Yeah, it suprised me too the first time. Even the Richelieu turned a little better. It just happens slower. heh.
It is called FAST Gun for a reason, but really the pace isn't that fast once you get used to whats going on. The pump thing is overrated at a sanctioned battle, Even ships with normal pumps take way more damage than they should, after a point you're just giving more points to the enemy. Sinking with light/med damage doesnt hurt the team nearly as bad as taking a pounding and sinking with 100 belows. (within reason of course) Teams have won NATS with more sinks but less damage. True a lot of people take it as a big ego hit when they sink but that doesn't make it a good tactic while playing as part of a team. (Now if you only count sinks pump capacity becomes a lot more important to prevent such sillyness, but there are other potential problems with only counting sinks or making them worth a lot of points which the fast gun guys generally feel isnt worthwhile. ie some ships are easier to sink so they would get picked on, atleast by any fleet in need of points) Who battles with a 60-80amp pump anyway? Don't think we see that in battle, seen it on the bench but those are two different animals. /* "Super Pumps" are very much like "Super Guns", ego driven....(which has a noticeble negative effect on the hobby as we see here. Which is why I'm so against them and the bragging and boasting that goes along with them, doesn't help the hobby.) Granted I like fiddling with guns in my basement as much as the next guy and I have a rather nice Chronograph setup so I can gather data. But hey I'm an Engineer, thats what we do. And no I don't put my hardest hitting guns in my boats, why? More effort than it's worth. My guns already hit hard enough to do what I need them to do, so the extra effort to build other versions and install/maintain/feed them just isn't worth it. The gun design and testing I do now is purely out of my desire to see how close I can get to the theortical limits. Engineer remember... */
Personally, I pursue high capacity pumps not necessarily to keep the ship floating far longer than it should, but to keep the ship floating while MOVING to effectively stay in combat. How many times has a captain with a 2 gpm pump taken enough damage that he has to stop and pump out before continuing the battle? Now take a captain with a 2.5 - 3 gpm pump that can keep battling effectively longer before having to stop or go on 5. I've seen this concept taken to extreme with two high capacity pumps in a single ship. The idea is to remain in the battle and battle effectively until ammo is out or you need to run on your 5 minutes. That is when a high capacity pump pays dividends. As for guns ... I totally agree that harder is not better ... after a certain point. For me, that point is when the cannon's rate of fire starts to degrade. There is also the point that ships get damaged from BBs. An example is the two BB hits the Erin took during the IRCWCC nats. One BB hit below the penetrable window and went through the fiberglass layer and into the balsa wood below. The second BB hit the bow hard area and went through 2 layers of fiberglass into the hardwood below. That is too hard.
2 layers of thin fiberglass cloth won't stop a bb. Especially backed by soft wood. I used 6 or more layers on my iboat turrets (16 years ago) and they are wearing out, but haven't been shot through because they are slightly flexible. Generally the more cloth and less resin you use the better the bb resistance. Ron Hunt
Funny how this topic has drifted from speed to pump capacity to bb velocity... almost back on topic, I wonder how different Big Gun would be if we used true Dynamic Similitude Speed, instead of 63.1% DSS, and used more accurately time-scaled ROF. Since one key feature of DSS is that time is also scaled, we should be dividing historical rates of fire by 12. What kind of Rate of Fire could the Iowa and Yamato achieve? How about WWI battleships with 11", 12", and 13.5" guns?
I have battled to fast-gun, big-gun, and Treaty rules. I think the speed charts in all of these formats are a pretty good fit. I have heard a lot of folks mention that the speeds are perhaps too slow, or too fast, but generally, this is coming from someone in another format, that has seen videos, or read about the combat in a particular format, but perhaps has never actually participated. So I think to some extent, it is more of a mentality thing. When we were discussing the new battlestations speed chart, there was talk about copying the speed chart from the Treaty group. Which makes me think that we are doing something right in Treaty. But one has to keep in mind that in Treaty, we are still (for the most part), aiming the boats, in order to bring the cannons into action, like the fast-gun groups do. We are just doing it somewhat slower. But in battlestations, there will be some boats that have non-moving cannons. But for the most part, it will be very much like big-gun, where you drive the boats around in order to get where you need to be, and then move the turrets in order to obtain the shot. So I think that having a speed chart that is pretty close to the big-gun speeds, but only slightly faster, and perhaps easier to remember, will be just what is needed. Compared to the big-gun speed-chart. In battlestations, the minimum warship speed boats will be several seconds faster. The boats with mid-range speeds will be a couple/few seconds faster, and the highest speed boats will (I think) be a couple of seconds slower. Mikey
My 41kt Capitani Romani covers the 100' in 27.4sec in big gun. If you do a 33/33 chart. Then it'll do 25sec. Not bad. Tashkents and le fantasques will do 21 or so instead of 25sec. A 22kt dreadnought will do 44sec instead of 51 or so. Mike Butts MN2 USN
Had to comment on this: My first boat in the hobby (Fast Gun) was Von der Tann. Unless I trimmed the boat slightly stern-heavy, then at it's allowed speed of 26 seconds, the "bow" wave was parting around the barbette of Anton turret! Good thing I had a good deck seal!
