Take a look at the Viribus Unitis. It's an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought that was famous for being the first battleship to mount triple turrets in a sensible layout. It was also famous for being one of the few battleships ever filmed sinking. A few nifty features: *small ship, short length, twin rudders. This translates to a VERY maneuverable boat. It could probably turn around in a toilet bowl. *triple turrets, two forward and two aft. This is a very versatile layout. You can arm triple sterns, sidemounts, bow guns, or just about anything else you can imagine. There's also plenty of room, if you don't gunk it up with garbage like water-resistant boxes. *old-school battleship. It's an old-style battleship, with bulging ram bow, open-air bridge, and all sorts of other things that give it unique turn-of-the-century style. It also does NOT have the weird weapon layouts, funky smokestack layouts, numerous gun sizes, and other foolery of old-school warships, so it doesn't look like a pompous, over-dressed admiral at the local bar-room brawl. *cool names. Viribus Unitis, Tegethoff, Prinz Eugen, and Szent Istvan. How can you get any cooler than the gutteral, malevolent-sounding name Tegethoff? It's the perfect name for a down-and-dirty brawler like that. Or you could mess with people's minds and call it the Prinz Eugen (most folks picture the heavy cruiser when they hear that name). *There's a fiberglass hull available. I think Bowning Shipyards in Australia has the hull. Someone on this forum was recently talking about the Viribus hull they got, but I don't remember exactly where from. *I'm building one! Mine is being built for Big Gun combat, as a testbed for gun-convergence technology. I'm working very slowly on it so it probably won't hit the water for a year or two, but when it does baby look out! Wouldn't wanna be anywhere near that thing when it fires.
I think it's a good idea to use multiple plans sets, if you're interested in accuracy at all. They don't necessarily have to be the same scale, even. You may be amazed at what shows differently in one artist's version vs. another. Also, it never hurts to check historical photos, either. Also, check for inconsistencies WITHIN a given plan as well. I've found plenty that didn't match up, port vs. stbd., or plan vs. profile view. I've also found some glaring errors in plans. Sometimes you just have to make an "executive decision" & it's a lot easier before the cutting starts. Taubman (I heard that Abe passed away recently, BTW) just collects & distributes plans drawn by others. The single worst plans that I've personally seen, as far as accuracy is concerned, were from Taubman but drawn by Ed Wisswesser. I've heard other complaints about accuracy in Wisswesser-drawn plans as well. Just be aware that whomever drew the scale plans probably wasn't remotely involved in designing or building the actual ship. They may not even be a decent draftsman. If accuracy is important, check multiple sources & use your best judgment which (if any) are right. JM
The Viribus Unitis is his newest hull, casemates are built into the hull, I'm very happy with it, working on the subdeck right now, in between work on the Roma. In fastgun its 4 units. Michael Raue is making them, not Browning, thats Brett F. If you need Michaels email, send a email to me and I will forward it to you.
And for a first time build try prototyping it in some cheap material. Cut frames out of poster board or something. It will help give you an idea how things fit together. No need to do a full hull even. Just doing a half hull will show up any glaring errors.
That's a heck of an idea! Spend a couple of dollars on poster board & maybe save a bunch of trouble later! JM
I had read it somewhere a while back and it has saved me some annoyance in the past. Sometimes you can tell by eye if the plans are out of whack but putting the parts together tells you how and where to make adjustments.
In the for sale thread, there is a link for Swampy's email address. He is taking an order for hulls (including the Invincible) which may be of interest to the OP. For that poster's info, the Swampy Invincible hull is a little bit shorter then it's supposed to be. It's got the -10% or whatever the number is; it works out to something like an inch shorter then it should be. Mike D
I always measure at key points since some things aren't quite visible enough that my eye can catch, but can still be bad enough that parts don't match/fit right. I may start going cardboard mock-ups, too. It also sounds like a decent way to show others (club, etc.) what you're working on, without having to drag a whole partly-built ship along. JM
That would be a good promotional item to take places to explain what we do in this hobby. Build a half ship completely. You could use burned out motors and things to equip it llike the real thing and just set it up as a display at local events...fairs and the like.
after seeing mikeys renown i got to get one .it will be verry good in treaty. 32 knots and a lot of hull volume for a 4.5 unit ship.
