Well, looking at the armament and armor rules, cruisers would not get anything spectacular in terms of gun caliber or armor thickness. .177" and 3/16" are pretty small, lightweight shots that don't penetrate well at range or underwater. The best thing if you've got to use that caliber is to have a lot of barrels firing them, and throw a wall of steel every 3 or 4 seconds, at close range. Cruisers are quite do-able, just don't expect to swap broadsides with a battleship from three feet away.
A lot of cruisers (especially my Japanese favorites) get torpedoes, too. Not enough to make me park next to an Iowa or Yamato, but enough to give someone notice that respect is due.
My personal favorite cruiser (asides from my almighty Spahkreuzer) is the Mogami, configured as a light cruiser. In that form, it gets fifteen .177" barrels in five triple turrets, and twelve Long Lance torpedoes in four triple mounts. More importantly, it goes 36 knots with twin rudders, giving it the agility to engage smaller opponents, the speed to outrun bigger opponents, and in 1/96 scale its actually possible to arm all the torpedoes and cannons. With that sheer number of guns, parking next to an Iowa or Yamato may actually be a good idea, as long as you only stay until your magazines are empty.
Well I am thinking small-ish. I have started cutting frames for a flush deck destroyer. Not sure if I am going to arm it or use as the IJN PB-102 for convoy runs. On my ADD days I think about building a Torpedoboote V-100. Pax, J.
http://www.westernwarshipcombat.com/gallery/album02 Heres a 1/144 V-43 Torpedoboote. It is a hack job and has never seen combat, but it has proven to be possible.
Damn that is impressive! Those things are less than 1000 tonnes if memory serves. So perhaps a 1/144 Flushdecker will work.
Since he put it in, I think it turns. I have no idea how much it helps with maneuverability, though. My understanding is that model boats turn mostly by redirecting prop-wash, so I doubt it was really worth the effort. It's pretty cool he was able to successfully build a ship that small, even if I never see it on the pond.
Would probably be about as beamy as one of the WW1 Torpedobootes too. On my flushdecker there are 12 torpedo tubes in 4 triple mounts. Would it be a rules violation to have just barrel per mount with a 3 round magazine? The deck guns will probably not be armed. J.
I don't think we've actually worked out that section of the rules... Thing is, torpedoes are 1/4" dia by scale length rods/tubes... Hard to build a multi-shot launcher for them (maybe something like a rifle or pistol magazine?).
