On paper..... an interesting ship. Single Rudder - BAD Single Drive shaft - GOOD Nice gun placement. Haymaker 28 sec - SLOW Will take the automatic penalty we give all single rudder ships. The single drive shaft will go a long way to help overcome this. Could likely be the best single rudder hull available. Primary opponents will be Baden, Westfalen, and the like. Will not turn with them with their dual rudders (Read that 1.5" rudder bonus) Also has more freeboard than Axis High seas fleet opponents. I would like to see how one performed on the water, but would not spent the hundreds of dollars out of my wallet to find out. Keith
I built one in 2010, battled from 2010 through 2012 when I moved out of the area. I used an Australian Baden hull and modified the casements to be flush with the sides. I treated it as a neutral ship which could fight on either side which was unique. I found "plans" by printing out line drawings from Google and scaling them appropriately. I think the ship battles well, it will not pivot like German WWI ships, but out turns the allied 4 prop, 1 rudder fleet, and yes the real ship was 6ft too short to make 26 seconds.
It has good turret placements, but as has been pointed out it will not turn as well as dual rudder German and British dreadnoughts. I'd build an R or QE Class instead. The QEs are proven performers in competition - Marty Hayes' and my Warspites were among the most effective Allied ships in Cannats competitions and were usually the last Allied ships afloat. Frank Pitelli has Ralph Coles' old QE hull mold with the bulges made rounded for easy sheeting. I used one for my Warspite. Ralph now sells a QE hull with accurate stepped bulges but it's only suitable for QE and Valiant in WWII. There's a nice build thread showing how it is being converted to HMS Barham.
Rivadavia and Moreno were built in the US and also refitted there so I always thought real plans should be available somewhere. It should out turn and out accelerate anything running a 1 rudder / 2 prop configuration, but would be hard to steer straight when changing directions.
Rivadavia was built at the Fore River Shipyard. That was acquired by General Dynamics, perhaps their archives has them. Also check archives in the Boston Area.
I'm the one who had the Rivadavia at the 2008 NATS. I agree with all the comments here. I enjoyed building a unique ship with lots of firepower, but it was slow and the double rudder 26 speed ships usually won. I still have it, along with a virgin Bismarck. I got to admit, I think it was build for night battle. I painted it black, all the floodlights were led, and I could reverse the running lights too. The mosquitoes loved it!! Haha. I built this one from scratch, based on line drawings and pictures. I'd do it again, but probably start with a Baden hull.
