Battle Report The Dukes scanned the horizon after a furious day of battling, and had swept the seas clean of all Axis ship's. We had a good day of battling, only 3 sorties, since we spent quite awhile looking for Tom's VDT. Its amazing how far a boat can move sideways as it goes down in 7 ft of water. It must of been 15 ft from where everyone reported seeing it go down. It did take us 5 hours to find it. 4 of us went into the water and looked for about a hour, then Rick went and got the camera, and we looked again. We did 2 more sorties, and then quit for the day. Tom and I went back out with the camera, and found the boat in about 15 minutes, no more than 5 minutes after Bill left. Josh jumped in and grabbed it for Tom. Beside the battery discharging, Tom put a new one in, and everything was still working. Josh B came to see how his nes PE was coming, and to do some battling with us at the same time. He was pretty impressed with the Dukes, Don let him run his boat all the sorties and Josh was turning into a real killer with it. He was the one that put Tom's VDT down. Very impressive damage, 2 holes over 6 inches in length down the side of the boat. We missed the rest of you all, hopefully you all can make it next battle.
Honestly, it's getting a little depressing how hard the ID's are to sink. They are very good ships. Very glad to hear the Josh was getting into the thick of it, even if he was a bit rusty LOL
Josh has not battled since he was Allied Admiral at the 2007 Houston Nats. But he has been at the Air Force Accademy, and just graduated earlier this year. He's now in Mississippi getting more training as a Ciberwarfare specialist untill Feb. Franks Radezky almost sank me first sortie, and he was even on my side. I was busy hammering on a Konig, and Josh has hammering on Frank. So Frank tried to run away, by going thru my Duke. Left quite a large hole in my port bow.
LOL! I'm happy to let you know that I've cut down the ram bow on Scharnie, so I should have a lot less damaging rams in October than previously. I also soldered up a brass 4-blade impeller for the pump, which is going brushless, so hopefully no more pump problems!
Nice to see more battle reports being posted for those that didn't make it. Sounds like a good time. Mikey
Mikey, you got to go to the October battle in Oakburo. Looks like 22'ish ships already signed up from IRCWWC and MWC captains. The pond is amazing. The battle is shaping up to be one of the last big battles of the year. No one should miss it!
As much as I would like to come down and see everyone.. I do not think I will be able to drop in. We had to schedule our Xenia battle on the same weekend in order to avoid conflicts that would have kept some of the regulars from attending the event. My LeTerrible project has ground to a halt due to other things going on, so my fast-gun boat will probably not be finished this year. I hope to get back to work on her after the battling season ends. Mikey
When the water causes hypothermia before you've retrieved your boat, it's time to end the battling season. I almost had to jump in and rescue Gascan once, when he took too long filming a sinking ship.
How do you think we got the closeups in this video? We filmed a lot more, but Gascan got stupid with cold, and either missed or botched most of it. @Darren: I would love to come visit you guys. Australian Nats is my #2 dream vacation, right behind a year-long "endless summer" world tour of warship combat clubs.
Well, plan to escape your winter then, as our next National Battle will be in January. Hat and sunscreen strongly recommended.
Alas, they are but dreams at this point. I'm still paying off student loans and getting a career set up. As soon as I can, though, I'd love to.
