There are several suitable motors at SurplusCenter in the $2 to $3 range. Getting a batch together shouldn't be an issue. For those diehards who want to use their own motor on an ESC, I guess a thrust measurement could be used. I'd prefer to stick with spec motors though. Easier for the new guys to understand than trying to explain ESC's and end-point-adjustments.
The problem with spec motors from AllElectronics and Surplus Center is that eventually we run out of spec motors. What do we do then? Not nitpicking, trying to see what the right answer is.
That's why I like the idea of a pool of motors (or new motors) provided by the event. Initially were only talking a small number of battlers at best so were not talking a bunch of money to start. If it takes off, like if Strike or BC start selling ready to battle ships at a nice price point, and the numbers start to rise. There's no reason that the hobby couldn't have motors built to spec. The important point is to ensure the same motor at the scored events. At any other time a builder can run whatever he/she wants. We should mandate the motor type (ie: 500 series) to ensure easy swap outs. We would want to design a motor mount that allowed for easy and quick swap outs. On voltage, since there's a better selection of 12V motors on the surplus market, I'd like to suggest we go with that for propulsion and pumping. For radio, a BEC or better yet, a separate 6V battery. On battery's, I'm all for using 12V SLA's because there cheap, make nice ballast, and if somebody wanted to pull the battery from their motorcycle or kids powerwheels, that's an option. Thoughts?
I would rather just use the motors & batteries I have on hand instead of having to go out and buy new motors & batteries.
Hey folks, are you aware that many shipyards in the industrialized nations would build and sell warships to other nations? That's how Japan operated a fleet of British-built warships against the Russians, the Russians operated a French/German/American/Russian-built fleet against the Japanese, and many South American and Asian countries had warships from various major powers. I am quite partial to the variety of different hull forms from the Pre-dreadnought era, so how about this? * allow any ship from the correct time period in 1:96 scale, provided its stern is rebuilt to operate a single prop and rudder * for newcomers, design a simple slab-sided hull for a battleship, an armored cruiser, and a protected cruiser. * limit speed in the normal method, using true 1:96 DSS speed for 14 kts, 16 kts, and 18 kts for BBs, ACs, and PCs respectively. A slab-sided hull does not necessarily have perfectly square, perpendicular sides. Ask Gascan how we developed the ribs for his Gascoigne. Take a look at the hull of the plastic Blue Devil destroyer model kit. the hull is best described as a box with rounded corners. The front third angles inward, while the back third angles upward. With just a little bit of math, you can make a simple, good-looking hull form for a pre-dreadnought using those same basic techniques. Paint them different colors and rearrange the superstructure a bit, and voila: instantly they are from different navies. My only request is that the standard-shaped battleship carry side-by-side smokestacks. Another thought on propulsion. Most warships of the era had at least two props. Instead of a standardized single-prop-single-rudder setup, how about a standardized two-prop-one-rudder arrangement? I know a single shaft is simpler, but the second shaft is not much more work and would not require any redesign to the sterns of scale ships. Prop-wise, most pre-dreadnought warships used triple-expansion steam engines turning very large-diameter props. For my favorite ship, the Mikasa, scale prop size is about 2.25" in 1:96 scale. The ship itself works out to about 4ft6in long, and 9in beam. That's plenty of room for a decent set of motors and gears, alongside all the other stuff the ship needs to operate. for armament, we need to consider whether to use Big Gun style armament or Fast Gun style, and how to allocate that firepower. Should a ship be able to arm its secondary guns instead of primaries? What about torpedoes? What about a mix, with Fast Gun style guns alongside Big Gun style torpedoes? Considering the current availability of Big Gun cannons, I would suggest the mixed armament, allowing Fast Gun style guns to be located in the primaries and/or largest secondaries, and allowing protected cruisers to use Big Gun style torpedoes if they want. For armor, again do we use different thicknesses or uniform thickness? And if we use different thicknesses, should the be arranged by effective armor thickness, or by class? Either way, something thicker than 1/32" is strongly recommended to limit damage from rams. That's all I can think of for now. Hopefully I'll be able to add more suggestions the next time I come ashore.
We may want to use a standard thickness for armor, as the time frame we are considering was one of great advances in armor making. Armor went from wrought iron to face hardened steel which was vastly superior in its protective abilities. While it is certainly doable to make a conversion table (it could be lifted from a circa 1900 Janes Fighting Ships) I think it is a needless complexity.The only question then becomes, one size fits all, or a standard thickness for Armorclads, Belted Cruisers, and Protected Cruisers.
I can see this proposed initiative evolving along the lines of the First Robotics competitions. With First, they have annual events where teams build robots utilizing the same parts sources to compete in challenges. Because the teams are limited to First legal components, there's an inate sense of fairness in the competitions. First is typically marketed to high schools as class projects with regional and national events. I see no reason that warship combat couldn't be adapted along the same lines. Getting kids involved with an "entry-level" aspect of the hobby will be good for all formats. IMO, simplifying the ruleset and construction details as much as possible makes the cost of entry for todays somewhat hands-on challenged generation all the better for the hobby. Removing scale aspects such number of props/rudders, hull shape, speed tables, etc. allows simplifying the rules and removes possible contentions that we all know scale discussions will lead to. We should consider rebranding to Aquatic Robot Combat to open doors to a generation who's sole exposure to naval combat is probably the bumper boats at the local waterpark. I originally came up with Steampunk because it's cool and fits in nicely with the Victorian era we're looking at. Steampunk is also a popular genre with the scifi crowd so that may open some doors. I can appreciate existing battlers desire to use current equipment and conventions in use in other formats because their obviously already invested. But I see this as an opportunity to dump the baggage that's really not needed for fun combat, pick and chose the best from the other formats, and role it all up into a low cost, easy introduction of R/C naval combat to new generations. If not for yourself, then do it for the kids! FULL DISCLOSURE: I've registered the SteampunkBattleships.com, .org, .net, and .info domain names. If this leads anywhere, It's my intent to transfer control of these domains at no cost to whatever not-for-profit governing body that may arise.
Why even bother basing it on real ships? Why not just give a set of dimensions the particular "class" hull has to be within, and just have people make something that looks "period correct"?
Given that ships of the era were very similar in size I like the idea of just using standard ship sizes. For the super are we trying to look scale? Or would a true steampunked super be acceptable? I kinda like the later as it is an easy way to allow customization of your ship without any meaningful rule issues. Two props and a single rudder would be FAR more historically accurate. For armament you get some issues with predreds in determining the main armament. Most mounted two twin 12" main gun turrets and then a secondary battery of 8" guns. The problem is that the 8" threw out more shell weight over a given time and so were considered as important to the firepower of the ship as the 12" battery. Only very late in this period was the importance of long range accuracy realized and ships started to go away from the 8" gun. For fastgun you get twins in one turret and a sidemount in the other which works out ok at that scale. But since the ships are larger you could add more guns inside, for example arming the 8" battery. But this adds more cost and complexity. To keep cost down I like the idea of 3 fast gun cannons in any of the 8" or larger locations. This keeps the cost down, cannons are readily available, and captains have options in how they arm their ship.
Your right. There's really no need to accommodate scale hull length's and beams, especially as other have pointed out, ships of that era were close to the same size. I propose: Four ship classes: Battleship, Armored Cruiser, Protected Cruiser, Torpedo Boat (because someone will want to build one) Fastgun Cannons: BB gets 4, AC gets 3, PC 2, and TB 1 Sidemounts: BB gets two, AC gets one, none for the rest, max one sidemount per quadrant Cannon Mounts: Cannons will go in primary or secondary turrets, or superstructure if no turret available in quadrant Propulsion: same propulsion on all classes (TBD) Rudder: Same rudder on all classes (size TBD) Pumps: Same motor and voltage as propulsion, restrictor sizes for each class (TBD) Hull Design Waterline down: Built to approved specs and dimensions for each class (TBD) Design Waterline up: Builders discretion, minimium 1" penetrable area for entire length required Award Best Scale: Best scale representation of an actual ship Award Punk: Best non-scale ship, look to incorporate the best of the Steampunk tradition (ie: must look like Victorian tech) Award Scotty: Best engineering award
Actually, both a scale length and beam hull and a standard sized hull would be needed in the rules. The former for those wanting the historic ship look and the latter for the Steam Punk look. is no way a Dupuy de Lome is going to look right on a standardized hull.
Would you be OK in building a Dupuy to scale length and beam using the curve concept as described earlier with the slab sided underwater profile?
I'll add my $0.02 based on some of the pitfalls I experienced in model airplane rule sets. First, I would recommend you just go with standardized speeds. If everyone runs the same speed then the field is even and they can use any equipment they want. Plus speed is easy to measure, every current rule set does it. I've done some thrust testing of installed propulsion and it is hard to get consistent readings. If however, you keep to the one propulsion system for all, you have to specify the entire drive train, to include the battery, wire size and length, switch, as well as the motor and prop. Even if you do all that, properly broken in motors will perform better, new switches and new batteries will perform better than old ones. I admit I'm partial to the Treaty rule set. IMHO with one (slow) speed, defined pump rates, controlled rate of fire and limited BB velocity, we have eliminated any advantage of buying special or expensive equipment. When we field (pond?) our PDNs this year we will have an inexpensive, beginner friendly, class that achieves 80%+ of the goals you are looking at.
I was thinking a little about the hulls today. I will donate a 3D model of a pre-dreadnought hull that can be scaled and sliced to provide rib and keel sections for scratch building. It would take me about 10 minutes to scale the hull, extract a set of contours for the ribs, extract the keel, and lay it out on a PDF. This would be a lot easier than hand drawing even the simplified hull that you are considering, plus it would be a lot more fair. If anyone is interested in this idea, post a beam, length and rib spacing you are interested in and I'll generate a file to review when I get home today.
Very gracious offer but even this isn't as simple as it could be. I've started drawing out the simplified hull form we've been discussing. It uses a frameless construction method that would require no fairing (sanding). The idea is top and bottom plates that are the deck frame and hull bottom respectively. They are cut at the same time and notched along the edges at 2" intervals. The pieces are spread apart and sticks (the frames) are glued into the notches. Instant hull. There are obviously some finer points like a thicker bottom to incorporate an outside edge radius and internal water channeling but that's basically it. I'm drawing three hulls, all the same length but different beams to represent a BB, AC, and PC. After I'm done with a tank related project, I'm planning on building a demo hull. To allow a scale upper hull with flair or tumblehome, I'm proposing that besides the top and bottom hull plates, that we also need a waterline 1/8" stringer. This would be needed to keep the bottom hull at spec design (slab sided) but allow the scale builder to bend the above waterline balsa whatever way they choose. The stringer would be cut at the same time as the top and bottom plates. I don't think a full length stringer at the water line would impact penetration to all that large of a degree, and besides, all hulls would have the feature. Comments?
I don't see why this would be a bad idea. Especially since most of the ships of that period had tumble-home hulls. And since everybody would have one on their ship, whether it be needed or not, nobody can complain that somebody had a more advantageous ship then they.
