1/72nd scale combat Nationals.

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

After a touch an go on cancellation, the 2007 Queen's Own combat Nationals slipped quietly off the ways.

We had to do some pond maitainence so cutting the duck grass back, and clearing a couple of the old ports was the first order of the day...

Then it settled into an unloading and prep mode.
We managed to get one sortie in before dusk, but you could tell the boats hadn't been in the water for a year. One cruiser was missing ballast, the other cruiser had power issues, My shafts and motors needed oiling... :rolleyes:

Amazing what results a Summer of canceled events can lead up to... :o

[Aerominded]

Well, even with a few issues, it is always good to get out and run the boats! :)

I'm curious about how combat works... I understand there are teams etc, but I wouldn't think it is a 'free for all' as far as where and how the ships sail... Is there a course that the ships have to complete (while still above water) to win the battle? :)

[rpage]

Your old Maestrale class DD looks awesome! What are it's measurements and where do you get your guns? They look great on the water!

[herrmill]

Great work, Umi! Looks like you folks had a lot of fun. :D

[ropanach]

Glad to hear you guys got out this year, ;) were you able to get confirmation on the next fun float.
Our club has yet to make it out this year, and we don't even shoot at each other. :eek:

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

My Italian DD is 56" long...
To win, you need to stay afloat, or have the least amount of holes in the boats. It is a team effort.
_____________

Ropanach,

I think the best confirmation of the next Crawfish festival fun run is the fact that members of the Northwest RC Shipmodelers make next years reservations when they check out of the hotel.
_____
_____

As for combat, I think it was good for the club to get together.
The large pocket was practically field stripped on the pond trying to get rid of the RF problem. It turned out one of the motor bearings was so dry that all that was needed, once again,... a little oil. However in stripping the motor one of the members dropped a brush spring. ... It was somewhat comical to see five adults combing the grass under the table looking for a hair thing wire spring. Dragging a magnet across the grass trying to pick it up... I suggested we throw the other one in the grass and say " Go find your brother!". And in the end, the boats owner brought the second spring down
and was laying it on the grass to get an idea of what we were trying to spot.
I told him to place it where the other one was thought to have fallen. He did, and I placed the magnet over it to pick it up, and what should appear on the side of the magnet, but the other spring!!! :eek: It was hilarious.

Also, Saturday, one of the members that quit the club showed up, and was given command of "BamBam"'s back up boat. We hadn't seen so much body english put through at a transmitter in years. :p
We got six battles in, and no one was sunk. JasonZ kept getting "weeded", and finally did it once too often. When he actually managed to pick up a good knot of mill foil in his props, he promplty got ambushed trying to get back into the harbor. and took at least 17 hits in his bow from the Italian DD, and Paul Brown in his loaner boat. A serious commendation to the Pringle for taking the hits and making Paul Brown the most excited visitor of the weekend.

:cool:

[rpage]

Nice images! Thanks for sharing! Looks like a lot of fun to be sure. Are there rules on how much ammo you can carry?

[ropanach]

Umi:
That looks like it would be a lot of fun, But it does mess up the paint a bit, :o can you get thouse sealing dots in navy gray, :cool: :cool: then it wouldn't be to bad. :)

[Brooks]

I suppose it would be sacrilige, but if you put a fender of some kind on the bow of your ship, you could speed recovery of a casualty - with a sticky fender, you can push at an angle to the casualty's hull and develop much more hull speed in the casualty than when pushing perpendicular to the casualty's hull. Save time, and provide a faster moving target :-)

Another benefit I find while shiphandling our tramp with the fendered tug is that steering the pair is easier when the casualty is moving forward, as opposed to moving perpendicular to the rescue vessel. The balance point of a perpendicular moving hull is small, but the "near" balance point of a forward moving hull is larger and thus easier to hit and stick to. You can slide your bow forward or aft on the hull of the casualty to steer in either direction, even if you are not precisely on the true balance point.

The long narrow hulls of warships should be easy to move in this manner. The worst hull is the fire tramp's, with it's deep narrow keel in the center (to provide righting moment to the topheavy tramp). The balance point is quite small in this vessel, but even so, I can move it using the technique above. The more normal underbody of the steam tramp (similar to a warship's underbody) is a joy to move, even in wind.

The fender could be smooth rubber painted grey with a non-slip paint or colored with something that would not remove the rubber's stickiness.

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

The club is pretty practiced at ship recovery. Paul swooped up the Pringle, and put
him into port in one shot. No jogging left, or right... Just get to the cripple and bring
him in. There are few people in the club that are not able to perform a rescue.
When ball bearings are flying, and you have a team mate crippled on the pond, you
can't leave him, or he gets sunk. :p

The bright or off color patches let you know where you have to place
permanent patches later. The boat look pretty funny by the end of a
weekend.

You can find the rules for 1/72nd scale warship combat here
http://queensown.org/index.php
or here...
http://www.nwlink.com/~pfleming/

_________________
_________________

Sunday...
Partly cloudy most of the day. The Wind had picked up, but down at the
base of the hill in Molalla is so much better than a windy day at Banks,
Oregon. Two new players showed up for the day, and a lot of the morning
was spent working on their boats. Tachikaze had spent most of the last
couple months reconfiguring the balance of his boat, and had not quite
worked out the bugs in his wiring... He had one good battle, and the others
were touch and go for his power systems... Jason played a bit more reserved
after suffering the ambush Saturday, but was making a good effort to deliver
ball bearings to the appropriate targets. The two Gearings were have a
pretty good weekend over all, the Graf Spee was becoming more and more
speckled as the number of patches just kept growing. Bambam was getting
some good exchanges as he matched the the German pocket battleship with
the Louisville. And "Q" though working feverishly to get his new Capitani
Romani light cruiser launched was having a good time watching the action
and hoping to get in a sortie before the end of the day, and weekend.

My Maestrale class DD, the Scirocco, ever the good performer went through
the fist two sorties with little scorable damage. But was knocked almost
completely over in the second sortie when it took a broad side to the bridge.
It should have been taken as a bad omen, and as the Scirocco is probably
the most often sunk ship in the club, the captain should have played more
caution to the wind.

In the Third sortie, a brash attack on the Louisville allowed the Scirocco to
pepper the hull and superstructure of the large enemy target... However,
the depression of the Louisville's guns came to bear, and as the Scirocco
escaped, it took a full broad side from one of the triple gun turrets in the
stern. As the unlucky Italian destroyer sailed east, it looked as if the wind
had heeled the ship over, however as the captain called for rudder to
correct, the Alarms all sounded, and someone called out, "Aimee, your ship is
sinking." Everyone watched as the ship rolled to starboad, and then sank
stern first up to the bridge. :cool: (Tachikaze may have four good pics... waiting to see...)

I spent the next hour and forty minutes dewatering the guns, and drying out
two servos that took water, and patching the TWO holes that had sunk the
ship. (see the Pic) I called ready, and everyone jumped to stations and
started launching boats for the next sortie. Even "Q" put the Romani down
the ways, and put to sea. We got some group shots,... At commence fire, it
was the usual snaps and pops as the air guns fired, and hulls and
superstructures took rounds. At one point I found myself behind the Louisville
as he was engaging the Graf Spee. I made a high speed run at his stern, At
the same time his stern gun started combing rounds around my ship. I
rotated my bow gun and depressed the barrels for maximum point hits. As I
passed I began unloading the bow gun, the Louisvilles front gun turreted into
position, and as I turned away, and started firing another half dozen rounds
into his bow, the Louisville's front turret let fly. Bambam, in a joking manner said,
"Aimee you're sinking..." several people including myself laughed. I then made
a U-turn around an island to make another pass, Started to fire the
guns, and suddenly the ship rolled and went down!! :eek: I guess he was
serious.... :p

It was a great way to end the event, and after everyone recovered boats,
we all began to clean and pack up for the weekend. Everyone in attendance
had a great time, and I commented that it wouldn't have been a real National
event if I hadn't been sunk at least once... Twice is a bonus...

Gary Powell commented that, my boat gets sunk, and
it just keeps coming back... "it's incredible"...

Gary, Thank you for that. :cool:

[Phineus Fullofit]

Umi,

Only twice, Sorry about that. We'll do better next year.

Phineus

[tim slocum]

Umi, thanks for the great pics and commentary. It reminds me of the days when I would go to the BBfests in Springfield,MO. and Tulsa, OK. FUN,FUN times.The guys would get a string of hotel rooms and everyone would have their doors open the night before. People would mill about, going from room to room checking out everyones ships and the preperations for battle.I remember sifting through hundreds of BB's, trying to weed out the imperfect ones.Those where good memories, Umi, thanks for reminding me with the battle report.

[W.L Upshaw]

Umi:

It was great meeting you at the NW R/C regatta in June, sorry I could not make it up for the Portland regatta and the Foss cup as I had planned, things here got hectic

Where is the lake where this battle took place?

[Umi_Ryuzuki]

Lee,

It was good to meet up with you also. The NW RC shipmodelers run some good events.

This battle took place in Molalla, Oregon.
The Molalla RC association (http://www.molrca.com/index.htm) has a good pond where the owner give us free range. We so want to do some concrete work... :p