Stern/Gallery/Bow Pen Discussion

I know I missed the initial discussions on the penetrable areas, but I would like to reopen that area if I may without stepping on any toes. I have several reasons for wanting to re-open the ideas for penetrable areas in the bow, stern, and Quarter Galleries. I will address them in sections as each is different. 1) The Quarter Galleries are a very unique part of most AOS area ships, especially the SOL's. There are a lot of windows, carvings, statues, and some even have a balcony. If we make all galleries vertical areas penetrable, you will remove a very nice place for captains to show off some of the ships personality and charm! What I mean is ...... a "painted" Quarter Gallery looks like crap! Lets face it, these ships are going to take awhile to build and have a lot more detail than those of our fastgun counterparts. If I spend months and months building a Trinidad for example... Spend countless hours using my ropewalk to make my ropes and rigging look good. I am not going to be happy if I have to drop my building standards and simply just paint that beautiful gallery. This is an example of a nice simple Gallery.... there are way more complicated ones... :blink:



I propose we leave these window areas as "no-pen areas". Let captains build these galleries with windows if they wish. Also we will need a stringer on top and bottom to help maintain the profile as some galleries as they "wrap" around the stern. Without some stringers here, that will be very hard to do.

On the Constitution and other brigs or Frigates this is not a issue, but put yourself into the shoes of a captain with a large 1st rate ship that has a very large, very nice, very intricate gallery! Let's let them build these galleries..... building the ships is half the fun.
a. Rule proposal for Galleries:

from: Side galleries may be present, but windows and all vertical surfaces must be penetrable.
to: All Quarter Galleries that have any smooth or flat surface greater than 1/2" square area must have these areas made penetrable if they are less than 3" above the waterline. All penetrable areas in the Gallery are allowed to have a solid 1/8" frame to allow the placement of balsa skin and to maintain gallery profile. 1 horizontal 1/8" stringer may be used along the gallery to help maintain the profile of the gallery.

A possible pen area example when making areas greater than 1/2" as penetrable areas. The captain could even make those windows plexiglass and light her up!


Another simple stern.... no windows but still needs solid stringers to maintain the profile of the stern gallery. "

I know the intent is to make this simple and to were it is not going to cause a lot of arguments and "bending" of the rules. Example is the casements rule in Fastgun format! What a mess that was before they cleaned it up some, and it is still a mess for some ships. But these ships all have differences, and the captain chooses certain ships because of these differences.... We should not simply make a rule that blanket covers the stern areas by saying all stern gallery "windows and all vertical surfaces must be penetrable" We need to work out some way to define these so that captains can use galleries!
Like the Gallery, some sterns have a sharp bend or flair in the hull bottom... this makes skinning difficult and may even place the rudder at risk of damage. The damage to a rudder by gunfire in fastgun format is not a issue, it is here! So we need to make sure the area housing that rudder post is solid so we don't have a captain loosing his ship in deep water because the rudder was busted and it sailed into the middle of the lake and sunk! :blink:

I also think we need a small stringer running on the stern along the contour of hull. This will help maintain the profile and reduce some ram damage as these ships will bump here a lot as they force broadsides or choose to board each other!
Examples of different angles that the stern flairs under.... you can see some are severe!








The current rule states for unused gun ports.... "Unarmed gun ports shall be painted on, and penetrable." POPPY COCK! I agree that they should be penetrable, but to make me "paint" a gunport or gun.... not to mention, I dont like the idea of these ports being closed (painted) anyway. If you have a gunport, it should be made into the hull and be open... this is why you dont want to heel over too much or take too much damage as those ports will go under water and we all know what happens next...

That is a very big thing here. This subject has two very critical issues involed!

One is that a captain must decide before battle what sails he will use... if it is windy he will need to choose accordingly as he does not want too much heeling over because his "gunports" will go under water! So he might choose to not use all of his sails to prevent that heeling over. A captain that is more aggressive may choose to use all of his sails for agility. He takes that risk!

Next, during combat, this will become very important as a captain that is taking damage must choose when or if he strikes his colors! Letting his ship settle below those ports may not be the wiser choice!
That rule needs a change! Let captains place cannons in those hatches as long as the hatch opening itself is not closed up. Meaning if that hatch goes under the water, WATER COMES IN.

Also another issue I did not think of till later... in the fastgun format we make any ship with a superstructure area of more than a 1" square be present... we do this to aid in identification of vessel and we also do this to increase the eye candy. Nobody likes looking at a ship with 3 wood blocks stuck on top of it and painted....

These ships have a few distinct things that make them look good on the water and gives them the eye candy appeal... the masts, the galleries, and THE CANNONS! I can not imagine going onto a lake in a battle and seeing all the ships with 3 or 4 brass bb cannons sticking out of the side and the rest of the guns and gunports are "PAINTED" on.... That is ugly and just plain.. argh I will shut up about it...

Please I beg you! Make captains place those ports and guns on the ship. The one thing that draws a persons attention to a ship of the line, is those cannons. We want them to look good as well as fight good because drawing in people to this part of the hobby will be difficult as it is... Those guns and ports are just like the superstructures on a fastgun ship, without it, it looks like crap!
Make the rule state as such....

Rule proposal: Any and all gunports on the ship plans, must be present and open on the ship. "Open" meaning that water will flow through these ports. They may not be closed off. Hatch lids or "covers" may be placed on the hull as long as the hatch lid is in a vertical "Open" position so it does not add to the impenetrable area. Each gun deck below 3" from the waterline will be allowed a 1/4" stringer. The purpose of this stringer is to connect the gunport frames. Each gunport will be allowed an 1/8" solid material frame around it's edges. Each unused gunport must have a "dummy" cannon present.




">Well, there is the suggestions... lets talk about it...

 

I'm not in favor of mandating open gun ports. Making them optional is OK. The novice sailor (that's me) won't know how much is too much sail. If gusts keep blowing the ship over and sinking it, I don't think that will be much fun. My plan is to have unused ports solid and used ports sealed with boots around the gun barrels to keep out the water.

 

I am going to a build session tomorrow, where I will discuss these ideas with as many other skippers as I can. Since this club is still in its formative stages, now is the easiest time to change things, before there's a few hundred boats that could potentially need to be rebuilt after a rule change. Until then, though, here are my personal opinions on your proposals.

I don't think requiring all the open gunports is a good idea, for several reasons. First, as RCENGR pointed out, knockdowns happen. I've been sailing my 1:96 USS Constitution and HMS Victory prototypes for several years now. I am getting reasonably good at setting the right sails, but I have seen HMS Victory knocked flat on her side by an unexpected gust when carrying nothing but tops'ls, jib, and spanker. And I've seen USS Constitution bury her entire bow back to the foremast for over 30 seconds while running before a gust while carrying a similar layout. If they weren't training boats filled completely with foam, both would be sunk many times over. The larger ships are more stable, but even the huge 1:24 scale ships from SC&H still get knocked down occasionally.

Then there's the practical challenge of framing up a hull with that many open gun ports, and then sheeting it with balsa. As I write this, I am looking at HMS Victory and shuddering. Trying to sheet a ship like that would be a nightmare.

The stern galleries are a different matter. When I originally wrote those rules, I was thinking about two things. First, shooting up the stern galleries was a huge part of AOS tactics. The thin planks and flimsy glass were much easier to shoot through compared to the 18 to 24 inches of solid oak that a warship carried on its sides. Also, rounds shot "up the skirt" were immensely more dangerous to the crew because of how much further the cannonballs could travel along the length of the ship vs its width. My other consideration was that some of the galleons and "great ships" from the 1600's and 1700's had huge galleries and platforms across the stern and extending relatively far up the sides of the ships. However, I just did some researching and reviewing, and even the most ridiculously huge galleries (Vasa, Couronne, etc) are actually not that big. I don't want to see the tactical aspect go, but making the stern impenetrable is simpler. I could go either way on this one.

 

My goal, philosophy, or mission statement in the hobby of model warship combat for any scale, era, or rule set is:
This club is a place for people to have fun building and battling semi-scale models inspired by the Golden Age of Fighting Sail (or by the battleships of the Big Gun era, or whatever the focus is for the club).

I have seen rules meant to represent history that end up being a huge hassle, or that distract from the main attraction (building and battling battleships). For example, scoring superstructure hits adds nothing to the game and takes much more work to make penetrable and repair. We still manage to keep most of the historical inspiration in the form of the unit system or the cannon caliber and armor thickness rules. Those manage to convey the spirit of the history that inspires our game.

In this case, I think that requiring open gun ports isn't a good idea. Not only would it make skinning the boats a terrible job (I hate skinning boats, open gun ports would give me nightmares), but I don't think it really adds much. These boats are combat boats, first and foremost. They need to look good at standoff distance, when they are battling on the pond 10-20 feet out. Its amazing how simple things like drawing with a sharpie or painting details can make a boat look good at 10 feet with a minimum of effort and maintenance.

Stern galleries, however, may need the opposite. Right now they are required to be penetrable because shooting the length of the ship was an extremely effective tactic if it could be pulled off. However, as Mark is working on the Constitution, the challenge of making this area becomes more apparent. This only gets more difficult for vessels with more elaborate stern galleries. The Vasa actually doesn't appear to have any really vertical surfaces in her galleries. This is starting to look like it is too much effort for the small benefit of historical accuracy. In all honesty, I think its historically accurate enough to get the boats to fight broadside to broadside with smooth barrel cannons firing round shot at close range into a wooden hull.

 

From what I've read elsewhere, I'd have to agree with Gascan. Though I could see making the area under the stern galleries penetrable on the stern for larger ships.
Smaller ships seem like they're going to be murdered by the square-cube law (open gunports would make that much worse). Giving larger ships special areas to be scored against might make smaller ships more attractive.

 

I'm not opposed to penetrable stern galleries, I'm just not sure that it's worth the complexity, both in construction and rule making.
What about making the stern galleries hard and then using a witness panel over them for the battle? A piece of 2mm sheet foam could be cut in the shape of the stern galleries and attached with double sided tape for the battle. Of course you would have to have enough of the witness panels to cover the entire weekend. And each witness panel would need to be painted to resemble the real stern from a stand-off distance of 10' or so. At the end of each battle the hits could be scored by looking at the dents in the foam, each one worth 50 points. After scoring the witness panel is removed and a new one put on for the next battle. It's somewhat unorthodox and adds some work during the battles, but it would save time in construction and repairs.

 

Your exactly right about the novice sailor and I did not think about that at all... thanks for reminding me.. Yea not good... I will reverse my thoughts on making the gunports...

 

I think the idea of using "plugs" around the barrels is a good idea for me... I'm just not into paining something I can build. :blush:

I originally was going to propose that we just make the stern and bow impenetrable, but thought nobody would agree. I really dont think the shots we get with 3 or 4 guns, shot at intervals of 4 seconds, is going to give you many hits in a stern against an average to good captain. Thus the benifit of getting points in a rake does not outweigh the hassel to skin that area.

 

There is the point that on the big ships like 1st rates that stern gallery is going to be higher than 3" above the water. That may let folks get fancy with the details if they like.

Overall though, I do not think that a pentatrable stern gallery will add much (if at all) to the sinkability of the ship. Those stern galleries are usually higher than the main deck, aka the accepted mark where a ship is usually considered sunk. Although I can see the need to reward the captain who managed to manevuer to get a good passing stern shot.

On gun ports, I really do not like to have unused ports open. It could be an option though. Hmm ... perhaps the more detailed builders may be allowed to add a small 1/32" balsa "port cover" over an open gun port to simulate a closed port? Allowing about 1/16" overlap on the edges to glue the cover on? That would look better than painted (or vinyl stickered) ports and still be easy to make. In fact, I'm willing to try it on the REquin just to see how it looks and works.

 

I fully understand the scope of the rules as we have them, so please dont take this wrong..LOL

I myself like to have a little detail, and at least so sort of attempt at acually building the scaled ship. Now I know it's up to the captain as to how much detail because frankly, some captains are exceptional at battling and making ship components but they just cant build detail at all. Also some say why build something nice to just get it blown off! I understand, I really do! But you have seen the ships I am talking about... :blink:
They run around with no turrets looking like they just ran through a junk yard and all the spare metal laying around stuck into the deck! They have 2 or 3 cubes of balsa painted 7 different colors for the super, and still hasn't reskinned from the 1997 NATS and the event sponsor has to make it red flag/blue flag because nobody can tell wht the hell the ships are....
Yes, they would probably sink my butt in 4 minutes because they fight well.. and I am not saying every captain needs to build detail and have a museum quality ship on the water...
But I just dont want to see a foam block cruising around with 1" wood dowels for mast, wire coat hangers for yard arms and walmart trashbags for sails, not to mention 6" barrels sticking out the top of the ship looking like some si-fi experiment gone bad!

I can see it now!!! LOL

 

So we've got a consensus that boats should at least pass as mantlepieces if they wouldn't pass for something that belongs in a museum?

 

LOL, nope but they should at least quallify as firewood..... LOL

 

The consensus on stern/side galleries is clearly to make them impenetrable, so I am writing that into the rules right now. I'm less clear on the gunports thing. Open/flooding gunports is definitely not happening, too risky for people still learning to sail. But what exactly do you guys want to do? I would rather not do anything that adds further complexity to already-complex framing of sailing ship hulls. But I guess I'm not really understanding what you are trying to do.
lastly, I just saw your comment about 6" long barrels and looked in the rules. I don't currently have a limit on barrel length, I must have overlooked that when first writing the rules. Is everyone OK with limiting barrels to within 1/2" of the hull?

 

Second the 1/2" proposition.

For gun ports, I's propose adding the option to use a thin vinyl tape like waterline tape (can be had in 1" widths) or possibly open gun ports with a balsa port cover not to overlap the gun port by 1/16".

 

Is there a minimum they have to stick out? Can we recess them to prevent them from coming into contact with passing ships?

 

With the yardarms hanging out there, I dont think 1/2" is going to cover it.... lol
Besides, one of the tactics will be to hang the yards and board! But I do think we need a plan better than "paper-rocks-scissors" to decide the outcome... You need to give ships with more guns (more crew) better odds at winning.... this will discourage smaller ships from simply just boarding to win a battle... It will place priority back to the guns..
The perils of sailing!