Yeh, but HMS Polyphemus could ram you, then fire a torpedo directly inside your hull. Out of the end of her very nasty looking ram. That's pure evil genius at work right there folks.
I always wondered how well that would work in practice. It seems to me that the act of ramming would probably damage the torpedo tube so badly as to make firing it a bad idea.
Or she could torpedo you, and then hit you with the ram in the same spot, would cut most cruisers clear in half. Niiice.
I am of the personal opinion that if a vessels primary weapon was the function of being a ram, then let it ram. You just have to give it a speed handicap.
If that was allowed, I'd want the ram ships to get their original speed. Most of them were really slow compared with the ships most of us will be building. But I don't want to allow ram ships. It gets messy quick in a game where we limit pump capacity. Remove pump capacity limits and I'm cool with ram ships I have some 6" diameter, 5" thick 24V Kollmorgen motors that would make NICE pump motors
I too, dislike the idea of battle rams. I can see a fast battleship being lost forever is a deep section of a pond and possible membership disputes arising. That is still a possibility (sinking deep), but a ram has the potential of a near instantaneous sink under the right conditions. Granted, it would be amusing to see the USS Katahadin stuck in the side of Matt's H-39 and being dragged about.
As most of them maxed out at about 16 knots historically, I can't see them being much of a threat. If you want to build one however, I will support you.
Losing one of these behemoths that seem to be the current rage in 20' of water sounds challenging to say the least. Any strategies being kicked about for deep water recovery? Maybe inflatable ballast tanks or bladders? http://www.caswellplating.com...dders.html
Not to get too far off topic ... Bladders and the like for recovery of the big ships that may weigh upwards of 250+ pounds when loaded with water should work well if designed correctly. Admittedly, it wasn't a method I considered. Me being the over-engineer type was thinking of a pontooned framework with a simple hand operated winch on it. Each ship would have a solidly mounted ring or eyelet to hook the winch to. Just winch the ship up to the surface (not out of the water, just below the surface) and tow it to shore where enough people will be available to help empty and move the ship onto shore. A side benefit to a pontoon frame is something for swimmers to grab on to when conducting recovery operations in deep water.
I've been giving some thought to making a boat lift to get these behemoths into and out of the water w/o killing peoples backs. It, too, would use a winch, and have a boat stand hooked onto sort of an elevator assembly. I'll try to draw that up soon. It would need to either be staked into the ground or employ a large water tank as a weight to keep it from tipping over... Carl
