Has anyone considered building the Caracciolo class of Italian BB? It's a bit of an odd bird, with minimal superstructure, 4 evenly spaced twin 15" guns, four props, 28 knots and two inline rudders. Taubmans has plans for it, but at 1:200. She might make an interesting big gun warship, don't think the rudder setup would suit fast gun. Oh, it was also getting 8 17.7" torp tubes....Makes for an impressive first broadside.
A very odd bird indeed. Would have to be big gun or treaty as I don't think fast gun allows the hypotheticals.
There's not much info on the class online, and I've only ever found two photos. One at her launching, one with her afloat, but incomplete. The class was laid, and one was launched,the main guns were built but not fitted so just where do you draw the line and call her "hypothetical"?
Sadly, the MWC rules require both 'launched' and 'completed', which rules out ships that didn't get guns. Personally, I'd like to extend the year limit back to 1900 or 1895, but not enough to go thru the hassle of proposing a rule change and arguing with people on the rules list. If I really want to battle a predread from 1899, I'm pretty sure the local guys won't care what year it was from if I bring it to a local or regional, which is good enough for me.
The AusBG allows those ships that were in commision, or their keels laid between 1900 and 1946 inclusive: 1. Ship Construction 1.1. Period 1.1.1. Only ships which were laid down or in commission from 1900 to 1946 (inclusive) are permitted. 1.1.2. Sailing ships are not allowed. Perhaps this is one reason for our wide range of ships.
I really don't think she counts as hypothetical. I just use it as a term for those not actually commissioned. I draw the line at launched myself.
Found a link to the conways page, but it is a waterline drawing, not showin props or rudders. http://books.google.com.au/books?id...mp;f=false
Found the plans! http://xoomer.virgilio.it/bk/NWS/Regia_Marina/Caracciolo_BB/Caracciolo_1919_drawings/image-html/Caracciolo-Sezioni.html Enough detail there to build one, I think.
Just a heads up, ANB sells plans for this ship. http://www.anb-online.it/pagina.php?sez=1&titolo=navi_da_guerra
That's what Google Translate is for Be thankful you don't have to have the Russian keyset for translating the Russkie plans!
Or you could use an old copy of Janes Fighting Ships, they include multilingual tables of nautical terms.
