i`m just thinking into the blue here as i have no experience with these BB gun battles... but ive had a lot of heeling in my Square rigger sailing experience. Now there has been some discussion about moveable cannons installations with pendulums and gyros etc. here`s an idea for fixed insatllations (especially for smaller models which won`t be able to either affort the space nor weight of amore complex installation) Floating level no heel, the Cannons are installed depressed so that the shot hits the water at say 3-4ft out. Most AoS engagements have been fought yardarm to yardarm, as gunnery training was much cheaper and easier when the opponent was to fill teh gunport rather than try and hit a moving target from a moving platform at long range. Especially the smaller units where mostly equipped with carronades which due their short barrel where very inaccurate at long range. so shart range gunnery is realistic and promotes tactics emploeyed at the time. Now heel the ship until the shot hits the water at (insert max safe distance my guess 30ft !?) and mark waterline on teh hull, the hull is then to be painted in whatever realistic colour are used normally down to that heeled waterline, below that line some high contrast colour is used like yellow, white, orange, no matter... now with the ship heeled far enough to show the unsafe signal colour the skipper knows he might not fire his guns as his shot is going somwhere into space rather than the pond. My sailing experience showed my ship consistently heels about 25-30° and sometimes far enough to knock her down... as soon as i have enough sail on her to be fun to sail. Small units (up to about 5th rates) will be very strongly affected by this, as they usually have little displacement thus are hard to get stiff in these scales, they carry their armament very close to teh waterline, so the ange of heel where the guns can still be used is a pretty tight window. this video shows Somers going fast with just about the maximum sail for that day after the second tack i had to spill some air from the fore mast squares to reduce heel as she started taking on water over the bow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSR8k_XcnA4
I thought about this a lot and had considered it at one time. In the end with the ships nearly always pitched over, how can the guns safely fire on another ship? For the good of the hobby, guns should never be aimed above the horizon which is what would be needed for a 30 foot shot. I really think a ship firing into the air is inherently dangerous. The only way to combat that is with a gyro or something else? I was very excited about AoS but I just couldn't see how the ships could battle in the wind while tacking and such (what are all those terms..) then get into position to fire. Unless the ship is sits fairly level in the water then most shots will seemingly go over the ship, into the sails, rigging, woodwork, and reduce all that beauty to a collection of patches. As it stands, unless you battle far out in the pond, I would want some sort of padded outfit and a full face shield.. it looks to be painful on the pond side. Unless you can figure a way to control the guns to always fire below the horizon. I don't think its safe for them to ever be aimed above the horizon.. glitches do occur.
It is impossible to prevent a model sailing ship from heeling excessively since it is impossible to predict gusts. One can, and should, reduce sail when the wind picks up. This is real practice, and just common sense in the RC world also: you can't maneuver if your ship is heeling past 45deg, based on my rc squaresail experience. But even a wise choice of sails will be defeated by unexpected gusts...So: 1) Ships must be fought under rules that prohibit firing when heel is "excessive". If a ship fires illegally, as ruled by an umpire, it should be penalized. Perhaps no gunfire by the offending ship for 5 minutes. This would correspond to guns being masked on a real ship by fallen masts/rigging/sails after a damaging gust. 2) Meatbomber's idea of a distinctive color on the hull, only revealed when heel is excessive, would allow umpire and skippers a way to judge excessive heel. 3) By limiting BB velocity allowed, it should be possible to make even "over the horizon shots" safe for anyone wearing eye protection (goggles, not just sunglasses). You must already have power-limiting rules in place in your hobby. After all, even a horizontal shot from a model modern battleship can ricochet. Perhaps limit AoS gun power to penetration of balsa sheeting at 5', but no penetration at 10'? The fighting videos I've viewed show most modern ship BB battles to be fought at close range. AoS real battles were fought with hulls touching in some cases Maybe even lower allowed BB velocity would be appropriate? Then, test max range of a BB at a 45deg up angle to judge if the range is excessive for the pond's location. If the power is low, the distance traveled will be short, and the impact will be negligable. I suspect a low velocity BB will not hurt anyone wearing eye protection, and it won't travel "over the horizon" anyway. So, I see no unsurmountable obstacle to people-safe, AoS battles on non-public ponds. If these ideas have already been discussed in other threads, I apologize for needlessly repeating them.
I was going to start a new topic, but I see it has already been discussed. Nonetheless, with the topic coming up again, let me share my own experience. I have been sailing torpedo-cruisers since 2005. Rocking, rolling, unsteady torpedo-boats that sometimes roll 30 degrees or more when maneuvering in open water. Even with their guns ranged to hit just a few inches away, I regularly saw their guns point above horizontal. And ya know what? In all that time, I only saw two instances of shots being fired above horizontal because of that. I saw more shots fired from sinking ships than from heeling torpedo-boats. The basic idea, don't pull the trigger when the ship is excessively heeled, has proved itself in years of combat.
We should have a cut off switch that prevents the guns opposite of which ever side is heeled over(Ship leaning over in the wind) from firing. Any gun over zero elevation can not fire. Although I do agree this can be controlled by the captain as we have done so far, it works!. moved from the cony build thread for duiscussion... I do not think having the guns controlled by a automatic system is a good idea! Keep it simple and use a channel on the radio with the servo to control to gun deck just like you would with a turret in a battleship. Having ANYTHING that automaticly controls the guns is against the rules, even it's just to control elevation, it can not be automatic. Also, if the ship is heeled over to port and the captain "elevates" the port gun deck to enable them to fire, they are in reality, moving those guns above the zero degree line. Again, against the rules... (if the deck is allowed to elevate above zero degrees) So we have to ensure that two things are in place: 1: No automatic systems can control the gun elevations... Manual is ok! The captain of the ship "must be in control" of anything concerning the guns at all times... *no exceptions 2. The gun decks have to be limited to keeping the guns at zero degree elevation. They can not at any time be adjusted to bring the guns over the ship's zero degree line. If they are above actual zero degree because of heeling or listing, that can not be controlled, the captain just has to be aware.... I am just saying that they can not be raised above that zero degrees by the captain. Moving the guns up or down to adjust for range or slight heeling is fine as long as the guns stay within the "zero degree" limit. What this does is it prevents an accident such as this...... "say the ship heels to port and the captain elevates guns to fire on port side... ok so far because the ship is heeled over,.... but after the firing, lets say he turns and the ship now is no longer heeled over... the captain is in a battle remember... if he is now in a starboard engagement, he might forget the guns on the port side are elevated.... NOW THEY ARE ABOVE ZERO DEGREE and a safety hazard!" As long as those guns can not be elevated above the ship's zero degree.... when that ship leveled out, the guns would still be under zero degrees... Remember, the main priority at any Warship Combat event is safety. Let's have fun, and be safe. Keep the fancy electronic stuff limited to things other than the guns. Finding out how to fire them is one thing, using a board to automatically control the aiming height is another issue altogether.... use a radio channel and a dial or switch for the servo to control the gun deck elevation.... and let's just insure that the decks/guns can not be elevated above the ships zero degree line when she is level.
Would you consider an electronic system which prevents the guns on the elevated side from firing when they are about the horizontal an illegal/automatic system? If so why? It seems that it would only make the game safer, the captian not shooting the gun is ideal but we all know accidents happen and stuff gets bumped or radios glitch, etc...
On point 3: We did testing about a decade ago on BB velocity. I don't have the articles handy, but it was shown that there is no safe velocity that will penetrate balsa and operate guns. A safety system would be highly recommended.
Keep it simple if you want, but automatic systems are only against the rules in fast gun. They do not make a ship unsafe, captains firing at the wrong time make a ship unsafe. The automatic system would eliminate some unsafe conditions. Good intentions aside, is there any captain out there that can say they have never fired the port cannon when they intended to fire the starboard cannon? Mistakes happen, so using a system that keeps the guns pointed down is a good thing. The captain is always in control of when the gun fires. Setting the guns to never go above level when the ship is level is easy. You can use mechanical stops, transmitter travel volume, or limited linkages. Since I have a digital servo in the prototype, I programed the servo limits to be level with the deck on one end and 15(?) degrees down for the other end with the center point 3-4 degrees down. No matter what signal the servo receives, it will not exceed those limits. A good argument for automatic systems, rather than manual. We are not talking auto ranging systems here, just systems that will compensate for the roll.
Keep it simple if you want, but automatic systems are only against the rules in fast gun. They do not make a ship unsafe, captains firing at the wrong time make a ship unsafe. The automatic system would eliminate some unsafe conditions. Good intentions aside, is there any captain out there that can say they have never fired the port cannon when they intended to fire the starboard cannon? Mistakes happen, so using a system that keeps the guns pointed down is a good thing. The captain is always in control of when the gun fires. Setting the guns to never go above level when the ship is level is easy. You can use mechanical stops, transmitter travel volume, or limited linkages. Since I have a digital servo in the prototype, I programed the servo limits to be level with the deck on one end and 15(?) degrees down for the other end with the center point 3-4 degrees down. No matter what signal the servo receives, it will not exceed those limits. A good argument for automatic systems, rather than manual. We are not talking auto ranging systems here, just systems that will compensate for the roll.
Stabilizing systems have been developed for model airplanes that will compensate for the action of wind to help the airplane keep the heading the pilot intended. I have flown planes with and without the system, and find it very helpful. There are even systems that feature return-to-home automatic pilot, in case signal is lost. Airplanes require three axes of stabilization (pitch, yaw, roll), while a boat only requires one axis for the main gun deck (roll). Stabilized guns are doable right now. The biggest reasons I can see that it hasn't been done yet is that most fast gun cannons are fixed, and rotating big gun cannons require slightly more effort to compensate for the rotation of the cannon. I don't really want to require a stabilizing system until we actually have a few boats on the water and have a better idea how much they heel when under way. If the boats don't need it to maintain the hobby as safe as reasonably achievable, we don't need the extra complexity.
How do you calculate the elevation. For example if the gun is fixed in the ship at zero degrees and the ship heels 1/4 inch.. how high in the air would the BB be at lets say 100 feet?
So, not the best video, but if you fast forward about half way and look at the angle of the horizon... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSeP4F0bG1Y How difficult would a safety cutoff be so that the guns could not fire if they were eleveted above horizontal? I'm not up to speed on the current level of RC sensor tech.
Based on that video.. that boat would never be allowed to shoot unless it had at least 20 degrees of down angle on the guns.. so that when heeled the guns would still be below the horizon. Thinking of the cut-off.. my Baden rolls back and forth constantly.. with an auto-cut off (or manual for that matter) .. the guns would never be able to fire it seems.. they would always be pointing above the horizon unless I could add some down angle (automatic or otherwise). How would you be able to account for that? Also I realized.. the guns would potentially be underwater for extended periods of time.. a whole different matter.
Mark is very correct in that the best way to control the bb's from going out into space is to let the captain be smart about it. We have always had to rely on that even with our battleships.... they list all the time. And rarely do we have a shot go astray.. The argument for allowing the auto leveling function is ok as long as those guns cant go above zero degrees... I still worry a little though... The more I look at it, the leveling might just be what we need to help out some. As for the cut off... not too sure how to work it still. I know a pendulum on a switch will work, but the sailing vessels will be very unstable as for heeling over and the guns will constantly be shutting on and off... Probably something to work on for future..., but still rely on the captain to make the call on whether to shoot or not.
A safety cutoff so that the guns could not fire if elevated above the horizontal wouldn't be very hard to build with easily available sensors. Modern electronics are pretty powerful and cheap. Mounting the sensor unit in the vessel would be important to make sure it is level as well as knowing what angle the guns were at when the ship is level. The rest is just monitoring a gyro output and either modifying the signal to the gun board/servo or opening another connection in the solenoid's firing circuit to prevent them from functioning, pretty much the same as what current firing boards do just with an additional input and a tad more logic. Sounds like if you had a cut off circuit in your Baden, so you never shot up, you wouldn't waste as much ammo on superstructure and be able to have more rounds for belows...
Its not a problem with the Baden, I was using it as an example of pitching/rolling. The point was it would be impossible to fire at all with the ship rolling constantly.
The Constitution can get 15 degrees depression easy and maybe 20 degrees if you keep the gun barrels short. The barrels hitting the underside of the deck is the limiting factor. I'm for a cutout to stop firing if you heel over too much. I don't think just a tilt sensor will work reliably, so some development work is needed. If we program our own control board, similar to quad copters, the auto compensation and cut off could be done. My thought is that the control system attempts to keep the gun deck at the commanded position... if the ship rolls 5 degrees, the guns rotate 5 degrees in the opposite direction. So if your guns start at 5 degrees down angle, you stay at 5 degrees down angle until you run out of room to move the gun deck.
