too bad yall couldn't make it we had a great battle vdt was defending a attacker and the 2 AC's were taking em on well need less to say attacker and vdt met davy jones. vids and pics to follow after i get home from work later tonight or tommrow morning
As Jason reported we had a small but enjoyable battle today. John Coffill was back in action for the first time in 2 years with his carrier HMS Attacker, built from his own fiberglass hull. This was originally a liner hull (Picton Castle?) so is bigger than the Attacker would be but we 'grandfathered' it, and will allow it to have 3.0 units under our local rules. A lovely looking model with the British fighters ranged on deck, and signal flags reading "Go frack yourself." for Battle Star Galactica fans. Attacker was on its maiden voyage and lacked waterchannelling and a CO2 source for the bow and stern cannons. It acted as the convoy ship, being defended by Harold Clark at the helm of the Von der Tann. On the attack were British armored cruisers Minotaur and Black Prince, operating together for the first time in 4 or 5 years. Jason was at the helm of the BP and I ran the Minotaur. The ACs were running much slower this time due to larger drag discs. Compared to Von der Tann, which was at it's Treaty speed of 35 sec/100', the ACs and carrier weren't noticably slower. They need to slow down another second or two. We had almost enough CO2 for a 2 sortie battle, no fill station being available this weekend. BP was using CO2 capsules but by the latter half of the 2nd sortie VdT and Minotaur had too little pressure in their bottles to empty their magazines. Minotaur had about 30 BBs left in the bow gun. Lacking water channelling the Attacker tended to list alarmingly as the water sloshed around but was in no danger until the pump ingested a hunk of hot-glue that jammed in the pump outlet during sortie 2. She did a graceful sink stern first. Von der Tann didn't have much damage but experienced a pump switch failure and was gradually settling throughout sortie 2. She would have survived past the end of the battle but Jason and Harold decided to let her sink for some interesting video footage (to be posted). John, Jason and I talked about how much the slower Treaty speeds had added to the battle experience. For the first time I found a bow gun useful and there was plenty of time to line up stern gun shots on the Von der Tann's relatively limited target area (i.e. the bow). Unfortunately Scott and Rob couldn't make it and Ralph was hosting a visitor from out of town, though they dropped by for a few minutes. The next battle will be in early October. John's found 2 new battle sites between Mt. Uniacke and the Valley, with no competing canoeists or company BBQs as was the case today! Bob
OK: The list was repaired tonight, just some water channel and a better way to have the batteries held and she sits straight in the tub. Guns have been set perminently in place and the pump outlet cleaned out. rudder servo has crapped out but it was the one out of Tommy's old Nagato so its about 7+ years old. new one will be installed this week. Never planed on useing the carrier but now it has somthing to prove.
Sounds like you guys had a good battle, wish I could have seen it. Did you get any pictures? How was the turning on the Attacker? You're right about those bow guns; they are much more useful then in the other formats. After running Phil's cruiser with a bow gun last month, I can't imagine a no bow gun cruiser again. With my Salem I promptly removed one of the stern guns and went with twin sterns and a single bow gun, and am very happy with it. With my Salt Lake City instead of twin sterns and a .5 unit bow gun, I think I'll now roll with a 50-rd bow 50-rd stern and a 25-rd stern so when I get those good shots lined up I can hit with the duals, and use singles the rest of the time. My CVL Belleau Wood will have a 50-rd bow and a 50-rd stern. I'm hoping to see some more carriers out there next year; one of the guys out in Ohio is talking about several different carrier designs. I think the IJN Unryu class would be especially nasty at 34 knots, 5 units and twin rudders.
Hey guys my Tirpitz has a bow gun and I was pounding Mushashi in her stern while I was chasing her down, it was really effective. I had no problem with my bow gun and it was my first battle.
Chris, In the IRCWCC most people tend to avoid using bow guns in any ship class, unless they have a model allowed to have cannons in every quadrant (like Tirpitz and Vanguard). There used to be a very nice website on R/C combat tactics which explained why guns in other locations were better in terms of point scoring. (I think it was David Pearce's site.) The stats on the site showed shots from bow cannons hit less often than side or stern mounts and rarely hit below the waterline. A problem with using bow guns in smaller ships was that you were usually closing on a larger, more dangerous opponent that might be able to equal your speed and exceed your turning ability. In NABS we had three cruisers using the Kent/Canarias hull. Canarias had dual stern guns and the Canberra and Suffolk had bow and stern guns. Under IRCWCC rules the fast battleships have equal speed to heavy cruisers and usually turn better so it was dangerous for the Canberra and Suffolk to approach them for bow cannon shots. Canarias fired with stern to the battleship, so always had a head start getting away. I think the stats show which gun installation posed more risk to the cruiser. Canarias was never sunk and never in danger of sinking during a battle but the two Kent Class cruisers were caught and badly damaged or sunk several times each. Under Treaty rules ship speed is set according to the speed of the real ship so there are no battleships that can equal the speed of a County Class heavy cruiser (32 knots). That makes it safer to use bow guns. The overall slower speeds in Treaty combat also allow more time for careful aiming, making a bow gun more likely to hit the target. After a couple of NABS battles with the Minotaur I gave up on the bow gun and used dual stern guns. In yesterday's battle I used the bow gun option for the first time in years and found it effective, but less so than the lower stern gun. I will be using a bow gun in the Vanguard. The relatively high stern isn't ideal for dual stern guns so Vanguard will have dual sidemounts in A and Y turrets, and bow and stern guns in B and X turrets. Sounds like everyone had a good time in NB. Bob
It was a great time and I think we will be hosting an event next year as everyone loved the site and most of the new boats should have all the bugs worked out.
Count me in for Cannats XI. Have you considered appointing a NABS 'liason officer' to the IRCWCC? The Fredericton site looks ideal for a NATS and is close to the Maine border. Bob
I have often had bow guns in the IRC battles. My Warspite(s) had a bow gun and often could sneak up on someone (Ask Steve Crane at CANNATS). My VU had a bow gun (Ask Bob Pottle!). Marty Hayes Yes, Chris Pearce did not give much credit to bow guns in his paper on gun placement. But I thought that was because they could not do underwater damage.
Marty, I remember your bow guns. It would always take a while to figure where the shots were coming from.
