a pair of Voith-Schneider drives in the bow, for low-speed maneuvers in ports, etc. No major combatants got bow thrusters, that I am aware of.
I hope there is one that fits the ircw rules. I can only imagine the potential turning radius that could have for dodging pursuers. Note: I couldn't find any mention of bow/stern/docking thrusters on the carrier mentioned earlier.
Finnish Icebreaker Jaakarhu had a bow thruster, not sure of the horse poser it had. I've got a moould of her and have made the Jaakarhu for the AUSBG big gun combat. I have the bow thruster microswitched to the rudder, when the rudder goes to port the bow thruster pumps to starboard and vice versa, Running ahead she goes nicely, turns in less than 1 meter diameter and very difficult for warships to hunt. When stopped with the bow thruster on it takes about 1 minute for her to do a full rotation. She is a tubby little whale, funnily enough though when she goes astern and you put the rudder over she throws herself into doughnuts and you have to go ahead to stop it, then scoot away, have outmanouvered 2 BB's coming at me by going full astern, rudder over, whip into a 180degree turn then off again faster than a scalded cat can turn. AUSBG rules only say ships had to be originally fitted with a bowthruster to be allowed one and as it couold be used as an aid to manoeuvring then it can be in combat too.
