so I had an idea. I’ve noticed that some of the fast gun captains mount their cannons to the underside of the deck so when you pull the deck off you pull the cannons out as well. My question is has anyone done this with big gun cannons and if so how did it work out? I ask because I was thinking of trying to do so when I get cannons for my Montana. One pro I can think of is easy cannon maintenance being able to pull the whole front and aft pairs out. Also the ability to ensure the cannons are centered properly when mounted. One con I can think of difficulty with the co2 hoses getting tangled up and possibly the potential for having the cannons to high making the ship top heavy. Although with a big hull and the wait it will take to get her at waterline the last one might not be even a glimpse of an issue. Thoughts/ideas?
I have not seen anyone succeed with deck-mounted cannons. nobody was even trying it by the time I joined the hobby, but apparently a few people tried it early on. The biggest reported issue was stability - the folks who tried it weren't the best engineers in the hobby, so mistakes were made ending with cannons mounted too high up, over-built superstructures, and poor ballasting that resulted in stability issues. correction - I haven't seen anyone else succeed. My Viribus Unitis uses a very custom six-barrel stern gun (non-rotating) that is fixed to the deck. Keep in mind that was a very specialized cannon for a very specific purpose. That said, two issues came up. The first was maintenance - While the easy access was nice, it rarely was needed and required long hoses to pull the cannon out for any work. The second was stability - the ships had to be built with extra depth to ensure sufficient ballast weight for stability. We also had to make sure everything else was properly mounted low in the hull, good weight distribution, etc. Lastly, the cannons themselves were made from schedule 40 PVC. A number of people on this forum are scared to death of that stuff, but it does machine easily and glue easily, and is less weight than similar cannons using metal accumulators. further correction - I have also seen this done with several sets of torpedoes in various cruisers. The cannons were all made from PVC, and mounted directly to the deck. Again, non-rotating cannons in a fairly specialized mount. Having the cannons mounted to the deck allowed easy access to the battery, pump, and motors. It wasn't great for stability having cannons mounted so high, but on a torpedo-cruiser that wasn't a huge concern. It didn't have to be a stable gun platform so long as it wouldn't capsize from the recoil. I don't really see the benefit of mounting most Big Gun cannons to the deck. Fast Gun cannons are tweaky little things, regularly requiring adjustments of springs, magnets, pistons, o-rings, etc. That requires frequent access to the T-section of the cannon. A deck-mount makes sense, because that gives you rapid access to the working portion of the cannon. Plus the cannons are so lightweight that they usually have a negligible effect to stability. For Big Gun, the considerations are different. If you need to work on the magazines or breeches, just pull the deck and you've got all the access you need. If you need more access than that, just pull the mounting plate, and that'll lift out both the cannon and its rotation mechanism. I haven't seen anybody physically bolt a cannon to the bottom of the ship in a long time. Usually it goes on the aforementioned mounting plate, which in turn uses pins sticking up from the hull to hold it in place. Proper centering of the cannons is based on good measurement when mounting the cannons, which is subject to the same errors whether deck-mounted or hull-mounted. You'll notice that there's a remarkable number of Fast Gun ships whose cannon barrels don't quite line up with their turret covers - that's the same issue. It's just less noticeable in Fast Gun because they don't use rotating turrets.
The idea for me stems from my first experience mounting cannons in my Impero hull (one of Greg’s laser cut kits). I suck at accurate measurements for cannons and the rotation was off a bit for all 3 turrets. I had a similar problem when I had to repair a mount in a Lutzow I had bought second hand after it came loose in battle. It was easier on the later because I could see the former epoxy spot and the mounts where solid over all. The Impero’s guns came out of another ship so I had to make the mounts. Never quite got it right. So for that reason trying to think of better ways of doing it. I believe I saw your Viribus or at least it’s twin in my final battles with WWCC. Had fixed rear cannons and rotating front turret?
