Like at Jutland? SMS Nassau sideswiped a British DD. Guns could not depress low enough to hit her, but her superstructure was basically swept off. Running under the enemy guns was one of the ways I was thinking my DD would survive. []
I would think not. To me a ram is prow to broadside at a pretty good angle. Sideswiping is not really ramming. Though if some one made a habit of it I would probably change my mind. Actually the wide range of sizes of Battlestations vessels will probably present us with problems that don't show up in 1/144 as the smaller ships can't be built to a point where they can be battled. All the furballs are among ships of similar dimensions. Few if any ships will be 1/3 the size and a fraction of the weight of their opponents. But to Tug's point...I can see destroyers and cruisers screening the big ships as a viable tactic. Along with friendly fire accidents. ....err let me rephrase that. Friendly fire incidents will not be a viable tactic...though I can see myself firing the port torpedo tubes when I mean to fire the starboard ones. That could give one 6 nice holes in one's hull....
This past weekend Don's NC, and my Roma's sterns got locked together, so I applied full(super)reverse, and I pushed his NC under the water, they were calling a ram on me, so I stopped just in time before it went down. Fully 1/3 of his NC was under water, and going down. We were stern to stern, and I was able to push him under with no problem, I was having quite a bit of fun, since we can't seem to sink him with guns, and Sunday was a non sanctioned day. Only problem I bent 3 of my 4 props. My Roma need prop guards bad. We plan on adding the full(super) reverse to the Yamato since he has 4 motors in it, and will be a simple upgrade, it should also help with his turning.
Ah, put Don under, he couldn't sink my tiny I-boat with his NC, so he ram sunk me (seriously, he emptied his guns, shattered the epoxy holding the subdeck to the fiberglass hull, poking a mess of holes in the balsa, and he couldn't sink it Tugboat damage control is teh b0mb! (and a closely guarded secret)
My viper 40's came in today!!! now all I got to do is solder the whole mess together this weekend, possible full power trial run on Sunday (weather permitting).
My craptacular camera just crapped out again. needs a new battery. Suffice to say, the secondary mold is getting poured in a few minutes. Going to cut off the rangefinder hoods, and cast a big mold for the turret, with a smaller one for the rangefinders. The primary is still getting it's angles cut and adjusted. I wish they'd done it as a big square.
When I go out to the shop this morning, I hope to find a perfect Yamato secondary turret mold. It pained me greatly to cut off the rangefinder ears that I'd worked so hard to make pretty But they'll get their own molds and get mounted to the turret. But having a perfect mold for the big part would make my day. Possibly my week. I'll post an update later today.
The mold came out great! I'm going out to cast one after lunch, I wish the dang digital camera would play nice.
Looking at the secondaries mold, and thinking "that'll probably take a pint of urethane all by itself," I decided to mold a turret from fiberglass to see how it would go. It's going very well Takes longer, but it'll be lighter for the same strength, with more room inside for guns. So Mark, your first secondary is being made right now The wife is working on lawyer-stuff tomorrow, so I'm going to be in the shop working on 1)Finishing the first secondary and 2)getting the secondaries' rangefinder pieces detailed and cast a mold from them. The turrets will be plenty thick, no worries
Okay, the forming of the secondary is well under way, but I got a pic of the mold before I started, and of the plug... Hard to really see the angles and such, but here they are.
so all the the turrets will be fiberglass? thats fine by me as long as they can take a beating and require little maintenance. how they coming? got the $$$$ waiting to go out. priced out the gas system (not including guns) going to be in the ballpark of $700.00 when all said and done good thing I just got a better paying job
They'll be strong as heck, should be maintenance-free. The secondaries' rangefinder hoods could conceivably get blown off or dinged, on account of the thinness of the material. I think they will be both glued and screwed to stay on. I'll make some extras for you to stick in your parts box just in case. And I'll still have the molds, but I don't think it'll be that big an issue. The delaying issue on the secondaries is getting a low humidity day to work, we got several days of torrential rain and even the AC couldn't get the humidity down enough to do resin work. Icky. The mains are a mother to get the angles right. That's the main delay on them, sand sand sand, crap! fill, sand sand sand.
I've been drawing up some plans for a repeating u/w tt system, oh btw the scale length for the tt in 1/96 should be 2.5" to 3", not 6". it's fairly simple and shouldn't cost too much to make. it uses the same setup as the Arizona gun w/o the magazine and the barrel, and will use a revolving 6 shot mag for the 3" torpedo's. work on the system will begin ASAP
I broke down and ordered a 3-in-one (milling, drill-press, and lathe) machine from Harbor Freight today to build guns and other parts that may need to be fabricated. For the price it will pay for itself 10 over between the 3 definite boats up here under construction in the local Battlestations club. They said it should be in within a week or two. also picked up a scroll saw to aid it the building of more boats
I bought a scroll saw at Harbor Freight today, too. The local store had them on sale for $49.95 this weekend only, so I picked one up. That's just too low a price to resist! [] Carl
Tug, and anyone else who is interested, I do have Tim's phone number (from barnstormer boats), just need to get it out, give me an hour or so.
