Pics from Spring Regionals in Hagerstown, MD: After-action report and build update: Dunkerque did really well this past weekend, especially considering that as of a little more than a month ago the boat was a sheet of plywood and some spare parts. Friday there were two one-sortie battles, of which I did not participate in as I was more interested in hanging out and enjoying the company of friends I hadn't seen in years. We tinkered with the Dunkerque and got her out on the water in between battles and determined that she is too slow, and that she turns relatively horribly. Sounds like standard issue for a 60" long single rudder ship. We pulled the drag props to get her up to speed but we lost acceleration, understandably. Saturday we decided to put Dunkerque in and loaded up the guns and gassed up the bottle, we were going to battle on the green tape "Flag" team. First Sortie of the AM battle, Dunkerque was having issues with the rather aggressive waves and a pump that was not operating properly. I took relatively little damage and sank about a foot from shore. Being a first sortie sink I was allowed to patch hits below the waterline and re-enter for the second sortie. We tried to troubleshoot the pump difficulties but found no obvious culprit; as is the saying for this hobby, everything works perfectly on the bench. I put Dunkerque back in for the second sortie and quickly realized that while I could pump, I had lost speed forward but retained speed when reversing. That mean old Iowa belonging to @Kevin P. decided to pick on me again due to my reluctance to stray too far from shore due to pump and propulsion issues, and I was quickly on the bottom again. Back at the bench the Dunkerque was scored and had taken 30~ belows, 20~ ons, and 64 aboves. Not bad for a 4.5 unit ship with a pump that's not quite working right. We spent lunchtime replacing the pump outlet and trying to diagnose other issues. The drive issue was the result of the port side motor mount screw coming loose and allowing the torque of the motor to pull it up and away from the gear on acceleration, while pushing it down into the gear on reverse. The new pump outlet solved my pumping issues, and with some tweaking I had all of my guns reasonably operational. I was still getting occasional failures to feed which we will try and address with magnets. For the Afternoon battle, Dunkerque fared much better. First sortie of the battle and we were once again plagued with high winds and excessively high seas. The Iowa was unable to battle due to the sea state and foundered before battle was even declared. It was around then I was getting compliments for my pump stream and simultaneously being cursed, because despite the distance of the boat some 30 feet off shore the wind was blowing my 20~25 foot tall pump stream all over the captains. Sorry Steve and Nate! I really need to get one of those glug glug style outlets. I patrolled the outside edges of the battle, this time having been moved to the "no flag" team. I engaged Rob Arena's Arizona, traded shots with a Nassau driven by Rick Schultz, and put a few holes in a South Carolina I believe driven by Marty Hayes. If I recall, I also traded a few shots with @Beaver's King Eddie but due to the height difference doubt any serious damage was done. After exhausting the BB supply I called 5 and evaded pursuit to survive the sortie. Hooray, Dunkerque fired guns, pumped damage, and survived the battle! For the second sortie it was more of the same, successfully engaging enemy boats with cannonfire while trying to keep the water out of the boat. Mostly due to the heavy seas and a lacking deck seal, Dunkerque sank with minimal damage. I declined to battle Sunday due to poor weather and a desire to be dry for the 3.5hr drive home, knowing that my boat would most likely end up on the bottom of the pond due to wave action. All in all, it was a great weekend and a wonderful testing of the Dunkerque and her systems. This weekend, coupled with my "Things I wish I did different" post above has really made me want to change some things. More details on changes and upgrades later, for now, see you all at the next battle!
I didnt mind it at all, actually. The dual bow gun worked great, the sidemount could be turned more perpendicular to the ship's hull but there isn't a lot of room for down-angle either way so I figured I'd put it a little aft to try and dissuade people from coming up on my flank on that side and eating me up. In reality its really not that far aft. The stern gun was the least reliable out of all of them, and there were plenty of times where I wished it was working because other ships were trying to park along that rear quarter and hit me.
Some say that it's one's perception of the amount of damage they are doing that is more important than the actual damage.....I'm not one of those people I'd recommend shifting to a traditional setup. 50rd sidemount in A, angled about 30 degrees forward of the beam, 75rd sidemount in B angled about 30 degrees forward of beam, 50 round stern ranged out a bit farther, probably straight off the back. The ship is too long/can't turn well enough to not be able to give anything back when another ship is alongside. In the next couple of weeks I would focus on drivetrain and pump first, the basic reliability things, then consider playing with guns I do have to say that the speed of the build was very impressive, if you work on fixing weak areas with the same tenacity it will be a solid boat very soon
Oh I got plenty of flak from Steve A regarding the gun arrangement, and I think for right now I'm going to stick with the general layout and tweak the ranging a little bit. The stern gun will probably go straight aft, the sidemount will probably be adjusted so it's not quite aimed so far aft. I like the dual bow gun (for now). Using your words, the ship is too long/cant turn well enough that if I end up with another more maneuverable boat alongside, having that sidemount there will do nothing for me. If a skilled captain in a 24 second sidemount boat, like an NC, got on either of my rear quarters they could dump their sidemount into me with impunity regardless of my gun arrangement. They are just as fast and can turn inside of my turning circle, essentially parking in that spot. My strategy in that situation needs to be retreat and/or prevent that from happening with positioning in the battle. I'm not trying to be a rookie who won't listen to solid advice, as I told Steve I know you guys are 100% correct in what you're saying. I want the boat to be otherwise functioning 110% and then have the gun layout be the thing I am dissatisfied with. At that point, I'll do a more drastic change. For now I want to work on the reliability aspect and get my guns consistently firing every time, get the acceleration back that my ship desperately needs to get into (and out of) position. I already started working on resolving my drivetrain issues by cutting the rudder skeg off of the hull and mounting larger props in the newly discovered empty space. A new rudder is out in the garage drying as well. The pump issues seemed to all be related to the outlet I was using, I had no pump reliability issues using the spent brass casing pump outlet Nate was kind enough to give to me. That design has some flaws, mainly the 20~ foot column of water that drenches all the captains so I am going to work on that as well.
I feel its hard to give a gun scheme a fair shake when you're suffering in the propulsion and rudder section of life as that just makes it that much more impossible to defend yourself and/or place your guns on target. I have battled against ships with reversed (from what we consider normal) sidemount angles, and have been chewed up by them on some of those occasions, in part because you tend to forget they're angled that way
If everyone sets up the same every time then why even bother? Variety is a part of life we should embrace. Try new things once in a while.
I agree completely, and to further bounce off the same concept, this was part of my train of thought in regards to the Dunkerque's gun layout. The Dunkerque is a crappy ship to battle. It has a reputation as being a really poor battling ship. The veterans of the hobby would all arm the Dunk in the "traditional" way as Kevin outlined above, a 50 rd sidemount in A, a 75 rd sidemount in B, and a 50rd stern gun. So would I, if I was trying to be competitive. The point of this build though was to not be competitive, because the ship itself isn't competitive. So logically, if the Dunkerque is such a poor battler and everyone who has ever battled one has fit them out the same in terms of gun layout, why would I want to emulate their success (or lack thereof?) I don't expect Dunkerque to be amazing, but I had plenty of fun driving her Saturday afternoon once I got the propulsion/pump issues mostly sorted. If I was a little more brave/had more faith in the ship to not sink due to wave action, I would've ventured farther from shore to circle the action looking for a juicy distracted target and/or a slower target that was on 5 or was near to being on 5. I will never be a good sidemount ship, so why try?
Well I figured it's time for an update. Been a little busy with other things and haven't thought much about Dunkerque in the time leading up to the Ming's Moat battle this past weekend. Actual pic of the ship at Carl's pond: Now for the actual post: I ordered a set of @SnipeHunter 's props in the 1.75" variety and received them two days before the battle. With no time to test we packed up the car Thursday night and headed off to battle. The new props made a world of difference in the way Dunkerque handles, giving much better acceleration and top speed. The new de-skegged hull and redesigned rudder shape also greatly helped her turning ability. Score one for the French team! Every time the ship's drive system actually worked properly it performed very well...but the stereotypical reliability issues kept me down most of the weekend . Friday I almost lost one of the brand new props, Saturday I had an issue with one drive motor's mount coming loose and then the opposite motors driven gear coming loose. Guns that had been working at the end of Regionals were once again giving issues, but I didn't let that stop me. Dunkerque had her main dual bow gun operational for most of the weekend and despite drive issues I was starting to learn how to position myself to make use of it. Now that the two "back to back" battles of the Spring are over with, I plan on going into a period of post-shakedown refit for Dunkerque to try and iron out most of these reliability issues (which are 50% the yard's fault and 50% the captain's fault ) and spend some good hours at the local pond for more testing.
So, some major life stuff had put boats on the back burner for a few months but a few weeks ago I managed to start working on Dunkerque again. With the french fever that has been gripping the North Eastern IRCWCC guys, I wanted to make sure Dunkerque was 100% for the end of the 2018 battling season before the 2018/2019 building season began and she was neglected. To start, I knew I needed to get rid of the crappy aluminum gear adapters I was using. They slide inside the 5mm bore gears and adapt them to my 1/8" shafts. New, hardened steel adapters from the RC racecar hobby seem to have solved that issue. Second was me almost losing props, which would've made me a very sad frenchman. To solve that, I added wheel collars to the end of the shafts outboard of the props to give a second point of failure before the props say au revoir. At the end of Carl's battle Dunkerque was having issues with her rudder gear stripping out, so until a better system can be arranged I have returned to the tried-and-true push/pull linkage system which seems to be working just fine. @Beaver was kind enough to offer to help me sort out my cannon reliability issues, so hopefully with some MachoTech gun rebuilds I will be able to reliably fire at least 2 of my 4 guns. Need the bow gun working 100% for when I'm going full speed reverse, as french ships should. Overall, looking to have an enjoyable battle in Bradford PA with Dunkerque and then shelf her for the winter while I work on two more french boats. But fear not! Dunkerque will not be going anywhere, and as the 2019 battling season approaches I will continue to refine/troubleshoot her operations to keep her along as a secondary boat as I continue to make the French Navy Great Again! Vive la Marine du France!
Glad to hear you're getting the bugs worked out. As a proud operator of a "dog" boat I'm glad to see people trying to make less than optimal ships effective.
So update for Dunkerque, as I've been busy working on the 3d model for Jean Bart. Dunkerque only participated in 2 sorties at Nate's Bradford Battle. First sortie on Friday the ship sustained 3 sizable rams and went 5 out of control due to an issue with the radio receiver. To give her credit, she remained afloat. This seems to be a constant thing for me. While working on that issue, I fought continued problems with the gear reducer bushings. Even the new hardened steel guys are proving to be troublesome, but I am going to continue to try and figure out a solution. I have already resolved to not use this style gear/drive setup in all future boats. Frustrated, Saturday night I tore the boat apart and gave her a minor refit with new gun parts from @Beaver and some manhandling of the magazines to try and get better feeding. Sunday I missed the first sortie of the battle but managed to get Dunkerque in for the second sortie. This battle the boat performed acceptably. My dual bow gun had both cannons firing, the ship was reliably maneuvering, and I was having fun. That's what matters right? I traded shots with @Beaver 's Tromp and Marty's South Carolina and survived the battle. All in all, it was my first battle flying solo and I hadn't touched Dunkerque for months beforehand. She was honestly untouched since Carl's battle in May and mostly neglected as she was tossed around the garage. This winter with the construction of Jean Bart and Courbet I am making it a priority to spend time on Dunkerque to prevent her from getting tossed aside by the new boats and never truly "fixed". I have assembled parts to build new guns for Dunk, am going to be adopting the same "contained-unit" style gun arrangement that I have planned for Jean Bart, and have picked up a tube of Loctite 680 to make the gears and the reducer bushings 1 piece for the rest of their lives. Electrically Dunkerque's wiring is not the neatest, but it works and works in a logical way that I understand so it will remain as-is. Pneumatically I will be re-arranging the gas lines to support the new contained gun setup and to standardize the boat with my new builds which will be using the push-connect 1/8" tubing that has started to become more common. The regulator on Dunkerque has a small leak, so that is also a priority to pressure test and get fixed. All of this, plus the major life events that have transpired, have prompted me to spend more time on boats over the next few months. With an ultimate goal of attending my first Nats in 2019, I have a lot of work to do to increase my build quality and boat reliability and I'm starting by setting up the garage as a good workshop instead of a giant mess on top of a few folding tables. My goal of "100%" by the last battle of 2018 didn't work out, but that has just given me some motivation to really put some time in for the first battles of 2019.
Help the guy get his guns working and what does he do? Shoots holes in my pretty balsa!!! Gratitude for ya!
And despite my best efforts to convince you to accept some free BB'S from me you wouldn't accept...so I forced them down your throat! Hahahaha
Won't be rite away but I think I'm going to build one of these. Sitting here cutting and taping the plans together now. Lol. So tedious.
I can't say for sure yet, but that may be the most tedious thing I have to do to build this ship. Lol. Now my eyes and neck hurt lol. Not to mention my hands feel like a cramp fest. Lol. The things we do for new toys.
