Good afternoon everyone, Aspiring ship builder here. I enjoy wargame hobbying and scale RC and the idea of scale RC ships and cannons together really appeals. I live in the Western Washington area, so any info that can get me pointed in the right direction to start out would be appreciated. Such as the common ruleset for construction used around here. I've lurked a bit and found some of the sites for hulls and such. Regards, Scott
Greetings! More or less at this point yes. There used to be two predominant 'fast gun' rulesets, but functionally, for the vast majority of the country at least, there is now only one.
Well if there is (for all intents) one ruleset in this region that narrows down and simplifies the choices. Now, within that ruleset I have to figure out a hull to start with. I'm fairly fond of dreadnaughts and WWI era[ish] ships. How's something like a Tennessee or Colorado perform? I have a soft spot for Warspite too but haven't seen any hulls advertised for that one.
Locally? It would be just fine. We're a smaller group and there isn't a pack of wolves waiting to pounce. Nationally? the US standards don't have the best rep as combatants and a lot of people feel they need to build "the best", whatever flavor that is for the year. QE hulls pop up semi-regularly. There have been a few molds made for different representations of that class. They're fairly well regarded ships, and for a few years were the Allied flavor of the week. That aligns very neatly with the sentiments of a good portion of our local group.
Seems proper for the theme of the sport. What's their perceived flaw? Is it the prop and rudder layout in regards to steering?
Rudders were their Achilles heel. I suspect much less so after the rudder rule change (IRCWCC) that took effect this year.
Here in Washington the ponds we fight on typically really are not big enough to support the larger ships there just isn't enough room to turn. even the light cruisers have trouble, but at least they can generally run away. the smaller ships typically have a really big advantage with our ponds and where we battle where the usable area is relatively small or there's large areas of weeds that the little ship can get around at the big ship simply can't
i disagree. We simply don't use the majority of the pond and a bunch of us are happy to play closer to shore. But if someone wants to bring a Yam or a Mo to play and needs half the pond to bring her about, they're still going to get plenty of time on the range.
For many years, Class 5 rudders were set to 3 sq in. for singles. If you had multi-rudders you received an extra 50% bonus area. That meant that the US Standards were limited to a 3" rudder while the QEs and Badens were able to carry 4.5 sq in worth of dual rudders. IRC passed a rule several years ago essentially giving all ship the same 50% bonus area. So a bump for the Standards to carry 4.5" rudders. Last year, IRC votes to change from the previous chart to a simpler one where most ships (there is a lower limit of 2" iirc) now get rudder area equal to units (not class) so that Colorado that for decades only had 3" of rudder now can carry 5.5". Should make for interesting times. You still are limited the number of rudders that the ship actually carried. Just the area allowed increased.
I read the rules but don't remember seeing if there was a specification for the shape of the rudder as far as height and length? Seems like using the thrust from the props to wash over the rudder to steer the ship would be the way to go? As far as units go: I see a Colorado is 5.5. I was reading that units dictate how many cannons and pumps you can carry correct? Magazine capacity dictates the unit count per gun right? So if there is a turret with twin guns and each gun has the lower 1/2 unit capacity that would equal a 1 unit gun? Just trying to wrap my head around the logistics of setting things up.
Only class 1 and 2 can currently split units of I recall correctly So for a 5.5 unit ship, think of it as 5 units with an extra half, most likely used to make a standard 50 round 1 unit gun a 1.5 unit 75 round gun. I have my Baden (5.5 units) set up with B turret having 1 50 round 1 unit gun off the starboard side (could put it in A turret) C turret is a 75 round 1.5 unit gun off port side D turret is 2 50 round 1 unit guns ataright off the back, aka dual sterns. Then I have a 1 unit pump, for a total of 5.5 units You could do other things, but that's the most common setup for this type of ship design and units
So A turret sits empty. Reasoning? Doesn't depress as well? 4 and above can have rotating turrets right? Don't see that mentioned much.
Rotating and depression of the guns is rarely done with a fast gun build. Big gun follows a different rule set and rotation is easier.
A turret on my Baden is empty with dummy barrels, same with 1 of the 2 guns for B and C turrets. You could (and some people do) arm every gun, or at least 1 gun in each turret, but since you are still only allowed so many units, you wouldn't be able to load them all up anyways. There is also quadrant coverage to deal with as well, having to leave one quadrant uncovered unless over 40,000 tons standard displacement or 60" scale length (in 1/144 scale). Adding more guns is more space taken up, more cost, and more complexity. I chose to keep it simple and just put in just the guns I need. Same applies with rotation and depression. More space, more complexity, and more points of failure too in this case.
Ah so a ship like a Baden or Colorado, due to their displacement would have to leave something open, the obvious option being the forward quadrant since ramming incurs a penalty and it's easier to bring the broadsides to bear for a ship that size or unload with the rear guns when turning away, getting chased, etc, right? C turret, if one was to rotate, seems like it would be a candidate.
