Scott and Ian, When can you guys pick up the Furious and Renown hulls? I've trying to clear a larger area of the basement so I can build more than one new hull plug at a time. I also have an Indefatgiable hull, an HMAS/HMS Albatross hull, and a Russian Profintern/Krasni Krim CL hull for sale if anyone's interested. Prices are far below those for equivalent hulls from other manufacturers and insured shipping to the US and Canada is available from FedEx. Bob
Clark, Tugboat has gone Russian crazy, maybe he would like the Profintern. Frank sure does love his with those bow casemate guns Bob.
I have one left but need to finish modifying the 4 main armament side sponsons. If Tugboat can wait Strike will be selling the hulls in a few months. My next job after finishing the I-400 molds is to modify the Krasni Krim plug to correct the error in sponson depth and make the bow lines fuller. When corrected the plug will be shipped to Strike - probably in December - so the hulls should be available in early 2010. Bob.
The Indefatigable hull has been sold and there's a probable buyer for the Profintern/Krasni Krim. It's been a few months since I've heard from the guys who wanted the Furious and Renown hulls so they're available to anyone. There's one HMAS/HMS Albatross seaplane carrier/fleet repair ship hull left. Bob
Mikey, The Repulse hull's been sold to another NATCF member. I'm taking the Furious hull off the market and might build it as the WWI carrier. Do the Treaty rules give it 5 units even though the WWI carrier had a tiny fraction of the ship's striking power in WWII after a complete rebuild as a 'modern' carrier? If not it'll be built as the originally planned BC with a rotating 1.5 unit gun in the bow turret and a fixed 1.5 unit sidemount aft.. Bob
I thought the recently passed rule ammendments allow carriers to train their bow and stern guns further out (30 degrees??). In that case the carrier would have a 4 cornered gun installation. I wasn't considering sidemounts for the WWI carrier version of Furious, just the 'as planned' 2 x 18" gun BC version. Bob
They did, but technically it's not a sidemount. That rule is also only in R&D so may not stick around after this year. Also, I don't recall whether there was a lmit on the numebr of guns that could be trained out like that or not. I seem to recall it can only be one 30 degree gun per side, but I might be wrong.
The rule allows a ship like the Furious class carriers to have a four-corner arrangement, for the cannons. The Dayton area locals are planning to team up and build a Yorktown, or Lexington class aircraft-carrier, so that we can get it out in a few of the battles this season, so that we can see how the change will effect the game. We think that putting at least a couple/few of the fleet carriers out on the water this season sporting the changes will increase the chances of this proposed change gaining enough support to pass. There will also probably be at least one Bearn on the water this season as well sporting the new set-up, but we need something more modern, as well. I think it is way too early to anticipate what the outcome of the proposal will be after the battling season. But I do think that not sending some of these ships to sea this season (so that we can take a look at them), would be a missed opportunity for those that like the aircraft-carriers. Just my opinion on the subject. Mikey
Unfortunately the Furious can't be completed this year. Ibuki and Krasni Krim have to clear the slips first. I hope the rule trials work out OK so the wider bow and stern arcs in carriers are approved. Bob