If you contour the bow and stern cuts to the hull it shouldn't be a problem. Straight is good to but a contour is what I think the rule should say, can any body say "rule suggestion"? I think that we can deal with these minor differences before the Dremel starts cutting.
I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see a "grandfathered in" clause added to IRC rules such that boats built to MWC would not have to be cut up to meet any differences. Changing speed is trivial, changing the windows / casements / etc is not.
One of the reasons the IRCWCC adopted the MWC casement rules was to keep the hull construction rules the same between the clubs, even though it was not a popular rule in either club. The stern hard area is the only difference in hull construction I am aware of at the moment, and in most cases is less than the width of a bb in the penetrable area.
I wonder about how difference in the ship list will be handled. A number of classes are listed a different weight, and at least one the Jean Bart (b) does not exist in IRCWCC ship list.
I am not writing any rule proposals this year, as there is enough going on with a heavy influx of new members, but I would like to see the IRCWCC adopt the MWC's rule that gives the light cruisers 22sec speed. Of course, the counter-argument on that is that class two ships can split their guns into multiple half-unit guns, which the MWC CLs could NOT. Another good reason to let the rules rest for a year
I agree 100%. Moratorium on rule changes until 2016 to let issues be identified, with the understanding that MWC-compliant ships do not need to do any structural alterations to meet IRC guidelines for 2015 (except speeds, which are a trivial alteration).
I personally don't like bulkheads in ships that clearly don't need them. I also don't like Weldwood to patch, and it does make it tooooooooooooo rubbery. These are a couple of my pet gripes with very competitive ships. But as with all problems they can be fixed.
The Jean Bart would be included under the Richelieu class, although I'm sure a case could be made for it being a separate listing as it was completed after the war to a modified design.
Did the post-war configuration change anything that matters for RC combat purposes? I didn't think that it changed that much.
Yep, we added more to our beam, too. More tonnage, beamier, little bit slower, a bit more gray... oh, wait...
