Landing Craft, Vehicle, Personnel or LCVP. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgins_boat In 1:144 scale that works out to 3" long * 0.9" beam, & you'll definitely need that extra 3/8" draft to bring the grand total to 5/8"! JM
So maybe my thought was a tad ambitious...sounds like it'd work perfectly using the guts of once of those micro rc boats in 1/96 scale though! [] 43.5"
One of the really handy aspects of 1:144 scale is that you can divide feet(original) by 12 to get inches(model). Example: 522/12=43.5; 522' in 1:144 scale is 43.5" If I'm not mistaken, somebody offers a 1:144 LST hull in fiberglass. JM
I think some one in WWCC built one and has a r/c tank that it can unload. I know I have seen pictures, but I may be wrong about the source.
Anachronous, that was an LST, not an LCT. An LST may be small, but it's a heck of a lot bigger than an LCT. And it still has reliability issues.
That was the type I thought. Still photo's don't show the reliability problems but the idea is fantastic.
Consider some of the logistics involved: How many landing ships/craft are involved to make it "good"? How many tanks are involved? How many shore batteries are needed? How many people are needed to run it? How many radio channels are you going to need? JM
I'm under the impression that for tanks, each landing craft carrying them could be equipped with wind-up, spring-powered toy tanks. To score points, each landing ship would have the objective of hitting the shore, "dropping their ramp" (or opening bow doors) to unleash the "tanks" to run into targets or perhaps through open frames (representing points of access off the beach). That would sure free-up any channels that might otherwise be used up by the forces deployed from the larger landing craft.
Sure, I've done it, I have one, & last time I checked, it still worked. How many do you need? How many people to run them? JM
That sounds reasonable, & helps conserve both radio channels & people to operate things. Basically, once the tanks are released, you're depending on luck (& how well the LST drivers can line them up on the beach) to get them to their objectives? Nothing wrong with that, I don't think. I presume that the tanks could still be under fire from the shore batteries as well, trying to prevent them from reaching their goals? It seems like it could be made into quite a spectacle, maybe for a public exhibition. I believe there would tend to be a lot of sitting/watching/waiting for a lot of the participants, which is actually pretty typical of (naval) warfare in general. Issues to address: Get the tanks (in scale) Figure out how to release them (multiple units) when the LST doors open Get & equip the LSTs to launch the tanks Plenty of other issues, but I think those are the biggies right now. JM
I've got some photos: The weapon is an old BDE Predator (?) 7/32" triple that I didn't have anything else to do with it (I gave another one away on the condition that it also be used for a shore battery, but that never got done). The white cubes are sitting on micro switches. Shoot the block off any switch & the reload timer has another 6 seconds added to it (6-second reload timer is enforced by default, with all blocks in place). All the "brains" are in the hand-held controller, which includes a slider for range, knob for bearing, pushbutton to fire, red & green LEDs that light to tell whether the gun is ready to fire or not (red while in reload, green when ready). "Fire" button is ignored during reload time. In 1st photo, you can see the green "Ready" LED lit, just above the red firing button on the controller. Sadly, I don't have either schematics or source code. I think they got lost along with certain other related stuff on a croaked laptop. JM
Brian Koehler found schematics and code on the web for a servo controller and made one for a shore battery. So the info is out there.
