I don’t know Carl, I think Carl of 2016 nats would respectfully disagree with you. You might want to settle it in a one on one. We can’t seem to get over this non-issue. One could just as easily state that nothing in the rules allows a deviation in hull height. I’m generally in favor of building boats and battling them, y’all should pick something else to have a type-off about, something important like flavors of ice cream.
More important matters rule the day! I'm quite partial to a good cookies and cream ice cream, but if we're just talking from the store, I really enjoy Denali's Bear Foot Brownie. Milkshakes really should have malted milk added though for optimum deliciousness, which is why Tillamook's Malted Moo Shake flavor is king in my freezer.
To answer your question, I don’t think active battlers really care about the difference in length. If you point it out they might notice. I believe historically there have been more tirpitz length hulls built and battled than Bismarck length, but I’m not 100% sure because I don’t measure every ship I see. I don’t know how long the strike or BC hulls are, but those would give you the answer of what has been built in the past. Performance of the ship will be determined by builder not by +/- 1” either way. If I were you I would stick with the tirpitz length and only consider making a shorter one if you got a specific request. You should also consider that views expressed online might not be a completely representative sample of the combat ‘market’s’ view of a specific product, of the active battlers in the IRC only about 25-30% check out this forum
Carl, Here is what I would propose. C. SCALE AND PROPORTIONS 1. All ships shall be 1/144 scale. 2. The allowable error in the beam of a model ship shall be +/- 1/8" or 2% of the listed scale dimension, whichever is greater. The allowable error in the length of a model ship shall be +/- 1/2" or 2% of the listed scale dimension, whichever is greater. (The allowable error in height of a model ship hull shall be +/- 1/8” or 2% of the listed scale dimension, whichever is greater.) This would not solve being able to prove height pond side, BUT…. A contested model could be measured at the current event. The measurement could be verified, and if the model is out of compliance the captain would be notified that the model could not be used at future sanctioned events. At the least having it in the rules would be a deterrent to someone deliberately reducing free board to get a competitive advantage.
who in the world is going to figure out the heights for the entire shiplist? Are we going to be able to only build ships that have a well founded source for freeboard?
There are so many plan sets.. we would have to have a designated plan set on file for each ship and carry it to the battles.. who will decide which plan set rules? What happens to plan set vendors when their plans are not chosen? Profile might go out of business on this one..
How is this different that what is already in the rules? Your argument applies to what is in the rules today.
The plans are all different.. as far as how the ship is drawn. You can take any drawing and scale it up so it prints the ship at the right length, but the side profiles, ribs, etc can be off.
And full scale ships run at different freeboards. Hull shape and on and on would have to be measured. It would be impossible to check all dimensions. And again time after time we spend on sea lawyering that could be used to improve your ship