I am getting back into the boats with the USS Arkansas BM-7. It is a really cool little ship and I think it would be a lot of fun and should be easy to mantain. The only problem with the ship is that the hull from keel to deck is 2 inches deep. Adding barbette and turret height, that gives a grand total of three inches exterior dimensions to fit in a rotating cannon. The cannon I will probably use for the ship is about five inches tall. This leaves me with the following options: Fixed Arizona style guns (No rotate? Boo!) Adding a box to the bottom of the hull for the accumulator valve assembly to sit in (giant keel at the front to reduce turning) Increasing the draft of the hull to fit the cannon (from 2" total to 4", still appearing scale above the waterline) Design, prototype, and perfect a gun design never seen before in the 30 years of the hobby OK, this could veeer off into touchy territory, but I really like the idea of increasing the draft. The rules don't mention anything about scale tolerences below the waterline, but I am very much a "sprit" vs "letter" of the rules type of guy. What are your thoughts?
Actually it is about half the draft of the Henri IV. Arkansas had a draft of a bit over 12 feet while Henri IV draws 24.
The American monitors were quite capable of operating up rivers, due to their draft. Part of what screwed the USN between the Civil War and WWI was that we as a Navy had invested heavily in monitors (and they were quite highly regarded) to the extent that we neglected other vital parts of a modern navy.
Well for simplicity's sake I think I am just going to go with fixed Arizona cannons for the mains and keep the scale hull shape. I think just might arm some secondaries too if I can get them to fit....
