Understand that this is going to sound really harsh. Its not supposed to be mean spirited. It comes from a place of exhaustion. I hear this stuff probably 20~ times a year from countless different "visitors" who never end up actually sticking around. You don't know what we do, why we do it, or what its like. It's like trying to explain to someone who has never seen a car before how NASCAR works. If you want to actually battle boats, you would participate. If you wanted to theorycraft and TALK about how cool RC boats that sink each other would be...you'd have a lot of the ideas you have. There is a difference between people who actually battle boats and people who talk. Scale speed? You'd move at about a quarter of a mile per hour for a 33 knot ship. Good luck dealing with a breeze. Arm more guns? Its hard enough to keep 3 guns in a $1800 battlecruiser running, and you want more of them? Fishtail rudders and drag discs are a problem? Water doesnt scale, these items exist to combat the lack of scaling. Theres a reason why every format has drag discs even if they dont have IRCWCC-level oversized props and rudders. I would love to have you actually show up to an event so we could challenge some of these misconceptions you have about how our hobby works and why it has worked since 1978.
I've been to 4 events so far, 3 recently and one 10+ years ago. The one 10+yrs ago a buddy and I just watched. He stated some of these issues and hasn't been interested since (Yes, I invited him again, yeup-he wasn't interested, I'm sure if I forwarded your response He'd laugh and be EVEN LESS interested). At the 3 most recent battles, I've been fortunate enough to captain a couple of Kotori's ships and another members ship. All the guys I've encountered at these events have been great, willing to answer questions, welcoming. I built and flew a balsa and plywood, nitro powered (covered with monokote) R/C aircraft when I was 14 (Eagle 2 by Carl Goldberg), not the "ready-to-fly" easy button stuff that we have now. It was a blast. I've had R/C cars, trucks. Built and flown free-flight, rubber-band powered "balsa & tissue" aircraft as well. I work on my own vehicles, I've rebuilt an engine, replaced clutches, head-gaskets & timing belts. I ain't no "geek-off-the-street". If the speed really is THAT slow (haven't done the math), fine have ALL the speeds increased appropriately/proportionately. My point still stands, with a Shimakaze and/or Minekaze class there are VERY few ships that could catch me. ;-) Not all ships had the same speeds as their contemporaries in their respective classes. I know water doesn't scale, I know a "scale-sized rudder" would be less effective than it's real counterpart. I'm actually OK with that. But would also be OK with slightly scaled-up rudder and the same exact ratio for everyone/all ships. And yes, literally EVERYONE I have ever talked to about this hobby is IMMEDIATELY less interested when they're told that 90%++ of ships can't at least fire ALL of their primary guns. Sorry, but that's the truth. I guess you missed the part where I explicitly mentioned the difficulty of fully arming any of these ships. To be honest from everything I've seen here, this hobby has NEVER "thrived" and never will w/o a RTB kit. That's what R/C stuff is now. I was/am merely stating things that have bugged myself and others. I know certain concessions have to be made. For growth more "social media" stuff must also be done.
I'm friends with Kas and have been up there for a bb swap and to press the flesh last year the day before Nats (Been almost 20 years since I talked with Chris Pearce and we broke into the hobby at about the same time.). It was great meeting the new IRC guys and renewing old friendships. My preference is treaty style battling but never say never
NATs is in a week! You should absolutely come up even for a day. My most reliable ship is a mag throttle/poppit Des Moines, more than welcome to take her for a spin Would love to meet ya and show you the cool stuff we've been working on with the 3d printed ship kits.
I think we are on to something. Kits are going to bridge a large gap for new folks to get into the hobby.
Its hard to convince a captain to man the camera when he wants to battle, but we do try. The hobby doesn't really translate well into video without a lot of good editing. @Beaver has been doing a great job on that front with his amazing camerawork and youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RCWARSHIPCOMBAT Also, as a member of an R/C racetrack and R/C rock crawling competition club/scale club, the "Ready to Run" kits have 75% of the kit thrown away. The ready to run cars are expensive christmas gifts to be "played" with. The people who actually participate in races/competitions/etc would throw away 75% of the stuff in a RTR car. Thats why we don't buy RTR cars, we buy sliders (the term for bare chassis kits) and we build them the way we want them. Some even buy bare frame rails and go up from there. The best and brightest captains in this hobby, the smartest men I have ever met, can't keep their handcrafted top-of-the-line ships running. What makes you think an RTR kit would even function beyond the first sortie? Now this theoretical poor new captain has a $1200 broken R/C boat that he knows nothing about and can't repair. Who's problem is that? The manufacturer of the kit? What are johnnies parents going to do? Obviously call up the manufacturer. Let alone the amazing liability of manufacturing/selling a remote controlled device that is armed with pneumatic cannons. *ding ding ding* Welcome to why I don't widely advertise or offer my extremely newbie friendly ship kits to random blow-ins off the internet. Its not worth it. If a captain is interested in the hobby enough, I'll meet him (or her) in person, because they'll show up. Or one of the 140~ other model warship combat captains will put them in contact with me because they know about what I've designed and that I'd borderline give away an entire ship if it meant a new captain got to play. My kits include everything aside from the electronics and pneumatics. It is as comprehensive of a kit as I have ever seen, designed and built by someone who actually battles and has made the design choices a veteran captain would make. All your other comments about arming cannons, scale this, scale that, whatever. Build a boat, go to battles, come have a beer and we'll laugh about how you tried to fit 15 cannons in a Brooklyn, together.
The importance or RTR/RTF/RTB kits, it gives people a TASTE of the action, immediately (that's how you get people to stick around). Yeah, OF COURSE the people who are EXPERIENCED throw-away the old STOCK/OEM parts, that's commonplace progression for anyone that really enjoys ANYTHING like this. Did you know that with the internet/YOUTUBE there's LITERALLY THOUSANDS of VIDEO reviews for nearly every RTR/RTF kit out there in which people talk about the issues they did or didn't have?! A $1200 RTR R/C that doesn't work is GOING to get BLASTED in reviews and the company will be FORCED to fix it or forever lose business/credibility. In the age of the internet, businesses can NOT have crappy, expensive products and survive, the internet won't let them. Smart companies actually develop an upgradeable product that they and aftermarket companies can develop/provide upgrades for. 3D printed hulls will definitely give this hobby a much-needed boost. -I have no interest in a Houston but a 21 gun 1:72 or 1:96 Yamato/Musashi would be bliss.-
Yes, so you can battle all the other fishing boats in the pond. You've made my points for me. There's nothing of any value to be gained by entertaining this conversation further.
Hey so when that 1:72 Yamato sinks, it might be worth it to make it modular for easier recovery. a waterproof drill and SCUBA gear along with some form of inflatable CO2 floater system built-in to each of the halves would be far more practical than retrofitting a pontoon boat into a recovery ship with a decent crane. Mark had to do something like that with his 1:96 Hood just to fit it in the back of his car. Other alternatives would be contracting like a skycrane or something for boat recovery. but you need an experienced ground crew and the bird costs about $2400/hr.
Yeah, I don't actually want an almost 12' battleship that I'd need a modified jetski trailer for, LOL. I was merely stating a large ship in a larger scale would be "easier" to arm the primaries and secondaries. The skycrane in action would be fun though!
Have kids Only partially kidding... We've done robot fests, 4h fairs, tables at other model boat events. Honestly it takes a .0000001% type of person to seriously get into this, and then that person brings in 2-4 others who may have been friends/acquaintances/etc. Social media and video and whatnot can definitely help the exposure to try and find those .000001% types. But we have to keep in mind that today we have it so much easier in terms of finding the hobby, getting information about the hobby, and getting started vs when the majority of older vets were getting started. With mailed newsletters and mailed how to VHS tapes.
I walked past a display of lil boats at a local fair. Saw a recording of them on a pond and thought, "Lame, nerds just driving boats around" as I started to walk away. Then I noticed the impact splashes. "OH cool! Nerds driving boats AND SHOOTING, I'm in." That was it for me. I've been wondering what it would cost to be low $ sponsors on some YouTube channels. From talking with folks there are definitely some channels in common that are tangent to the hobby. What if we could get them to do real quick advert for us.
How much do think we are talking? Whats cool about this hobby is that when one club gets exposure so do all of the clubs. I have wanted to do paid advertising around the Seattle area but haven't found the right place... yet.
I have no idea. Anyone know a PR person? Do we just write up a nice boilerplate email and blast it out?
I have always believed that YouTube is the best single recruiting tool available to us. It definitely shouldn't be the only recruiting tool, but it is easily the best. As a hobby, we have gotten very good about recording our battles, both from shore-side and onboard, and posting those videos online. However, we have barely scraped the surface of what YouTube is capable of. I've had one video get picked up by the Algorithm, and it wasn't even that great of a video. Since we are looking for 0.0000001% of the population, the more exposure we get the better. Imagine how much *good* exposure we could get if a few good, high-profile YouTubers did videos about the hobby. Imagine if Drachinifel the naval historiographer or Destin from Smarter Every Day visited Nats and made a video or two about us. Maybe get Ryan from the Battleship New Jersey channel to try driving an Iowa class in battle or convince Mark Rober to talk about the science of flooding and sinking ships. Each of those channels has a huge following of intelligent and mature viewers that would be drawn to different aspects of the hobby. Some of the gaming channels like TheMightyJingles or Wolfpack345could also do a lot of good. Of course, that doesn't mean that any youtuber would be good exposure. I remember about 5 years ago or so a Youtuber decided to visit SCRAP for a battle. Unfortunately he did no research before visiting. He brought a lunchbox with an airsoft pistol for armament and spoons for propulsion. Not particularly surprising to me, given the other content on his channel. I don't think ANY of his regular viewership had the patience or attention span to build and maintain a combat ship. I have hours upon hours of combat footage, construction/maintenance footage, and even some pit footage. I just don't have the time to edit all of the footage into youtube-suitable videos myself. I am very seriously considering hiring an editor to do the job for me. Seriously, I am willing to pay a lot of money per video for quality battle videos. Same thing for shore-side filming of the action. A successful Youtube channel that can regularly trigger the algorithm would be an enormous boon for the hobby. I want more people to battle with, and I have enough disposable income to do something about it. Of course, my lack of time for editing also applies to researching this stuff. I don't really know where to start for hiring an editor or sponsoring a big-name Youtuber to visit, or I'd have done it already.
we should chat more in person about this. I have some extra funds I could throw at an advertising project too. Also, my best friends sister is a photographer/videographer. I’m going to invite her to our July battle for some shore videos and pictures. I’m sure she has some editing skills or may know someone who does. We can chat with her about specifically editing. She may even do it on the cheap. I’m always hearing radio is a good advertising tool. I’ve even thought about a billboard sign somewhere around here. But those I think get up in price pretty quick.
WWCC and AusBG have both done bits with local news stations. The problem is that local news stations are just that: local. Small viewership, small exposure. We never had any luck getting a major news station to cover anything. That said, the small stations do put a lot of heart into it: View: https://youtu.be/Q8QKRIHOdKo Definitely should talk more about this. Are you on the R/C Model Warship Combat Discord? We can do a voice chat this weekend.
good point. looks like something from the 90s. But if so, it’s a ray of light. If the video itself has lasted this long (one and off YouTube) there might be hope.
