So after near 10 years of trying.... I finally had the denero and the tools to turn out a workable frame. And thus was born the Lexington Class Guided Missile Battlecruiser.... I loved the lines of the Lexington Class, but also liked the modern styling of the DDGs. So I figured why not marry the two up? She is being built and armed to Big Gun standards as she was supposed to be built in the1920s. (16" mains and 6" secondary) But the topside is going to get a modern look to it. Mk 41 VLS, Mk141 Harpoon Launchers, SPY radar... the works. Purely cosmetic in nature of course. I'll fight anyone who dosen't have a problem with her looks, and at some point will build a "legal" SS to toss on her if I want to fight her for more than just S&Gs. The tubes and motor mounts are in. Me and my wife are waiting to close on a new house, so the rental we are in isn't really set up to do major shipbuilding. I will be working on the decks for the next month. Once I move into the new place I'll get back to the big stuff like installing drive systems, radios, and the main battery. Thoughts/Comments are welcome. Edit: Thinking about it now.... this place we are buying also has a pretty decent sized spring fed pond on the property.... I would be open to hosting other ships/events once we get over there. (Located in Pensacola FL)
Well, to come clean, I have been planning to build the Baltimore hull I have as USS Albany (CG-10). No change in units or anything, just a different look So I'm cool with Ian's hypothetical, although I'd encourage him to build for fast gun, since that's the main form of battling down here.
Yes but why would you want to put all that boring modern stuff on a ship that could have SEVEN funnels and cage masts.
GHA! Frickan window backed up on me and I lost everything I typed! But where was I? I don't mind if she isn't 100% legal to compete. Where it counts in design/build/firepower I will get her up to board. I want to learn on a solid boat I love, and maybe have my kids tool it around the pond in 15 years. I just want to add some extra seawater intakes into any Axis boat that feels froggy and don't mind patching my own holes. I like working on the boat and getter her back up to deal out some punishment. (Marine Engineer Steam/Motor/Gas Turbine by schooling, MH-60R pilot by trade) Speaking of Pond, I snatched a few pictures from the reality site... she's got alota lillipads I am going to have to mow before I can really run loose but its stocked with some game fish and its all MINE!!! I look forward to seeing many boats running her shores. Runs about 6 feet in the middle so we can get all those bow up sinks we love to watch without needing a SCUBA rig to fetch them back. Me and my wife will be building a 15-20 horse boarding/training facility on the land and once up and running should have a paved parking lot and full hookups for those road warriors. Current work consists of painting the deck and the SS decking to match as best I can what 6-month into long cruise non-skid looks like. Once that dries I'll start on the deck markings for the battery traverse arcs, flight deck markings and the likes.
Tug, The way I look at it is it took a top end crew 30 seconds to get a Mk 7 16” ready to rock.. It took a little less than a full Zip Code to swing some fine azz boat like the Mo’s arse around. This jives more with what I read read to be the BG way of doing things. (Read, never battled) We’re driving “Battleships”, not NASCARs around. High ROF and speeds didn’t seem to be my thing. Seeing how long it took the Shoe’s to get me simple winds in the envelope to recover, I felt a gunfight was a slower affair then FG made it out to be. I wouldn't mind fighting or hosting FG ships, just not the way I opted to roll. Ian
Hey Ian, how are the winds at the pond? It looks nice and open, with nary a tree nearby to muss things up. Usually that results in relatively constant wind speed and direction, perfect for square-riggers. Most ponds have too many big tall trees, and that makes the wind too inconstant for sail-powered combat. Who knows, in a couple years you may end up hosting the first AOS nats PS: if you need Big gunners to battle with, Gascan and I are in King's Bay, and we'd love to play with you. There are a few other Big Gunners scattered around the area, plus enough big gun ships between Gascan and I to fight a fleet battle on our own.
My meaning, Carl, was that there are 3 big gun guys in the area, two of whom go to sea and one of whom is deployed and will be due to change duty station in a year or so. Even with the Gearing as a torpedo boat, that's 4 ships on the water at once assuming everybody can make it to the battle. I'm not down on big gun, I'm thinking in terms of people to battle with in this area.
To the right in those pictures is the property line. Its got a MED number of shorter tress that might mess things up for you. From what I remember in flight school ( one of the OLFs I worked is a mile down the road) we get a decent number of days the wind would move from left/right in those pictures.... so you'd have a pretty steady wind.
Working backend forward as far as the topside detail goes.... two shots of the flight deck, one of the storm window gasket I am using to seal the weather decks. I used #6 course screws with washers glued to the main deck to tie in Tee-Nuts that are laid into the cap rail. I'll try to cover them up with some deck clutter at some point. The flight deck markings are a mix of a CG like the one I cruised on, and what I think would be required to operate both H-60s and a B model JSF. The Red/Yellow square is an airacraft elevator ala a Kirov vice having hangers at deck level. ( Wouldn't jive with the hull lines) I will be stopping by the local hobby shop after work to see what I can find in the way of railing and somthing I can use for Mk 57 PVLS cells. Up close she looks a little splotchy, but back up 2-3 feet and its kinda scary. You can also see the aft main battery foul arcs.
Forward foul arc and 64 Cell VLS Aft foul arc and 32 Cell VLS Looking down from the Bridge over the bow Slowly but certainly... she's comming together. The lower SS will be replaced, likely this weekend. I just am not happy how it came out.
This is very nice. Reminds me of the Arleigh Burke myself and a fried collobrated on in making RC. It worked out very well. We built the Canadian Trump class destroyer Iroquis for RC in the same scale.
My sub operated with Iroquois off Newfoundland in exercises back in the 90's. Very professional chaps. John Jones told me that he had a spare Burke hull sitting around and wondered if he could battle it. I told him that if he showed up in Statesboro with it, armed as a 3-unit cruiser, it'd be fine
Modern warships are at a massive disadvantage when it comes to this sport. The hulls are near paper thin. But if someone wanted to build one and fight it I say why not? One or two mains, which is really all some folks arm anyways. A couple lightweight torpedo tubes if you are feeling Froggy. The Soviets had some gun cruisers they built up post war. The Brits did the Tiger class… I mean ALOT of Soviet designs would be advantageous. They loved putting BIG guns on small boats, and lots of them. You don't just get Axis vs. Allies; you get NATO vs. Warsaw Pact and all the showdowns that never happened. (Tonkin Gulf, Cuban Missile) You also get much larger subs, which may make it easier to include those into play if that was your desire. My $0.02
The logic is that the hobby is centered on surface gun combat, so torpedoes (apart from Big Gun and Battlestations!) are not modelled. In fast gun, hull thickness is irrelevant. In Big Gun or Battlestations!, it would matter, along with the speed of the ships (most modern cruisers could handily outrun a Yamato or anything WWI-ish). Difficulty establishing top speed for some modern ships where the top speed is often listed as 'Greater than 28 knots' could be problematic. In the case of builders who are also Navy vets, one would have to go with the official number, as running your ship faster because of personal experience would be 1)Unfair to those who do not have such experience and 2) Violating opsec or in some cases revealing classified information, like if I ran USS Albuquerque (SSN-706) and said 'her speed was XX knots when I was on it.' Having lots of guns on a small boat isn't so wonderful due to space and weight requirements of guns and gas systems. Now a few turrets with large-caliber guns is good, the secondaries hardly ever get armed. So I'm cool with hypotheticals (within reasonable limits, those giant hypothetical American ones that I can't remember the name of are way off base), but I'm not on a rules committee for any clubs except Age Of Sail (Lexy gots no sails, non-issue) and Battlestations! (which allows the same hypos as Treaty Combat). I have talked with Kotori and Gascan about Big Gun Southeast allowing hypotheticals, and my feeling is that if it's not too egregious it's okay, altho no rules have been codified. Realistically, there are 4 (5 counting you) who are interested in Big Gun in the area covered by BGS, so really anything non-crazy would probably be allowed, even if there were some stipulations added pondside.
The Tillman Battleships are the huge hypothetical USN ships. They were never serious plans, the were just projected to see how big battleships could get.
My club (WCC) allows hypothetical so long as Conways list length, beam, draft, displacement, and main armament. In all other ways the ships must be built to standard rules though. We figure why not have another ship on the pond to shoot at. This prevents crazy hypothetical ships and arguing if it really did mount 24 guns in its main battery while keeping the rule simple. So no giant Tillman battleships in our club. Although looking at their dimensions they aren't all that much larger than the Montana's which would be cool to see on the water.
Got the new O2 level of the SS cut out of pine. I am going to jigsaw the bulk of it out and throw some 1/8" birch ply over the top to make the deck. Apply a goodly amount of spar varnish and paint. Try to save myself some weight topside by hollowing it out. Saturday I should get that finished and the PVC cut and installed for the turret bases. I will have new pics up in the PM.
