Ok since there is a very high chance my Dad's new ship will eventually have a stern cannon set to pivot or full rotate I am looking for ways folks have made these cannons do that. Oh and the ship he is building is a SMS Von Der Tann.
On a VDT the typical set up is stern sidemount, stern gun and bow sidemount. Since you can only have one sidemount on a side you would have to rotate both the bow and stern sidemounts. Or you'd have to set it up with twin stern guns and the roate. Most ships with rotates are the Scharny & POW. Since they typicaly have trip & quad sterns with only one sidemount.
Do you want to rotate the stern gun or stern sidemount? On the VDT the stern gun is most often forward of the stern sidemount which is different than most ships. People (myself included) tend to put the stern gun in the stern wing turret and rear turret for the sidemount. Im not sure how much having a stern sidemount that rotates would buy you, I guess if you had it linked to the bow sidemount like Bob mentioned it would be handy but you dont need to do that to have a good ship. If you're talking about the stern gun itself you could have that pivot between dead astern and 15 degrees to port with some nasty down angle. The cutouts in the hull allow for that pretty nicely and that adds a little more offensive ability but gives up the defensive aspects of a regular stern gun. Having it rotate between straight back and angled would be a nice feature to have I think. The largest besides building a reliable rotate feature would be there is normally a bunch of stuff going on in both of those areas which would mean you would have to make the rotate mechanism small but with a little creativity im sure it could be done. Good Luck! If you get something that works I'm definatly interested in pics and how you did it, might have to copy you!
My dad has a preference that will sort of follow with a setup on other ships the DJRainer has done and that I will be doing on Kron Prinz. It will be dual bow fixed with a stern that will start life fixxed, but will later go to a full rotate so my dad can learn as he goes.
So dual bow guns 15 degrees off center in a VDT? Are you going to put them in the starboard wing turret? Might be the first VDT ever without a stern sidemount! I'd love to do a 1-on-1 with it sometime. VDT vs VDT
Dual bows guns strait down the center. and stern that will rotate 90 degrees off center to port and starboard so you have a full 180 sweep off the single stern.
Hehe... not everyone agrees with the Commodore. In the Navy, we have a saying... you can't spell commodore without spelling commode [no reflection on the man, just having fun]
Lets see here. so far I have had triple sterns on my Des Moines. so far they have proved near impossible to get any shots off and when I do normally it is the first as the next 3 I could try and take miss as the other ship just manovers away. My dad even tried and with a ship like the Des Moines they are well useless unless you like to sit on the oppisit end of the pond and yawn a lot. I would rather take my chances with a bow gun as I have een them used effectivly.
I wasn't trying to influence him one way or the other, he seemed to have made up his mind so I am interested in where its going and how well it works. My VDT gun setup isn't exactly "standard" either but I like it, and in the end you want a boat that you like. Im not sure how he is going to effectively use a dual bow gun set up in a slugger boat like the VDT but David really seems to like the triples in his PE so I can understand wanting to try something similar. Also its not a big deal to change the gun layout once you build a boat, so even if you try it and don't like it that doesn't mean you are stuck with it forever. Im also rather interested in the rotate, I hope to put one in a future battleship and seeing how people solve problems like that is always fun. Basically I like seeing other people experiment, as long as they share the results it just means more data points for everyone else. Applying cruiser tactics to a battle cruiser/battleship may not be the best idea. They are two rather different animals. And Pete D is pretty effective in his Des Moines with triple sterns, just goes to show different styles for different people.
Snipe you hit the nail on the head. Different setups for different people. The Des Moines is a very effective sniping ship. I am just not set up right with mine yet for it to be effective. All in due time.
John Post your picture of Mikes frenchie with all the side damage. I shot it up pretty well this weekend with my bow tripples. [8D] I had a chance to check out Lou's new turret rotate design this weekend, and man oh man, is it sweet. It will be going into my Roma as soon as the Kumano is finished. With dual forward rotates in our two VV's we will outgun most Allied ships on the side. [] 2 guns to one.
If I am right this is Mike's Richelieu after David's tripple bows doing their work. It is a good example of a bow setup that was put to very good use. Even Don tried to Avoid the Little PE and instead chased my Des Moines about instead.
The tactics pages by "The Commodore" could be said to be the basic "traditional thinking" on the subject. Sometimes non-traditional ideas work, but usaly only after they have delt with the issues covered by traditional ideas. There is certainly also room for more advanced tactics, rather than just the basics. Such an artical might be titled "Knowing all the Tactial Rules, and When and How to Break Them" Before putting bow guns on a VDT, I would ask myself how I would use them against a QE.
"Before putting bow guns on a VDT, I would ask myself how I would use them against a QE." You would use them to find your ship after I sank it. Ha, ha, sorry could not let that one go by.
On the subject of a rotating Fast Gun cannon, I remember seeing a design for a single-barrel rotating o-ring cannon. It used a sealed bearing and a machined piece to fit the bearing, in between the elbow fitting and the T fitting. I think it was on the original Battlestations website in an armed transport... Maybe you could use that design. The neat thing is that if you build it right, you can have it traverse from nearly horizontal when pointing off the stern to a fairly steep down-angle when it's pointed broadside.
Try a dual barbette setup with two plumbing fittings, one the actual scale barbette and the interior one the next size down. Mount the gun to the interior barbette and spin it with a chain, or even put an arm on it like you would for the rudder arm. Send me an PM if you'd like me to sketch out my idea. The fuzzy one
Use a big gun style magazine or a spiral? The typical straight type would tear up the innards of the ship I should think.
