HMS Repulse

Discussion in 'North Atlantic Treaty Combat Fleet' started by Bob Pottle, Dec 7, 2008.

  1. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    I bought one of Rob Clarke's Renown hulls today and will build it as HMS Repulse. Renown and Repulse had different bulges of slightly different beam but Rob's hull is suitable for both ships. I'm going to add Repulse's prominent armour belt because this was a major feature of the hull.

    It's raining heavily but I was outside for the last 3/4 hour sanding the hull with #220 and #320 'wet and dry' paper. This will key the hull's gelcoat for addition of a fiberglass and gelcoat armour belt.

    Bob
     
  2. BoomerBoy17

    BoomerBoy17 Active Member

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    cool, cant wait to see it. I wouldnt think the renown being good, with all that length and not much offence(only 4.5 unit, right?). not that its bad that your doing one, that very cool, just wondering.
     
  3. Gettysburg114th

    Gettysburg114th Well-Known Member

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    Boomer,
    In Treaty I think you will find that people tend to build ships because they like the ship and not because it's the ship to have. I know that I do this hobby because I like ships and the history.
    Bob, you should have a blast with Repulse, I know Mikey liked his Renown. Just watch out for those Japanese planes.
     
  4. BoomerBoy17

    BoomerBoy17 Active Member

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    I understand that, its the same way with me. Dont need to be condescending.
     
  5. Gettysburg114th

    Gettysburg114th Well-Known Member

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    Not being condescending. It's just a different game. We learned that the first time out. We were sinking before we knew it.
     
  6. froggyfrenchman

    froggyfrenchman Well-Known Member

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    Very interesting.
    How cool would it be to see all three of the WW2 era British battlecruisers running together? Renown, Repulse, and Hood.
    Mikey
     
  7. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    I spent another hour sanding the gelcoat smooth last night. It was showing the brush strokes from the sealer applied to the hull plug, but looks sleek now. I have to mix up some gelcoat tonight to fill small air bubbles and a few larger voids. That'll make the finish nearly perfect.

    Next I'll mark the ribs and deck stringers and use 1/8" x 1/8" balsa strips to outline the extra side armour added in 1930, and the positions of the ribs and stringer within the outline of the side armour. The extra armour ran from A to Y turret and came up to just above quarterdeck level, so about 2/3 of freeboard forward.

    The spaces formed for the armour stringer and the ribs within the armour strake area will get a thin layer of resin and chopped matt followed by a topcoat of gelcoat, which is easier to sand than resin. A block sander will be used to make the outer surfaces of ribs and armour stringers flat for sheeting.

    On the inside of the hull I'll use #60 sandpaper to prep the sides for more fiberglass. The extreme bow and stern are thinner than the rest of the hull and not strong enough to resist close range BB fire, so they need to be reinforced. Then the entire sides will get another layer of matt to 1" below the waterline.

    The hull will then be ready to have the windows cut out and prop shafts and rudder installed. Next step will be to make the fiberglass decks.

    Bob
     
  8. crzyhawk

    crzyhawk Well-Known Member

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    I'm looking forward to seeing it out there. Repulse has always been one of my favorite surface ships. I'm a sucker for anything with tripod masts.

    Boomer- As Bob was saying, the Treaty game is a lot different then we experienced in the IRCWCC. In Treaty, we feel as though we have achived a better balance between ship types effectiveness, and much of this is due to the speed chart we use. In the IRCWCC, the difference in speed between the slowest ships (28 seconds) and the fastest (capital ships, 24 seconds...destoyers and some cruisers a a hare faster) is only 4 seconds. This lack of significant difference makes maneuverability far more important then speed.

    In Treaty, our speeds are based on the actual ship speeds, rather then assigned a value based on length. So, the Repulse's speed of 32 knots (28 seconds) is a full 10 seconds faster then the minimum fleet speed of 22 knots (38 seconds). What that means, is that the Repulse has a SIGNIFICANT speed advantage to choose her fights. She doesn't have to worry about 27 knot Yamatos nearly as much because she's 5 seconds faster. Badens are 10 seconds slower.

    The slower ships generally have a maneuverability edge...so once someone chooses to battle them, the slow ship often gets to dictate the tactics in the battle.

    So, fast and slow ships both have their advantages, while no ship really "has it all" and is fast AND out turns everything on the pond.
     
  9. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    Boomer,
    Even though I knew HMS Courageous would be a poor combat model in IRCWCC I built it because I like odd ships and the challenges of battling with them. (Obviously I don't care much about winning!)

    Compared to Courageous or Furious the Renown and Repulse have more to offer though they have only 0.5 more units: they have the same speed and rudder area, are almost the same length but have nearly twice the displacement, have more reserve buoyancy, and 3 turrets vs 2 so they can cover another quadrant.

    Until Rob Clarke started making Renown hulls I was going to build HMS Furious as a 2 barrelled version of Courageous. Now the Furious hull will be built as a 5 unit fleet carrier.

    As Mike posted, in Treaty these British light BCs can outrun nearly all Axis capital ships (except the Scharnhorst Class) and are less likely to be caught at close quarters by more maneuverable and powerful capital ships. That makes them much more useul than in MWC or IRCWCC combat.

    Bob
     
  10. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    Calculations for Repulse's ribs are done and also apply to Rob's HMS Renown:

    LOA was 794'; 66.17" in 1/144 scale. 15% of that is 9.93" of which 3" go to solid bow and stern areas, leaving 6.93" for ribs.

    That's enough for 26 x 1/4" wide ribs and two more slightly over 3/16" wide.

    28 ribs gives 29 hull 'windows' with the remaining 85% of the hull length (56.24") distributed between them. That gives 29 windows 1.94" wide.

    The hull lines will be drawn on the hull after the Repulse's armour belt has been added to Rob's Renown hull (probably next week). Any gelcoat defects in the areas that won't be cut out will be filled and sanded, then the windows will be cut out.

    Bob
     
  11. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    After a closer look at the differences between Renown and Repulse I've found it'll be a major job to convert Rob Clarke's Renown hull to a reasonable facsimile of the Repulse.

    To add Repulse's prominent armour belt and bring it far enough down the side of the hull I'd have to cut away 1/2" of Renown's hull above the bulge and 1" below, make a balsa mold for the 1" high armour belt on the outside of the hull, then gelcoat and glass it from the inside.

    With the armour belt done more balsa would have to be laid from it's bottom edge over the remaining 1/2" gap to the bulge. The bulge has to be recontoured to meet the hull 1/2" below where Renown's bulge does.

    This work would have to be done in 3-4 sections to avoid losing the hull's shape if a single 3'-4' long 1 1/2" wide slot was cut in it, and could take a couple of months to complete. I've done something similar in reconfiguring one of Ralph Coles' QE hulls to Warspite post-1937 and making it's bulges longer and more prominent, but it's not a job I'm keen to do.

    It might be wiser to build it as the mid-1930s Renown so it'll be different from Rob's version which will be the reconstructed Renown.

    Bob
     
  12. Jay Jennings

    Jay Jennings Well-Known Member

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    This question has nothing to do with Repulse, but I can't start a new thread from work. One of the boys has a fiberglass trailer. It has been painted with some unknown kind of paint. He plans to sand and paint it with Interlux Marine Paint. He has a couple of questions, is this a good paint to use or is there a less expensive alternative, can it be sanded down to the gelcoat without damaging the glass, should more gelcoat be applied prior to priming and painting and is there a difference in the type of sander used, orbital or palm. Thanks for any help that you can give, my friend is a bit of a meat head ( he is a guner).
    J
     
  13. froggyfrenchman

    froggyfrenchman Well-Known Member

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    Any up-dates on these builds?
    Any photos?
    Mikey
     
  14. Bob Pottle

    Bob Pottle Well-Known Member

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    Mikey,
    I've done nothing to the Renown hull other than fill and sand gelcoat defects. I doubt that anything will be done to build the model for a year or two. There are a few models to finish before I get to the Renown: Ibuki, Vanguard, Krasni Krim, and maybe the Rodney (for IRCWCC because it's too slow in Treaty).
    Bob
     
  15. Chris Easterbrook

    Chris Easterbrook Well-Known Member

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    Hey Bob my Tirpitz ran at 30 seconds last year and I found one problem that he did not have enough thrust to push the model and forget about turning. When that same model is running at 24 sec it turns with NC but when running at 30sec the same model has trouble getting up to speed and turning.Instead of turning in its own length it takes about 30 lengths to do the same turn. I suspect Vanguard will have the same problems with turning and getting up to speed and as a single rudder ship her turning will not be as good as other ships with two rudders. I think by slowing down ships to treaty speeds has put the large Class 6-7 battleships at a huge disadvantage. Those ships are too heavy and do not have enough thrust to move or turn very well and just become BB magnets. If these ships cannot maneuver they cannot bring there guns to around to fire. As you said in your post above Rodney is too slow for treaty and would not fair well and I agree the larger battleships would not fair well against the smaller ships of any class who would sit in places where the battleships could not return fire. This is just food for thought.
     
  16. mike5334

    mike5334 Well-Known Member

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    It probably isn't as bad as that, Chris. :)

    Treaty ships tend to be lighter and set higher on the water than other fast gun clubs (Treaty uses a scale waterline), thus letting the ship turn a little better than if it was heavy and sitting low in the water.

    Also, prop selection will play a big part in making a slower ship turn better. I dropped a 1/4" diameter and increased the pitch on the Gascogne props (1.5" by 40 pitch). The increased pitch and shaft rpm should move enough water over the rudder to make up for the loss of speed induced turning that my MWC ruleset Richelieu enjoys. The downside to smaller props is slower starting and stopping, but that is not critical in the Treaty format as it might be in other fast gun formats.

    I'm interested in how the BBs faired in last year's battle. I know there was a Bismark battling. Anyone know how it performed at Treaty speeds?
     
  17. Gettysburg114th

    Gettysburg114th Well-Known Member

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    The Bismarck that Roland has out in Ohio turned fine. I don't see a problem with my Tirpitz and it's ability to turn.
    I should know more in a week after the boat hits the water.
     
  18. crzyhawk

    crzyhawk Well-Known Member

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    Getty has the right of it. Roland's Bismarck turns crazy good at treaty speeds. Phil ran a Prince of Wales that really surprised people with it's maneuverability. Even Mikey's Hood and Renown turn fairly well at Treaty speeds. The turning issues you guys might be running into might be due to using a weight/prop/motor combination that's optimized for faster speeds.
     
  19. Gettysburg114th

    Gettysburg114th Well-Known Member

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    Crazy,
    I think you hit the nail right on the head. You can't think regular small gun with this stuff.
    One side effect that we are seeing because of the motors and pumps we are using is that we don't have the need to load the boat up with all kind of amp hour batteries. I guess because we are running more scale and not tying to produce the amount of thrust that the other formats are.
    While I am able to change out batteries in the Von der Tann between sorties I may not need to. The one 6 volt 12 amp battery may do the job. T
    Thanks,
     
  20. crzyhawk

    crzyhawk Well-Known Member

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    I'm able to get 2 sorties easy out of the Invincible with a 6v 12 AH battery, and that's using the same direct drive, 550 drive motor, 550 pump motor that I was using in the IRCWCC. If I optimize her a little better, it should get even better.