I play paint ball and im very familiar with Feet per second and regulating air and co2. Why not use compressed air its clean, no freezing and has a constant pressure, where Co2 is dirty gas, freezes and is rely uncontrollable it changes with the weather.? thanks
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air HP air is new to model warship combat. There is a few ships in the Big Gun format running compressed air. This past year it was added to NAMBA rules from the efforts of people like Mr. Wood. So HPA is out there, just not a lot of people using it. The largest challenge is the same that paintball had when HPA was first introduced; not a lot of field (or pond in our case) support. Players had to take their own scuba tanks to fill their paintball HPA bottles. Over the years paintball manufacturers got behind HPA to push it to the preferred source of compressed gas used at nearly every paintball field world wide today. Unfortunately, model warship combat doesn't have major manufacturers to help support HPA in the hobby. So that leaves model warship captains with supplying their own equipment for HPA fills. Additionally, HPA is new enough to model warship combat that we are still learning how it reacts to the harsh environment we subject our equipment to including submersion, prolonged exposure to moisture, impacts from projectiles, and so on. So for the moment the hassle of using HPA hasn't been worth the trouble to switch from CO2.
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air I see yes I remember those days. I couldnt figure why i would pay 2 to 3 hundred on a HPA tank when it only cost 9 dollars for a C02 tank, and now i wouldnt use anything els. Thank you for the info, CO2 for now it is, ya those scuba tanks are a pain.
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air I am also told (have not read for myself) that CO2 is written into the rules for IRCWCC (a Fast Gun organization), so there is not the option of HPA in that group.
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air there is also not a lot available in HPA for very small tanks for small ships. I need to dig up my old code, but I believe on a per volume basis, (assuming you can heat sink the tank well,which is a big assumption) the saturated mixture of co2 actually enables more shots... again, old recolection, need to dig up the analysis code.
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air Strike Models carry HPA tanks and fill stations. The tanks include a pre-regulator that drops the pressure from 3000 to 800 PSI, then you would need a standard CO2 regulator with a pin depressor to drop to our pressures. The two sizes available from their website are 13 and 48 in^2 -- or about 5 and 18 oz in relative size compared to CO2 tanks. I would think you get more shots relative to tank size, but fluid dynamics is not something I am strong in. NAMBA allows HPA, as stated above, but many rule-sets do not allow it yet. Personally I am going to move to make it legal in the formats I am active in when the yearly rules season kicks off. Limiting the tanks to alluminium until more data is available on the ballistic impact resistance of the carbon fiber tanks.
RE: Co2 Vr Compressed Air Check with Rob Wood. I believe he has already done a lot of research into CF wrapped tanks. I personally disagree that a wrapped tank is more vulnerable to impacts than an aluminum tank. Both could be weakened by dents. It would be prudent to use a neoprene tank wrap such as the paintball folks use to prevent damage on the paintball field.
The big advantage to HPA is tempurature insensitivity. When the ambient tempurature drops under 50 degrees or when large volumes of CO2 are used, CO2 has an annoying tendancy to stay liquid longer which reduces available pressure. In the paintball world where they routinely shoot 10 - 15 rounds per second, the CO2 bottles would freeze from the sheer volume of gas used. Heck, my Autococker back in the day shooting 7 - 8 rounds per second was enough to freeze a 20 oz bottle. Heh. The cannons in the HMS Erin, FN Verite, and FN Richelieu can easily frost a CO2 bottle if fired off longer than 5 - 10 seconds.
I have frozen the CO2 bottle in HMS Rodney, but only after firing over a dozen salvos as fast as the gun timer will permit. (She is a real gas hog, as all three cannon fire at the same time). I relieved the problem somewhat by turning the pump around so that the primer hole spray is directed onto the regulator. There is only just enough room to fit a 20 oz CO2 tank onboard her, so a comparable HPA tank would be too large.
Rules are Rules. Thanks every one for there imput, and yes a HPA tank would be to large i would have to use a 68/45 way to big for the boat. Co2 is it. thanks again!!
I have used HPA bottles in combat. A 48ci bottle is enough for about 15 minutes of battling with my gas hog of a battleship. It does not freeze, or even frost up no matter how fast you use it. Furthermore, you can tell how much air you've got left just by looking at the pressure gauge. I used a 3000psi 48ci aluminum bottle, and the gauge usually read about 1000-500psi when the battle finished. For comparison, a regular 20oz CO2 bottle in my battleship lasts for about 15 minutes too, and freezes the regulator and bottle. Ick. Then I added an anti-siphon tube, and suddenly I was no longer sucking liquid CO2 through my regulator. Now my 20oz CO2 bottle lasts for more than 30 minutes of fighting, with a few oz of gas left to bleed and cool the bottle for a good refill. My CO2 bottle frosts up under heavy use, but that's how I know I'm being aggressive enough. No frost means not enough steel flying at the Allies. Since adding the anti-siphon tube, I have never frozen a regulator. HPA is an important development for paintball, but I believe that CO2 is still the better propellant for our hobby. You can store more in a smaller space, plus there's less moving parts to rust up and fail when you sink. Yes, HPA is legal in some clubs, and I have used it myself at the Maker Faire, Campaign Game, and other battles. After trying it for a year, I moved back to CO2. I think that summarizes my position quite well.
While CO2 is extensively referred to in the IRCWCC rules, I dont see anywhere that states it as being the required gas supply, nor is there anything that I can see that would exclude HPA as an option under the rules. That is after a brief review only and I am not a lawyer.
Isn't it amazing how the addition of a simple little tube in a tank cures most of the supposed evils of CO2? If you do much reading in the paintball forums you'll see how CO2 has become something akin to radioactive waste. If it touches your $2000 milled beauty, it will corrode to dust. If it touches the O-rings, they will turn into goo. If it gets to your solenoid, it will weld shut. Of course all this is the result of manufacturers figuring out they can make more money selling tanks with a mandated 5 year lifespan and the extra regulators to get the pressure down to a safe level. Field operators are in on the game too because outside of a paintball field (or a local SCUBA shop), where are people going to get their HPA fills? The fact is, if the same effort is applied to a CO2 system as is applied to an HPA system, you get the same end result in a smaller package using a propellent available everywhere.
It's true that I was heavily involved in getting HPA added to the NAMBA rules as a legal alternative to CO2. Some of our club members (WWCC) have been using it since it became legal, and some prefer it. There is an issue with bottle size, as only large ships have the room for them, and the short lifespan can be a problem for some. The fact that you need a scuba tank to transport the HPA supply to the pond is only an inconvenience, though, and doesn't necessarily involve expense for the individual skipper, since the club could provide it, just as it might provide CO2 tanks and CO2. Honestly, we haven't seen any compelling reason to switch from CO2 to HPA, but part of my motivation in seeking to make it legal was the possibility that CO2 may become regulated or restricted in the future, do to environmental concerns, and I wanted to have a backup in place, should that ever happen. On compressed air in general, though: It is possible to carry an onboard compressor, such as the automotive type used for emergency tire inflation. The housing can be stripped off, and modified to provide the appropriate pressure for weapons charging. This was common in our hobby/sport after freon gas was banned, freon having been the gas of choice for warship combat until then. The downside of having an onboard compressor is mainly that they're noisy, and it does take a few seconds (as may as 8 or 10) for the accumulator to fill. One other form of carrying compressed air is shore air. Fill the accumulators from a 12v compressor-charged tank, and then run out to fire torpedoes, once per side, then race back to shore to re-arm/recharge. I realize this wouldn't work for Fast Gun, but it's a viable method for WWCC destroyers and torpedo cruisers. Rob
What are the pros and cons with Co2 vs. Compressed air??? And My sisters asked me that and I wasn't sure??? Nikki
I just had a thought concerning HPA. Your typical 80cf SCUBA tank is charged to 3000psi and sometimes you can get the shop to juice it a little to 3200. My question is how many 3000psi fills can you get on an HPA paintball tank until the source tank dips below 3000psi and you start seeing diminishing returns for each fill after that? In comparison, a CO2 tank will maintain 800psi until almost empty.
Since it is all single phase gas, as soon as you pull gas out, the pressure drops. the remaining pressure in the scuba tank will be proportional to the ratio of the volume of the tank itself to the total volume of the scuba tank + tank you are filling....
