I would say, decide on hull shapes. Are we doing full scale hulls, scale above waterline hulls, or basic hull designs that are drawn for the hobby (square or rectangular cross-section, simple bow and stern, etc). That should be decided on fairly early. I love scale appearance, but for purposes of mingling lakeside and partying whilst trading BBS, is it mission-critical? And do we want ram bow usage? Speeds should be simple, rather than a range for each class. If we do NASCAR-style boats (I don't like saying it that way, sounds pejorative), then it's pretty straightforward, like Steve suggested. Spec motor & prop with a spec voltage applied makes heavier or less hydrodynamic boats accelerate slower, and lighter boats faster. This does have a downfall of 'what if they quit making the motors?' but if you pick something pretty common it's not that bad. Of course, if we did spec boats (NASCAR) but left propulsion to the builder's discretion with a speed limit (like Predreads do 28, CAEs do 26, PCs do 24, and DDs do 22), that makes the motor sourcing easier. Although spec pump (with spec motor and outlet) makes pump rates easy to manage. I wonder if I have enough time to build two cardboard NASCAR hulls and 'glass them as crash test dummies for seeing what speed looks like at lunch one day at the May battle in 2 weeks. 6V battery, 6V motor, using an ESC for testing speeds.
I'd say regulate below waterline and not above (except for a minimum freeboard possibly). This would give builders latitude in building the very cool designs but keep performance parity. We could also develop three dirt simple "stock" designs with slab sides up to the deck for those that don't want to bend balsa. As far as motor availability, we could identify a cheap motor at one of the surplus outfits and then buy enough for the foreseeable future. I'd prefer brushed because their cheap and easy to control. A MAG throttle or a $10 VEX ESC come to mind. Since these boats won't be speed demons by any measure, I'd say yes for ramming. If it becomes too destabilizing, we could always say no. If we do ram, I'd suggest a timeout period for the rammer to "recuperate" from their energetic experience!
I'm on board with those suggestions. I was going to quick-Fab a slab-sided, flat-prowed single-drive-prop single-rudder cruiser this weekend for testing anyhow.
An interesting experiment would be picking a double ended waterline profile like below (but with a flat bottom lengthwise) and then scale it length and beam wise for a cruiser and a battleship. Weight both hulls to the same draft. Test both hulls with the same rudder and motor/prop and see what we get.
I was going to cheat even worse than that... Do like they do modern submarines with a constant section for like 2/3 of the length (basically flat sides), with shaping at the bow and stern. I wasn't even going to add a profile to the bottom (beyond clearance for props and rudder), I'm looking at dead flat. Tragically lazy, design-wise, but I'm going to throw it in the pool and see how it handles. [EDIT] I looked at some sketches that I drew of the way I was talked about above. don't like the look as much as a traditional look like Steve has in the drawing above. So the EasyPeasy will be a reasonably traditional plan view as above, with a squared-off section underwater, maybe a 1/2" radius on the corners.
What is the purpose of this SteamPunk Flotilla? Is it so we can battle with the early steam warships with relative ease, or provide an easy introduction to the hobby of model warship combat. The drawing that Steve put on here don't look like any cruiser I've seen to date. Is it supposed to be below the waterline? I'm a little puzzled.
As I understand it, it's battling older ships than you usually see on the water. It is also removing a lot of the silliness that one usually sees involving picking particular ships for a tiny advantage, and spending more money to get an advantage. With a spec hull below the waterline, spec motor(s), spec battery, spec pump, and spec props, that removes a lot of silliness. A captain can know walking up to the water with his ship, that it is (on paper) roughly comparable to others of its class. Look at the RC tank thing. Dramatically simplifies the tanks, eliminating a lot of things and making it simple, and people are building tanks they want to see on the field of battle, vice ones that have certain features that make them uber. I am not slamming any format of RC Naval Combat with this. I am still active in IRCWCC (admittedly in the middle of MWCI territory), and I do not intend to give up my scale-hulled warships. I am also not slamming any person or people who have put a lot of effort into their IRC or MWC ships and that are known and feared on the water. This is a totally different concept, and I'm pretty sure that there are segments of all clubs who would hear about this and snicker 'NASCAR'. That's fine, not everybody agrees on things It'd be a boring life if we all did.
Yes, yes, and yes. The sample image is a suggestion for the underwater shape of the hull. It's not perfect, just something I found in a quick search.
Yes. Scale for both. Like the test ship HMS Queen Reginald III, which is actually modelled on the SMS Deutschland hull. I will take the hull form at the waterline, and extend it straight down, with a flat bottom. I will likely go with a 1/2" radius edge on the corners. I haven't decided if my bow will rise from the flat bottom, but it likely will not for ease of building. Bad, aesthetically speaking but faster for a quick build for testing. Why Deutschland? I have the plans and it's single rudder. Also short enough to fit on one 5' plywood board. Cool thing about a flat drop from the waterline is easy ribs. Cut a keel board the same shape as the weather deck (allowances for casements, ja!) and cut ribs to fit between the 2, maybe a few box-sections to keep the shape honest More or less a big version of the 'school boat' that I designed. You can see individual ribs below. These are pretty simple, no stringers, but you get the idea. This section shows a solid box section and a hollow one. It's the bow of the ship but the pointyness hadn't been cut yet. The box sections prevent the structure from shifting enough to compromise the shape.
1/4" is okay, too. Got that bit also But I was thinking of the radius as optional. But you see what I'm saying about the basic structure? Sound reasonable to you? And keeping stuff simple, I'm going to sheet it with 1/32" because that's what I have around and it'll hold out water. Not for any statement on what it _should_ be in actual practice.
Example of the "curve" concept. Here are examples of a predread battleship, armored cruiser, and protected cruiser (Iowa, Maine, and Olympia). These are scaled relative to each other. Notice that in the overhead view they all share a balanced double-ended canoe style hull which I think is fairly typical of ships of this era. The waterlines of each are outlined. What may not be apparent is that the only ship I traced the waterline on was the Iowa. The other two are the Iowa's tracing but scaled to fit the length and beam of the cruisers. Pretty cool how the scaled tracing closely matches the other two ships. The side views represent the same draft for each ship. At 1:96 scale the draft's as depicted would be 3". So the concept of a standardized hull form is based off of a set curve which is scaled to fit a particular model. In the example, the curve off of the Iowa is used as the standard.
Anyone have ideas on spec propeller sizes? 3 or 4-blade props are easy to draw for printing, 3 is a faster print. But knowing what sizes would help as I prep to build a test hull. Thinking, one size for predreads, one for cruisers, one for torpedo-boat destroyers. Or do we fit whatever we like? And there are some ships that have 3 props and others 2 or 4...
I like this idea as I always wanted to build the USS Monterey (BM-6). I know she probably wouldn't be legal even in this format but still a cool weird ship. A couple of random things come to mind, what scale? 1/96 is better suited to newbies building predreds than 1/144 as the extra room makes things a lot easier. I like the simplified hull shape. If rams are allowed you should up armor the balsa a little bit (not really a bad idea for normal fastgun anyway). How many guns? Can they rotate? Torpedoes were a major weapon then, how to include them? or not (probably better)? While several of us now have 3D printers, most people still do not. So requiring a set printed design might turn some people off. If the speeds and rules are similar enough to normal fast gun you could have hybrid battles with predreds battling with the rest of the fleet. While not legal for nats a 1/96 Predred (3.5 units, 28 seconds, but larger rudder to compensate for the increased size) could be a useful starter ship or as a way to get interest and conduct testing.
Ok, so the idea is to build the "above the waterline hull" to scale looks, then extend everything below that straight down to make the "below the waterline hull" relatively the same as any other boat, right?
@Beaver - Yes. @Hovey - the idea being that anyone could print the parts, and people with no access could pay for them (they already pay for those parts anyhow) or order them through Shapeways or one of the other companies like it. The files would be free to download. If, say, I wanted $500 for a spec pump, and Carl Bitondo with his Ormerod printer offered them for $20, then simple math would lead people to him, and probably make me reduce the price to be competitive. Everyone wins. Or if someone wanted a bronze pump from Shapeways, rock on and pay for it. The spec motor would be pretty easy to come by and wouldn't change regardless of pump source. But the end result of open-source hardware (at least in this case) is that costs stay low.
