One of the ships that I have always liked is the HMS Belfast, however, would she be to small for a first-time build? The reason that I like Belfast is that she has more history than many other British ships but is not as well known, despite being one of the few British WW2-era museum ships. She served as a convoy escort, took part in the Battle of the Atlantic, fought the Scharnhorst and escorted the carriers that attacked the Tirpitz, took part of the shore bombardment at Gold at Juno beaches at Normandy, and even saw service in the Korean war.
She's very buildable for small gun. As for big gun, I'd imagine she's buildable, but arming everything might be tight, and she might not be terribly effective.
With her main armorment being only 6 inch, she would be sending .177 bb's at her target, and her target could be firing 1/4" ball bearing back at her!
Torpedoes would be an equalizer I'd think, but from what I understand from the Torpedo cruiser captains out west, you really need to be faster then the capital ships so you can make the clean get away.
I am not so sure of that. True the Belfast is one of the faster ships. but in BIG guns Torps are a single shot weapon. I seen many a 1/4" ball bearing bounce off the side of a capital ship! She would have to be darn good and make that shot count! Even then it takes forever for a capitol ship to sink! I have seen a Capitol ship with a hit below the water line, linger in the center of the pond the entire match with out being in danger of sinking! Last year I watched three ships sink. Each time it took multiple below the water line hits to put them under.
Ah, I was under the impression that the torpedo cannons were re-loadable and could be fired on a 30 second timer. As a non-big gun guy, all I have to go on is what I have read here.
Doubled checked the rules on torps in our club. Torp are NON reloadable. "Torpedo tubes must be angled down to limit their range to 4 feet. "
Torpedo rules aren't really by east coast/west coast, it's on an individual club basis. In the WWCC, where torpedo-cruisers first came to prominence, there are both reloading and non-reloading torpedoes. Reloading TTs have an onboard CO2 supply and reloading magazines, and may fire once every 30 seconds (with 30 rounds total to distribute amongst all TTs). Non-reloading TTs must be brought in to shore for reloading, but the skipper must first sail his ship around a buoy before returning to port, to ensure it takes a certain minimum amount of time between shots. For HMS Belfast, I would arm the primaries, but not the torpedoes. The primaries are perfectly capable of penetrating the heaviest battleship armor at close range. On the other hand, the ship is very small to be packing 12 armed barrels into, any attempt to add in torpedoes will seriously hurt your reliability and ease of maintenance. It's *theoretically* possible, but the only folks I know who would even try would only succeed by omitting the CO2 bottle, batteries, and motors. (they've done that before, so I would not be surprised) With 12 bb cannons, the Belfast would be a blunderbuss to a battleship's Arquebus: it will "ventilate" an enemy ship in very short order at close range, but loses punch and penetrating power quickly as the range increases. Meanwhile battleships will be able to hurt her with heavy-caliber shot from long range, but they are slow to fire and shoot fewer projectiles. She would also be devastating against un-armored ships, like destroyers, cruisers, and transports. Just keep in mind that 12 barrels consume a LOT of ammunition very quickly. You should also investigate, if you're still interested in this ship, whether your club would allow you to build her in her "as-planned" version, with quadruple six-inch guns instead of triples. Wouldn't that be fun
