I wanted to see what everyone thought about a battler bringing a ship normally not legal to be built (outside of the legal build dates) allowed to local battles, not the Taskforce or other major regional event, for instance a ship built late 1880-1890s, providing it aheres to normal construction rules? Or a ship that is listed in Conways but not officially ordered, some vessels that come to mind are the second series of Spanish Dreadnoughts, South American follow on dreadnoughts, older predreadnoughts that were still afloat during the first world war, or the N3 series battleships. A couple individuals this year have possed the question to me, one individual has a 1/144 scale predreadnought that is a few years earlier than the allowable build dates.
I would be interested in hearing what others think about it as well. I have a couple ships that I would be interested in building that are not on the ship list. Even if they couldn't participate at the normal events. Mikey
During my time in the WWCC, I pushed hard for some rules to cover illegal ships. The first rule I got put in I called the "run what ya brung" rule, and allowed a 2/3rds majority vote of captains participating in the battle to allow for any changes to the rules for that single sortie. They could allow an illegal ship, change the moss rules on really mossy days, or try out a scenario battle that was different from the standard sortie described in the rule book. This only applied to the captains participating and only the current sortie. Every time the rule was invoked, the change was approved unanimously. Better yet, nobody who wasn't there complained about making exceptions to rules because the changes had no effect on them. The second rule I pushed for was a long-term waiver. This allowed a 2/3rds majority of all club members to make an exception to a rule. The exception could apply to anything, such as a particular model, a class of ship, or a type of cannon, and for any length of time, such as a couple months, until the model was reskinned, until the model was sold, or even forever. The waiver could also be revoked or changed by a 2/3rds majority of club members. An example was a Mogami that was bought from outside the club, but was just a bit out of scale. It was waived forever, although the owner eventually got around to fixing it. I know that Kotori brought a big gun destroyer armed with torpedo cannons to Georgia and battled with them. I don't know the process to approve his participation, but I know they were happy to have him. He bumped the speed up to what the Z-boat would get in fast gun, but still fired single shot torpedo cannons. I think he had to wait two minutes before he could go in and reload. He scored a few nasty hits and sank a bunch of times even with his 1/16" balsa.
I believe he had to show up, or atleast thats how showing up with a not completely compiant with the rules ship was explained to me. Region 3 is cool like that, or so I've been told.
Thanks for the feedback, I think that in this years rule proposals I will have to work out the following ideas.. 1) the wavier process for ships which do not conform to one rule or another, perhaps different classification on the duration of waivers, individual battle/season/permanent. Ships with minor defects get the single event waiver, ships which would require a major refit, but not outside the realm of feasibility, the season waiver. Finally a ship which does not meet the criteria of being 100 percent legal, and is unable to be made to conform. Ships outside normal build dates, or a hypo that was ordered but does not have enough information to discern with 100 percent certainty all of its particulars. # of shafts, or rudders, etc. Though in the past we have ran with the train of thought that the ship must have at-least one rudder so it gets just one. I think that it needs compared to its contemporaries of the same nation/designer. 2) looking at some sort of "grandfather clause", for ships legally built/battled before the "treaty"1/144 scale format was created, for instance if a ship fought an r/c battle prior to 199- then it is legal to battle providing that the technical committee ensures .... .. . etc. 3) look at the likelihood of having ships from other formats esp big gun, participating at 1/144 scale events. Atleast in one instance in the past we had a Big Gun Terror fight in a "Treaty" battle. Allowing them to bump up the speed (if required) seems fair, as far as pump rates/ armament I am not really sure. Perhaps just let them use their rules firing rate?
I think a waiver clause for battle is a good idea. Keep it pretty simple - my input would be the CD and 2/3 of remaining captains need to approve. No need to limit what can be waivered. For instance, if I wanted to add 20 cuin of foam to prevent a full sink in cold water, that should be waiverable for that battle. Permanent waivers need to meet a set of criteria: 1) limited to items that would require extensive re-building to fix, 2) not provide any combat advantage, and 3)?? We have a technical committee that can consider any requests for a permanent waiver. As far as illegal ships: I support pretty much any ship that still on active duty past 1900, regardless of when it was built. I would support ships that were not ordered, just to encourage more ships to be built. There needs to be a certain quality level to the documentation and we need to adjust over optimistic estimated speeds and firepower if they provide any advantage over contemporary ships.
I think there are plenty of authorized ships that are very difficult to find any particulars about, like the Reina Victoria Eugenia class Dreadnoughts, to not have a rule to allow ships that are currently illegal, but I too am all for more ships out on the water. One instance of a permanent waiver candidate for me is the Prince of Wales we use in the club, its beam is over +1/2" greater than then specs, to fix this would require removing the entire sub deck, or at the very least slicing the cross supports for the sub deck and drawing both sides in, if the later was possible a new deck would still have to be cut. This is one, especially given how few events it is used at, I would not mind giving a permanent waiver too. Last year I built a wooden O class Battle cruiser, but after looking at the plans provided, and conways (which I had to borrow), the plans had the length overall as 814, which is not the correct length, and is shorter than the build tolerance allows by a few inches. I destroyed the model, but that could have been an issue that the club could have waivered it, I still have two copies of the O class plans with the improper length in the ships data table. I like the idea of allowing ships that were in service post 1900 but built before the build dates to be able to participate, the Brandenburgs for example, I think two were sold to turkey and fought in WWI, I also would mind allowing a model ship that was built before the treaty rule set to be allowed to compete at the local battles. A local battler has a Sans pareil (1887) British predreadnought that was built to big gun rules. He has expressed that he would like to use it in our 1/144 scale battles.
How about this one? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Wyoming_%28BM-10%29 USS Wyoming, BM-10. A monitor in service (sorta) until 1926. Hmm.. 21.25" long, little over 4" beam. zero freeboard.
I've shot at one of those in Battlestations before, though its hard to get a shot on it, its hardly a world ender. I would love to see one in 1/144 scale, then sink it by the wake of one of my ships lol, I think their is a large percentage of the population that would like to see some of the older ships be built, Tsushima ships, etc.
Here in the AusBG, we simply allow any ship "in service or with its keel laid between 1900-1946" This gives a very wide range of ships without the thorny question of hypotheticals....if it physically existed, its no longer a hypo, but an "incompleted".
I like the "in sevice", perhaps we could put it to a vote in our rule sets to include "in service", to allow some of the ships mentioned to be legal. for example: ships that where launched or in service between 1895-1946?
I built one of the Wyoming's sister ships in 1/96 scale. A difficult build in even that scale. I started detailed plans for it in 1/144 to test layout, rib-spacing and see that the challenges would be. Not an impossible build, but the low freeboard was the biggest drawback. From my experience with the larger scale, in 1/144, the freeboard would make you deck-awash at speed. Only 1.33" or 1.66" from keel to deck to fit in motors (and internal ribs take up space too). The biggest challenge was getting a fastgun cannon short enough to fit in the turret.
MWCI Rule E6: Cannons may be mounted in the superstructure if the main turrets (or secondary turrets, if 5.a. above applies) are physically too small to house the cannon. Since it's going to be fixed forward anyway, mount it in the SS with the barrel extending into the back and out the face of the turret.
The main problem I see with these old monitors, pre-dreads, etc, is the shallow draft gives them an unfair advantage in that its very hard to score belows on them. So I would say if we ever get big enough to have 'sanctioned events' like regionals or nationals, then ships at the sanctioned events must comply with the rules. If you're going to officially count scores and judge boats/captains and give awards, then I think you must have a ship from the official ship list. That being said, I say at any non-sanctioned event (i.e., local battles) bring it on! I think it would be a lot of fun to have something like that on the water.
