OK I have to wade in on this subject!I ran a cruiser of the Oregon City Class for ten years, I have sank a Vonder Tan and the USS Penn. Both were handeled by very good captains. I beleive useing the small guns rules that the 3.5 unit crusers pack the best punch for the money. The reason is speed to get a way from a fight and reopen it when you want. The other is they are very manuverable so going up against Yamatos you win in a turning war , this I have done many times to the dismay of battleship captains in these large ships.Also with the size of these cruisers they can hang very carefully in a fire fight that others can not do. No wfighting style also effects how you set them up. Most common i sthe one gun forward and on aft. I did this for a number of years and found that I was more aggressive and would us eupo that front gun quickly. Even more so when I would hunt other cruisers.So I changed and put dual front mounts in B turret, thus giving me a real hard savo coming from the front. I would use this to set back and come in at an angle while staying out of the gun range of the side mounts of the battleships, I would litter their sides and pick them apart. Once the ammo was spent I still had a 50 shot stern to defend with . For some one starting out , I would recomend the 3.5 unit cruiers of the Balitmore / Oregon City class or even the Admiral Hipper/ Prince Eugen. They have plenty of room and can carrie good battery power.I never understood why Swampy, when he was in business or Battlers Connection, why they went from the Brooklyns to the DeMones, they totaly over looked the Baltimores.The ships are 57 inches and are better then the smaller ones yet easy to fit in small cars. Now I have been battleing a USS California and recently sold that and moved up to the USS South Dakota, this ship my father served on during ww2 and has a special place in my family. So I have been in both and have fought Yamatos, Bismarks, Jean Barts ( Mike Deskin) Scharnost,Kongos,Nagatos, and just about every thing else that has come about. Being in a battleship I now keep an eye on where these 3.5 unit cruisers are and try to keep them at arm lengths so as not to get in a tangle withone, because unless I am very carefull they can pick me apart.
NOW THAT'S WHAT I WAS EXPECTING TO HEAR! I was really wondering why no one brought that up! This was the reason I started this thread. I personally believe in speed an agility over punch & armor. (Strange coming from an Iowa driver, right?) I didn't want to compare the Yamato to the Bismark... I wanted to compare the Yamato to the Prinz Eugen.
Cruisers in small gun are effective against fast battleships as long as they can dictate the range and use themselves as snipers or wingman to a larger ship. When I had Bismarck I found it could maneuver with the Cruisers. Some cruisers at 24 sec speed don't turn as well as others. Yamato has a brief second delay when turning hard over from port to stbd and cruisers usually can take advantage of this lag. If the cruiser is makes a sudden hard turn it will be behind Yamato by the time the big ship has completed it's turn. If the cruiser is making small zigzag turns I find the drag from the rudder will slow it down and the big battleship can catch up but it is difficult to overtake the cruiser like this. Cruisers are great ships.
Very interesting. I had dismissed light ships because I do big gun. My experience is that such a ship armed with bb guns rather than torpedos can't sink a target, or will have a very hard time doing so. The bb guns are fired at a range, and usually hit above the waterline. I have yet to see a ship armed with small caliber weapons score a hit below the waterline. Small ships armed with torpedos can deliver a devastating hit at close range below the waterline. My ideal torpedo run starts as a fast, straight run at the target until I am under the target's guns (less turning means better speed which means I am under the guns faster). Then I can use my superior speed and maneuverability to plant my shot and escape. However, once I fire my torpedos I need to come back in to reload. Since that requires that I disengage, I discounted such ships as being "long lasting." There is a person on a different forum who is interested in building a USS Atlanta. He hasn't decided whether he wants to go big gun or fast gun yet. What is your opinion of the Atlanta and other 2.5 unit cruisers? Is it all about the 3.5 unit cruisers, or are 2.5 units good, too?
I have a 2.5 unit japanese cruiser. They're fast as heck (22 seconds) and they still carry 2 guns (which a lot of the 3.5 unit ships do; If they're under 12,000 tons, they can't split off a 1/2 unit for a pump so they have to use the extra half unit for magazine space). Compared with a smaller 3.5 unit CA (think Graf Spey, just under the limit), the 2.5 Unit ships just have a little less magazine and are a full second faster. I have a Graf Spey hull so don't think I'm dissing them I agree that the cruisers don't do below the waterline hits, but that's not their job. They harass the enemy and run interference for the fleet. it's very handy to have a couple operating as a squadron so if an enemy heavy is attacking a friendly heavy,t he cruisers can pepper the other side with their guns from a range, forcing the enemy captain into a decision, especially if they can get some good shots into his bow. Pete Dmitri in Regino 3 MWCI has a Des Moines with triple sterns and he is quite good at doing this.
I can relay 2 examples from the point of view as a battleship.First is the time Bismarck fought a Houston class and a Lutzow class. Both of these guys stayed outiside my sidemount range and rarely crossed my stern or bow. When they did they righted themselves to present no target area or they swooped in under the long gun range. They effectively pepped Bismarck mostly above the wl and some on. They succeeded in shooting of Bismarck's wire whip antennae amidships causing Bismarck to run aground. They then came in and parked on either side of the aft quarter and emptied thier bow and stern guns into her. The 2nd example was when the same battleship had A Graf Spee, A lutzow, Takao, and a Canarias. We were up against a New North Carolina, a Barham, Tennessee, Warspite and. Well the cruisers were on thier own when Bismarck was ram sunk by her teammate the Lutzow by the stern through her bow. It went unnoticed till the pump stream lit off then the ship sank jus shortly afterward. That left the cruisers alone to fight the battleships. The slower ones they were able to avoid but they were at the mercy of the North Carolina that used it's superior maneuverability and used it's speed to catch the cruisers and harass them till they made a mistake. The cruisers were scattered and interuppted by the slower battleships and always ran into one or 2 of them while NC stayed on a single target till it eat lead then sank later. 2 Cruisers were sunk, one heavily damaged and the other got off lucky.
In defense of old slow-movers, I have a metric butt-ton of BB holes in my superstructure, and dings along the edge of the deck, but rarely get any cruiser damage because my HMS Invincible sits so low in the water. I get plenty of sidemount shots, but rarely long range peppering. I doubt that Gneisenau will be so lucky this year
HI guys Well I see there was a lot if attention given here so I am going to wade in again. I think the reason that the Balitmore class is the best of the 3.5 is due to their stern. It looks a lot like the stern of the south dakotas, for this reason it on a cruiser acts like a sheild when some one is behind you! Ok now this might sound scary but I loved it when a battleship or battlecruiser decided to chase me , I would show me stern and let him fire away!The most they could hit was either my stern or they would hit my superstructure. Now as for the Atlanta class 2.5 cruisers the ones I have been around with and seen are proably the best , reason is they have the squared off stern also, if you follow the same tactics as used in the Balitmores they do really well! For some reason lately a lot of the captains are going to all stern guns in the cruisers, I think from running ones that you need the bow gun , you get too many shots from people crossing your bows and if you can shot their bows as they are going forward you are causeing them to take on water.Now to me running all stern guns gets boreing after a short time, most ships are not going to keep chaseing you becaause they do not want their bows shot up. Ok here is the secret to getting belows with cruisers guys! I taught my daughter Katie too well and paid the price when she shot up my South Dakota! You dont run your bow guns straight ahead! Angle off to the side! this will give you 2 things ! 1 it gives you some down angle to be able to get the punch for belows!! I have done this and if you use dual bows in someones bow it hurts!!2 with it angled you are already set to turn away so it is like a straffing run, you will get more hten a couple quick shots especially when you have a glass like smooth pond! I guess I should of said 3 becuase there is another thing you can do, if you get to a slow or hurt ship you can come up in their mid section where no side mounts are and slug downward makeing like zipper shots down in to their water line.I have a friend her in ohio that had a Invinceable and knew Steve Baker very well that had the very first one in rc warship combat. Steves hull was the one Swampy modeled all of his after! Any way not to take away from them but the slower bcs and bbs are ripe for the plucking with the right cruisers and captains. In a one on one contest against Steve and his invinceable against my Oregon City I sank him, I am not proud of sinking fellow allied but he and I desagreed he said it could not be done and i showed him it could. Ok the Atlantas best set up would be a 1/2 unit bow and a full unit stern and full unit pump. Ok now for power to these ships, if you can get the MPI 400 Motors they have a gear box that bolts right on them, it comes with geaars from 1.5 to 3 to one ratio, put these in your cruisers or bcs and they will get ride of the slowing down or lost speed in turns, they let their motors keep the rpms up. Greg Rusack followed my example and did this with his Desmones and sovled the problem very quickly! I have to say sorry for my spelling I am getting tired and it is late.
Great post Buddy. I have recently decided to graduate from big (NC, Shianano and Bismarck) to Small - Mogador. I can't believe what a great little ship this is. My plan with her is to mount a half unit pump and dual ten count spurt guns in the stern. So basically, it will be bang, bang and then call my two. Don't think the big ships like Yamato and Tirpitz will bother trying to come after me... or have a chance to sink me either! If you can play the small ships right you can swing the balance of the battle that's for sure.
I used a bow gun from Bismarc off to the side pointing downward.I had a lot of fun with it just ranging targets with it, especially on flat calm where it would skip out at range . Problem was that it is not the most effective arc as you always have to offset your approach constantly to get the gun on target that means moving constantly as your target is always moving.I'd only have a sec to get that shot below the waterline most where just above the waterline.I found too that you would most times be under your perfect range to get a below waterline or over the mark and end up gettig above. Then you have that deflection angle. I found most times the angle was just to steep and the bb would at most scrape the enemy hull tearing it but not penetrating or just deflect off. Now don't get me wrong here I used the gun like this for 7 seasons and I got pretty good with it. But once I set up my A turrent as a sidemount I found the gun was more effective getting more belows and waterlines than pointing on the bow. I did try short range, med and long range with the bow gun each brought a lot of disadvantages with approach. Heh I fougt and sank Balimores with Bismarck many times. One time and this happened once a Baltimore was having issues and I was able to use my downangled bow gun off the side and pepper it at the waterline. I found ships that were beached or basically dead in the water I could pepper it with teh bow gun as long as the water was calm around me and no other ships were creating movement of the water with their propwash. It's one of those gun setups that you need lots of practice with to make it effective.
At this point Tuggs, a little from everyone, and some of our own. Mogador as far as I know is a 1.5 unit ship. The plan is a half unit pump and a unit split for half units substituted for two 10rd spurts. It should be a ... blast. Pardon the pun. Hope this answers your question. CANADIAN WARSHIP COMBAT rules will be in effect in the next couple of years based off of what works and what everyone will agree to.
I was asking, cause the MWC rules don't allow 2 half-unit guns on one ship (I have a mogador myself and wish I could). Since you're using a little from everywhere, you can pretty much set that rule by the wayside
As a captain of a cruiser, I can say that yes, I'm not going to sink a yamato by myself. If it was a one on one against one, I think I could hold my own and win on points, my 2nd battle with my ruiser the HMS Cumberland (aka pointy stick) was against Curts Yamato, I did ok for the 1st 8 mins or so, then the battery got weaker and I couldn't get away from him. He sank me, would have happened slower if I had a decent pump, but it would have happened either way. This year I fought a Scharnhorst and Nagato with a South Carolina as a teammate. I beleive I got away with 0-0-0. Not a single hit. I was able to empty all of my guns, and can claim for sure at least 10 aboves, maybe 3 or 4 on the waterlines, very hard to tell with belows, maybe one. As our club counts holes for points, we won that battle. So my point, use it wisely, snipe away and use your teammates for cover lol. I remember at least once making a strafing run with my bow as they engaged the SC, they would then come after me, I circle around them and get behind the SC, all the while taking shots with the stern.
lol yeah...the batteries are almost as old as I am, I threw them out. After so much use something builds up on the inside, lead from the cathode on the anode where it shouldn't be or something like that. Now I don't have that problem. Nice new 6v 7amp to power the pointy stick.
Noice! I think for the most part our methods up North will be trial and error allowing people to feel things out. So far, every captain I've mentioned my plan of "Shot, Shot, Mogador on Two" has gone over well. I think the mentality at this point is to have a return of smaller ships to greater numbers, and what better way then to give a little to allow some things to be tried. I plan on going out once at CANNATS, and I'm still not sure what side I will be on
*casts thread resurrection* Hey folks, any new thoughts here? A few guys on the Big Gun forum are thinking of writing a "top ten Big Gun ships of all time" list. Would anyone be interested in writing something similar for the other formats?
For fast gun you really need to sort by speed to else you wind up with missleading comparisons. For 24 sec. Nagato (B) North Carolina Yamato Bismarck Vanguard Iowa Jean Bart King George V Littorio Kongo (B) For 26 sec. South Dakota Q. Elizabeth (B) Revenge (B) Fuso Iron Duke Hyuga Von Der Tann Gangut (B) Pennsylvania(B) Invincible 28 sec. Baden Westfalen Konig Viribus Unitis Helgoland Kaiser Erin Bellerophon Neptune Hercules For cruisers it depends too much on if it is MWC rules or IRCWCC. Suffice to say that in MWC they are usefull, in IRCWCC they are not.
