But two clubs, with basically the same rules have very different results. From what's been posted here, it sounds like the irc axis is a cohesive, veteran fleet. That's gonna win unless the allied forces match that. The even split in the mwc says that the rules are not unbalanced.
The record says they're losers when the points are counted. But that doesn't mean its the rudders. Read Tom's battle report from 2013 here: http://www.ircwcc.org/files/Reports/Nats_Reports/2013/2013_NATS-TT.htm Yes he is the Imperial German Admiral, but even if you assume some bias, the repeated notes here are new ships and ships that fail on the water for the Allies. It is hard to win when your ship isn't reliable. Even more damning, if you look at the scores from 2013, TWO class 5 ships on the allied fleet sank 10 times combined. Thats 9000 sink points right there, before you even count holes. One of those two ships picked up Most Feared Allied though, and skimming the report it seems they were sunk in glorious action - a veteran captain doing everything he can to support his fleet, but its hard to win those battles when you're outnumbered because of systems failures on your team. Here's a spot of failed teamwork And here's a spot of good teamwork by the Imperial Germans & Friends A bit of working together on one team, a bit of plans falling apart or failure to work together on the other, add in a dash of new ships and ships with systems failures, and you get a lopsided defeat/victory. Personally, I think we should set aside the usage of Nats scores as any kind of useful evidence in this matter.
Maybe the thing to do would be to test a single rudder ship(or ships) locally - I wouldn't think switching out a legal rudder for a bonus one would be that difficult. Then there'd be some hard data that could be used to either put the concerns to rest or support a rule proposal. As it stands, I think that it would be a hard fight to change the rule in either club. I don't know, has the idea been floated on either clubs email lists?
Fleet battle sinks can spiral out of control too. If you lose a key captain and a couple other guys in the first sortie while the other fleet loses none the second sortie is going to be rough. You've taken bbs off the water to get shot at your fleet and lessened the targets you need to hit on the other side. This can make the second sortie a blood bath. Think of it like the boardgame Battleship. If you sink a couple of the other guys ships early he can't fire as many times each turn and you don't sink as fast getting more shots per turn.
Actually, the size of the sides in the IRC has been more Allied than Axis at almost all Nats. The differences are: 1) more rookies or lazy captains (who have less reliable ships) are on the Allied side 2) Axis have better ships designs (Axis have a few center shaft ships that the Allies can never out turn 3) Allied forces (fair play) are more forgiving that Axis in rule proposals, rule decisions, and fleet decisions such as "Don't pick on the weak ship that got sunk before, he (the captains is having a bad enough week"), and have gotten rules that favor their side such as the multiple rudder rule including silly inline rudders, rules that allowed the Bismarck to become an ever more super ship, etc.) This year we {the Allied forces} lost because we "balanced the sides " by giving away to the other side some of our better captains after we sank most of the Axis Fleet on Monday. So we felt sorry for them!!!!
There is currently a rule proposal on the ballot to increase the size of the rudder on the single rudder ships.
That could influence my next build. It would be nice to make the American Dreadnoughts competitive. Most likely I will still be looking at one of those Axis single drive dual rudder boats.
Having not reviewed the IRCWCC construction rules for about 2 years I was surprised to see no bonus for dual rudders in the latest rules, and to see rudder sizes had been increased. For example, Class 3 ships have 3 square inch rudders now but used to be 2 square inch if I remember correctly (those with 2 rudders got a 50% bonus to 3 square inches). Again subject to memory I think that a few years ago heavy cruisers over a certain length had a larger rudder allowance than shorter heavy cruisers. The first thing I did on starting refits of heavy cruisers Canarias and Suffolk in late 2015 was to increase the rudders from 2 to 3 square inches. Because the longer ships had much bigger rudders I scrapped plans to build HMS York, which was under 600' long. Now that all Class 3 ships have 3" rudders York will again be able to out-turn the longer British heavy cruisers.
Yes, a rule change was voted on and passed on last year's ballot. Now all ships in the same class have the same rudder area. This has shown to be a good change, since it closed the gap significantly between the dual rudder boats and the single rudder boats, while still leaving some advantage to the dual rudder (side by side) boats due to geometry. Makes more boats competitive, which most view as a good thing
Sorry to bother, would someone kindly point me in the right directions for these new rules? I hope to start battling next year with the Western Washington folks
Hey, welcome to this wonderful hobby!!!! the rules get updated anually basically as they change via Ballot. the 2021 rules are here: http://ircwcc.com/main/home/rules/ Good luck and hope to see you on the water.
