Does anyone have the torpedo lauchers for a 1:144 scale submarine? If not does anyone know where I could get them? Thanks. [8])
Torpedo's in 144 are gonna be tricky. Not sure what you want to put them in, but if it's a sub (guessing by name) you'll be trailblazing. I haven't heard of any torpedo launchers that have enough range to be effective.
I was thinking of enlarging the torpedo tubes on the sub, and designing electric torpedos. 2 in brass tube, micro motor and prop. Just been brainstorming for ideas.
The largest torp allowed by any club under 1/72 is a .25" diameter rod. Hard tofind batteries that fit tubes that small. Yes, a AAAA battery is bigger than 1/4". So the electric route is difficult in view of trying to find a power source that small. I'm looking at making my own lil tiny batteries, but even if they work well enough to be worth making, they'll be spendy.
It is possible to use a capacitor instead of a battery. The trick is getting an efficient enough motor and prop, and then getting some non-pyrotechnic method of dealing damage once you hit the target. I suspect that you'll have better luck using gas-powered torpedoes or simple torpedo-shaped slugs. But hey, if you've got an idea, great! Go for it! 1) build it 2) test it 3) let us know if it works
i looked at capacitors, but my problem was with getting enough energy stored, and maintaining a charge on them while sitting in the launcher(easily solved). Given that i plan on impulsing the torps with either CO2 or spring power, I won't be wasting power getting up to speed.
There's been some new ideas on spring loaded torpedo design, air powered torpedo cannons based on the big gun accumulator cannon have had some mixed sucess. All are pretty much custom made by advanced skippers. I think the south coast battle group had an I-400 with a 6 tube launcher. The problem if I recall was that it was possible for 4 of the tubes to be filled with water, leaving 2 barrels firing with the force designed for 6... which led to some problems. Spring barrels might solve that problem. But, due to safety rules in most biggun clubs, they are going to have to operate in air at the foam safe levels... So, the range in water will be limited. Not such a bad thing Best saftey and effectiveness compromise I think might be to put the torps above the waterline like the WWCC and then have reloads... I'd try and make a bearing system, rather than push the envelope with a tube system. Best new ideas on the tube is using a lighter than water plastic... Have you thought of the Surcouf??? It was a French oddball... fairly large and sported two 8 inch guns in the conning tower. That's my pick for a sub The 20's steam subs were much bigger than many of the later subs... The Brits might have had one with two five inch turrets with 4 barrels, I think it was the X-1. I have looked at your link, and the products there seem to be ready made to make the sub possible. I plan on building down to smaller and smaller ships... Starting at say a cruiser. Now to get the workshop back in order. The lathes are back on the stands after the move... gotta love a cheap harbor freight two ton hoist Even if you don't arm the sub... the I-400 did cargo runs... and this in big guns can be a role for your boat. I know, everybody wants to shoot But, keep in mind that it's best to get something/anything on the water to get out and run... than be frustrated with a project that has major hurdles. Over the years the number of people starting out on a difficult build and dropping out is high. So, do what you can to maintain your enthusiasm, building your own target has some advantages Okay, so another downer in the whole sub game is losing your boat. There has been talk of alkaseltzer tablets covered in some glue or suchlike to provide a time delay bubble stream. Could work also with a time delay Co2 bleed. Big thing to keep in mind is answering the negatives with "Not if" and getting a good solution. I've thought that a circuit that times out with inactivity and turns on led's would help find the sub at night, but this might not work in a muddy bottomed pond. With today's led's you could burn those lights a long time... and make recovery much easier for the diver. Luck Mike3 Horne
Mark - Ive never thought of using spring powered torps. I dont know how you could carry a reload, but it sounds like a good idea. (might not take as much space too). Although, you could always fire them off with burst of CO2, like tugboat was suggesting for his electric torpedo design.
While I have found flashlight batteries at Fry's that would fit in a 1/4" tube and have a 6mm motor with gearbox in the bin, I have no intention of trying to actually build an electric torpedo. The physics are against you. To put electric torpedoes in perspective, John did the following analysis over on RCU that might prove instructive to those theorizing about them. Good job, John. And all those problems still do not solve the torp plugging the hole it makes ot the fact that many clubs already define what torps are (and, as they say, this ain't it). His post: For the would-be electrically-powered torpedo developers to consider: * Mass of a 0.25" steel ball bearing is about 1.05 g. * Muzzle velocity of a 0.25" cannon is about 90 m/sec. at near max. penetration (2" foam). * That works out to E(k) = 1/2 * m * v^2, or 1/2 * 1.05 * 8100, or 4,253 Joules. That's what it takes to reliably penetrate a combat warship's 1/8" balsa skin. Your torpedo must do the same. Work out the math to calculate what speed you need to achieve for a given mass of torpedo (or, if you know what speed you can get, work out the mass you'll need). v = sqrt( (2 * E(k) ) /2). So, if you have a torpedo with a mass of 3g, you're going to have to move it at 53 m/sec (17r ft/sec 129 mph) at the time of impact. You've got to accelerate it in whatever is to be your minimum attack range, & maintain that speed until you reach whatever is to be your maximum range. So, if you want to have an effective combat range of 1' to 20', you're going to need to accelerate your electric torpedo from 0 to 120 mph in a foot, then maintain that speed for another 19', or about 0.1 sec. of runtime. Your challenge is to manage the power draw, size, weight, power capacity (power draw over time) to deliver your payload mass at necessary penetration speed, over some range of target-lethal distances that you determine based on your combat experience, within whatever cost you also determine is reasonable. So, when you say that you believe you can do it, that's the "it" that you must do. JM
wreno, that calculation is way off. the units on the energy equation are Joules, which are N*m, = kg*m/s^2*m to put 4250 joules in perspective, a 22 caliber bullet has about 120-200 Joules of energy. A 30-06 bullet has 3800-4200 Joules of energy. you input your mass in grams, which is 1000 times smaller than a kilogram. what you end up with is 4.25 Joules.
One minor error in the application of that kinetic energy formula... the m in the formula, which stands for mass, is in units of kilograms, not grams. So your math is off by a factor of 1,000. KE = 1/2*mv^2 = (.5)(.00105)(90^2) = 4.2525J Not 4,253J. So, we reverse-engineer the energy equation to see how fast I need a 3 gram torpedo to go to have the same energy as a 1/4" ball bearing. v = sqrt(2*KE/m) = sqrt(2*4.2525/.003) = 53.2m/s as John indicated, but for short-range(from gun barrel to ~10-15"), easily doable. The point of doing a propelled torpedo is for those torps that carry warheads of some sort, as opposed to a KE kill vehicle. At least two rulesets allow (or at least don't ban) such things. Yes, it represents a challenge. Possibly unattainable. But if we only try what people KNOW can be done, we will not accomplish a whole lot. EDIT: Greg beat me to the punch while I dilly-dallied typing at work
Sorry for the error. I don't work with rifle ballistics, so I didn't spot the obvious error. The E(k) should be about 4.5 Joules to achieve max. penetration of 1/8" balsa. I corrected the original post, as well as a similar one in the Next Generation forum of this site. Still, the problem is about the same. The biggest issue is the actual speed profile that any powered torpedo must achieve if it's going to punch through balsa under combat conditions. It boils down to this: 1. Torpedoes are a short-range weapon, at least with respect to guns. Most clubs that use guns to simulate torpedoes restrict the range to something around 1-2'. I think it should be safe to assume that any powered torpedoes must be subject to the same maximum range restriction, although that's a club's call to make. 2. Being a short-range weapon, any torpedo must be able to accelerate to an effective speed very quickly. "Very quickly" probably means within a foot or less of being released. Combat ranges are typically pretty short, even for guns, even more so for torpedoes. 3. Powered torpedoes should (again, this is a club's call) be subject to the same penetration rules as guns. This means that a powered torpedo would have to achieve its top speed before it reaches the test distance of 24", & not quite fully penetrate 2" of foam at that range. This means that, once a torpedo has accelerated to a speed capable of punching through 1/8" balsa (Note that 4.25 Joules repesents the maximum kinetic energy required; minimum energy is unknown, but should be expected to be less), it must maintain at least that speed (not to exceed a speed that delivers 4.25 Joules E(k)) until it's reached the 24" range. 4. For safety reasons, I would expect that a club would prohibit any powered projectile from exceeding a speed that delivers more than enough energy to penetrate 2" of foam, at [ii]any range. This means that you can't continue accelerating the torpedo once this speed is reached. You'll have to "throttle back" at least, if not stop propulsion, once the top speed/range is reached. The need to accelerate very quickly from zero to minimum balsa-penetrating speed in less than a foot, maintain between minimum & maximum balsa-penetrating speed for about another foot, then slow down to a non-balsa-penetrating speed, means that it's probably not going to happen. That said, it's probably very do-able to build a tiny torpedo that can accelerate to a balsa-penetrating speed, just not within 6-12". It might be reasonable to accelerate a powered torpedo from 0 to balsa-penetrating speed in a second or 2, giving a minimum effective range of perhaps 5-10', then maintain that speed for another second or 2 before shutting down, for a maximum effective range of maybe 30-50'. Hitting a moving target that's 5-50' away, from a moving ship, when you don't have a direct line of sight connecting yourself, your own ship, & the target, is really asking quite a bit. But that's really what you're going to have to do just for an exhibition, never mind combat. In reality, I'd expect any club that allows powered torpedoes to require them to conform to the speed & penetration limitations imposed on other weapons. That means your torpedo is probably going to be limited to a maximum effective range of about 2'. It's probably very unrealistic to expect to do that with anything other than a powered launcher/unpowered torpedo. Reading between the lines of what's posted by most (if not all) of those who want to introduce powered torpedoes, it seems to me that what they really want is to develop a weapon that greatly favors themselves over those without. Launching a self-propelled torpedo, watching it run for an extended distance, & hitting some target would be an interesting exhibition to watch, for sure. However, assuming that it can be done, no club is going to allow it because it changes the dynamics of the game too much, in favor of 1 person, at the expense of many. Introducing a weapon that even might be, let alone is, effective from 5-50' would immediately make every gun-armed warship obsolete because there would be no counter-measure to defeat the torpedo or the ship that launches it other than to stay off the water entirely. Taking ships off the water is not in any combat club's best interest. I have no doubt that it would be cool to watch a sub picking off targets with powered torpedoes. It would be a lot of fun for the sub skipper, to hear all the "OOhs!" & "Aaahs!", enjoy the crowd's admiration as ships are picked off like ducks, & be the center of attention for awhile, but that's not what combat is about. For a combat game to remain viable, it needs to provide all participants with an opportunity to win (however "win" is defined), otherwise they'll just quit showing up. Have fun with your powered torpedoes, but don't expect any club to bend over backwards to accommodate you. Clubs: I'd highly recommend reviewing your weapon rules to be sure that any sort of powered weapon is dealt with in the way you want/expect it to be. JM
I respectfully disagree with your basic premise, John... I am building the USS Nevada (WW2 version) for Battlestations!, and that version doesn't have torps at all. I am playing with torps just as a technical challenge. I can't speak for the motives of others, but I'll wait until I see the evil u-boat commander giggling before I condemn someone's motives. In any case, I don't hold subs as torpedo terror-weapons nearly as bad as the Kitakami and her sisters. As far as them being a holy terror, I fully expect powered torps to be a curiosity for quite some time. Besides which, I don't know how many clubs actually allow them to be used, other than Battlestations!... And we've already hashed out what we're allowing to the satisfaction of the club.
I'm not too worried about subs. Frankly I have serious doubt that they'll be able to develop a torpedo that can hit at any kind of range (remember he'll have to aim for where the boat will be, not where it IS). Even if it does hit, unless it explodes (which would be illegal), it's going to make a hole that my pump can fairly easy to deal with. Finally, my club doesn't allow torpedoes so it's moot anyways. Honestly I think the BEST thing a sub skipper could do is work on getting an operational deck gun, and act like a sniper in a spider hole. Pop up, take a few shots, and when the heat turns up, dive away from trouble. Rinse and repeat. It could be a fun and unique battling style.
that's one of my intended tactics set the depth so the barrle of the deck gun is just above the surface, easy waterline hits with the added protection of water cover
Hey guys, just wanna throw my 2 cents in here. Have you guys heard of brocock air rifles? They use a small self contained cartrige that you pre charge with air, and then put a pellet in the end before loading into an air rifle. Could the same priniple be used in the nose of a scale torpedo? It you had a probe in the nose of the torpedo that would release the stored energy from the cartridge and drive the correct scale bb at point blank range in to the hull. if a version of this idea, single shot i know, could be created you could be taking about Easy MTB, Sub and E-boat armament. Just an idea, i know from reading many of everyones posts that if there is any merit in this idea someone will run with it [] Here is the link to the cartridge i mean. http://www.uttings.com/?Categories/Shooting/AirCartridge/Brocock/
That looks neat. I'm still very doubtful of a self-propelled torpedo that causes damage, but this could be a step in the right direction. How much pressure does it take and how do you trigger it? It could also be used for a regular, non-self-propelled torpedo system in a submarine or PT boat. I don't care if I have to go down to a smaller size shot for a PT or sub, as long as I can get a simple, reliable, easy to use cannon in there.
Hey Gascan. Acording to the blurb on the site you can presurise the cartridge up to 12ft pounds ( that's the upper legal limit in the UK for an air rifle before you need a licence ) In their own air guns they are fired with basically a fireing pin mechanism. It should be simple enough to make a sprung pin unit for a MTB type torpedo system much like you guys are using at the moment but much smaller. In the nose of a self propelled torpedo its self i must admit I'm not sure. I guess the simplest way would be to have the cartridge mounted so it could slide back in the torpedo on impact pushing the valve release pin against a firing pin.
