re 1/144 wa\rship combat

[Stewart Jay]

i think i will stick to 1/144, i apprecaite both argument s for and
agaianst, but as i like battleships, it would not really be practical to go
for 1/72 or even 1/96, as this will be a new thing over here in the uk,
starting at a smaller scale would probably encourage more people to give it
a try initially as it wouild be a lot cheaper to start off with, maybe once
it is established and we have a few members, we can look at expanding to
include other scales, if anyone is interested, please send in your coments.
stewart

[John Mianowski]

I do 1:144, & honestly, if I had it to do over again I might go with a
larger scale. I'd like to see more destroyers & other smaller ships.
Actually,the projectiles that we use in the Big Gun format would be
spot-on scale if we were at 1:64. I don't want to even think about
handling a battleship in that scale, though.

You might want to contact the Big Gun community, through the
topica.com BigGun e-mail relay. They have helped groups get started
in other countries several times before.

Good luck & good battling!

JM

On Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:59:55 -0000, "Stewart Jay"
<stewart.jay@tesco.net> wrote:

>i think i will stick to 1/144, i apprecaite both argument s for and
>agaianst, but as i like battleships, it would not really be practical to go
>for 1/72 or even 1/96, as this will be a new thing over here in the uk,
>starting at a smaller scale would probably encourage more people to give it
>a try initially as it wouild be a lot cheaper to start off with, maybe once
>it is established and we have a few members, we can look at expanding to
>include other scales, if anyone is interested, please send in your coments.
>stewart
>

[Stewart Jay]

trouble with the big gun combat is correct me if i am wrong but are a lot
more powerfull than the smaller scale, and i think the cannons are illegal
over here, I do think you have a point about more destruyers though, as all
the web sites i have looked at show mostly battleships and the odd cruiser,
i think i have seen 1 destroyer which is a shame as a proper battle group
verses a convoy escort would be stunning!!
still, i might try big guns and see if they can help, like i said, if enough
people show interest in a bigger scale i would give it a go, i am more than
willing to have a go at a 1/72 bismark, it would look nice sat on the top of
my car if nothing else!!!
stewart

"John Mianowski" <res0644m@ix-nay.am-spay.gte.net> wrote in message
news:cl932vos30gbp4nhanb0narnus2qm4tnd7@4ax.com...
> I do 1:144, & honestly, if I had it to do over again I might go with a
> larger scale. I'd like to see more destroyers & other smaller ships.
> Actually,the projectiles that we use in the Big Gun format would be
> spot-on scale if we were at 1:64. I don't want to even think about
> handling a battleship in that scale, though.
>
> You might want to contact the Big Gun community, through the
> topica.com BigGun e-mail relay. They have helped groups get started
> in other countries several times before.
>
> Good luck & good battling!
>
> JM
>
> On Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:59:55 -0000, "Stewart Jay"
> <stewart.jay@tesco.net> wrote:
>
> >i think i will stick to 1/144, i apprecaite both argument s for and
> >agaianst, but as i like battleships, it would not really be practical to
go
> >for 1/72 or even 1/96, as this will be a new thing over here in the uk,
> >starting at a smaller scale would probably encourage more people to give
it
> >a try initially as it wouild be a lot cheaper to start off with, maybe
once
> >it is established and we have a few members, we can look at expanding to
> >include other scales, if anyone is interested, please send in your
coments.
> >stewart
> >
>

[John Mianowski]

Big & small gun clubs both set maximum pressures, usually the same
(140 or 150 psig). Big Gun clubs typically limit hitting power by
limiting penetration through a specific thickness & density of foam,
while the small gun clubs don't & fire as hard as they can, given the
physical limitations of the system & pressure noted. I've been to
many batles of both formats, & been hit a lot of times. It's my
unscientific opinion that getting hit by the small gun bbs hurts a lot
more.

If you start your own club, you can set whatever safety (& other)
parameters that you want/need.

I have no idea about legality of either system in the UK.

JM

On Sun, 12 Jan 2003 20:44:40 -0000, "Stewart Jay"
<stewart.jay@tesco.net> wrote:

>trouble with the big gun combat is correct me if i am wrong but are a lot
>more powerfull than the smaller scale, and i think the cannons are illegal
>over here, I do think you have a point about more destruyers though, as all
>the web sites i have looked at show mostly battleships and the odd cruiser,
>i think i have seen 1 destroyer which is a shame as a proper battle group
>verses a convoy escort would be stunning!!
>still, i might try big guns and see if they can help, like i said, if enough
>people show interest in a bigger scale i would give it a go, i am more than
>willing to have a go at a 1/72 bismark, it would look nice sat on the top of
>my car if nothing else!!!
>stewart
>
>"John Mianowski" <res0644m@ix-nay.am-spay.gte.net> wrote in message
>news:cl932vos30gbp4nhanb0narnus2qm4tnd7@4ax.com...
>> I do 1:144, & honestly, if I had it to do over again I might go with a
>> larger scale. I'd like to see more destroyers & other smaller ships.
>> Actually,the projectiles that we use in the Big Gun format would be
>> spot-on scale if we were at 1:64. I don't want to even think about
>> handling a battleship in that scale, though.
>>
>> You might want to contact the Big Gun community, through the
>> topica.com BigGun e-mail relay. They have helped groups get started
>> in other countries several times before.
>>
>> Good luck & good battling!
>>
>> JM
>>
>> On Sun, 12 Jan 2003 10:59:55 -0000, "Stewart Jay"
>> <stewart.jay@tesco.net> wrote:
>>
>> >i think i will stick to 1/144, i apprecaite both argument s for and
>> >agaianst, but as i like battleships, it would not really be practical to
>go
>> >for 1/72 or even 1/96, as this will be a new thing over here in the uk,
>> >starting at a smaller scale would probably encourage more people to give
>it
>> >a try initially as it wouild be a lot cheaper to start off with, maybe
>once
>> >it is established and we have a few members, we can look at expanding to
>> >include other scales, if anyone is interested, please send in your
>coments.
>> >stewart
>> >
>>
>

[Tachikaze]

This season with our 1/72 scale this may be our first year with Battleships in the game, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS King George the V and DKM Scharnhorst. We have in our game Echo Class torpedo boats all the way up to the HIJMS Kinugasa ( which is currently are largest ship).
1/72 does allow us a wide variety of ships to play with, the battleships do get a little large to deal with. But in our game it is not so much how many guns you arm, but how well you drive your boat and how pretty they look.
The thing that I have noted as the big difference in 1/72 and 1/144 is that our battles last much longer because we have a limit to the number of guns in the boats to limit the damage inflicted. Even the battleships will be limited to arming just their primary guns. This may make them less effective than say a heavy cruiser, but they will have a much larger volume to fill and they do ( according to out rules) get a little thicker armour at the sites where they would have carried an armered belt.

[John Mianowski]

On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:19:55 -0600, Tachikaze
<Tachikaze.h7lin@rcgroups.com> wrote:

>
>This season with our 1/72 scale this may be our first year with
>Battleships in the game, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS King George the V and
>DKM Scharnhorst. We have in our game Echo Class torpedo boats all the
>way up to the HIJMS Kinugasa ( which is currently are largest ship).

Variety is great!

>1/72 does allow us a wide variety of ships to play with, the battleships
>do get a little large to deal with.

There's plusses & minuses to both scales. I doubt that there is a
perfect scale, where everything that you could ever want to build is
both large enough to be viable, yet small enough to fit in the back of
the car.

>But in our game it is not so much
>how many guns you arm, but how well you drive your boat and how pretty
>they look.

Different folks/clubs have different aspects of the game that they
appreciate. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend too much time,
effort, & money makeing a ship too pretty, if it's going to get all
shot up. We have some people that put lots of care & detail into
their ships. In general, they tend to be more tentative in combat.
However, if they're having fun, that's just fine.

>The thing that I have noted as the big difference in 1/72 and 1/144 is
>that our battles last much longer because we have a limit to the number
>of guns in the boats to limit the damage inflicted.

i belong to the North Texas Battle Group, which builds in 1:144 scale.
I'm curious how you know how long my club's battles last?

>Even the battleships
>will be limited to arming just their primary guns. This may make them
>less effective than say a heavy cruiser, but they will have a much
>larger volume to fill and they do ( according to out rules) get a little
>thicker armour at the sites where they would have carried an armered
>belt.

Reading this, it sounds as though battleships & cruisers will be
identically armed. It seems odd that a battleship would be less
effective than a heavy cruiser, & even more odd that this would be OK.
Granted, both ship types have their role in navies, both "real" &
scale model. A battleship isn't necessarily effective in a cruiser's
role, & vise versa. Part of the issue may have to do with having to
learn battleship tactics, having not used battleships before.

Make sure you get help when you have to retrieve one that's been sunk!

JM

[Tachikaze]

I have no idea how long your group battles are, just the 1/144 ones that I have seen on the west coast. They seem to come in close and just open up on each other.
I think that may be more of the difference in our club, we are formost a scale ship club. We limit the guns to different classes, ie. 1, 2, 3,4,5,6,8,9 guns per ship depending on the class of ship which is determined by ship displacement.
The battleships are new to our club, not too many people willing to hual around an 11' + boat. That was my big question, why build an Iowa Class BB with 9 guns and place it up against a 6 gun Deutschland Class Cruiser. You get an extra three guns, but you are so much larger and less manouverable.
It will be very interesting to see how this plays out with the bigger ships.
I drive an Italian Alfredo Oriani, a two gun destroyer and a Japanese Tachikaze a two gun destroyer and am building a four gun Japanese Shimakaze. The thought of going up against the heavy cruisers and battleships just makes my mouth water at the prospect of tearing up those big floating targets.
Will need to keep away from that four gun turrent on the Prince of Wales though!:eek:
JM what ship are you driving?
We should do a thread on Combat ships and the modifications and technical aspects of the game.

[Stewart Jay]

where can i download the rules yoiu use for 1/72 scale combat, as everywhere
i look on the net i keep getting references to 1/144??
thanks

"John Mianowski" <res0644m@ix-nay.am-spay.gte.net> wrote in message
news:6hf62vgnlsv0t87r1mmp0ii1j8uv2tv6o0@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:19:55 -0600, Tachikaze
> <Tachikaze.h7lin@rcgroups.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >This season with our 1/72 scale this may be our first year with
> >Battleships in the game, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS King George the V and
> >DKM Scharnhorst. We have in our game Echo Class torpedo boats all the
> >way up to the HIJMS Kinugasa ( which is currently are largest ship).
>
> Variety is great!
>
> >1/72 does allow us a wide variety of ships to play with, the battleships
> >do get a little large to deal with.
>
> There's plusses & minuses to both scales. I doubt that there is a
> perfect scale, where everything that you could ever want to build is
> both large enough to be viable, yet small enough to fit in the back of
> the car.
>
> >But in our game it is not so much
> >how many guns you arm, but how well you drive your boat and how pretty
> >they look.
>
> Different folks/clubs have different aspects of the game that they
> appreciate. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend too much time,
> effort, & money makeing a ship too pretty, if it's going to get all
> shot up. We have some people that put lots of care & detail into
> their ships. In general, they tend to be more tentative in combat.
> However, if they're having fun, that's just fine.
>
> >The thing that I have noted as the big difference in 1/72 and 1/144 is
> >that our battles last much longer because we have a limit to the number
> >of guns in the boats to limit the damage inflicted.
>
> i belong to the North Texas Battle Group, which builds in 1:144 scale.
> I'm curious how you know how long my club's battles last?
>
> >Even the battleships
> >will be limited to arming just their primary guns. This may make them
> >less effective than say a heavy cruiser, but they will have a much
> >larger volume to fill and they do ( according to out rules) get a little
> >thicker armour at the sites where they would have carried an armered
> >belt.
>
> Reading this, it sounds as though battleships & cruisers will be
> identically armed. It seems odd that a battleship would be less
> effective than a heavy cruiser, & even more odd that this would be OK.
> Granted, both ship types have their role in navies, both "real" &
> scale model. A battleship isn't necessarily effective in a cruiser's
> role, & vise versa. Part of the issue may have to do with having to
> learn battleship tactics, having not used battleships before.
>
> Make sure you get help when you have to retrieve one that's been sunk!
>
> JM
>

[John Mianowski]

Here's Queen's Own: http://www.nwlink.com/~pfleming/

Also, in 1:96: http://www.battlestations.org/

JM

On Tue, 14 Jan 2003 13:43:31 -0000, "Stewart Jay"
<stewart.jay@tesco.net> wrote:

>where can i download the rules yoiu use for 1/72 scale combat, as everywhere
>i look on the net i keep getting references to 1/144??
>thanks
>
>"John Mianowski" <res0644m@ix-nay.am-spay.gte.net> wrote in message
>news:6hf62vgnlsv0t87r1mmp0ii1j8uv2tv6o0@4ax.com...
>> On Mon, 13 Jan 2003 13:19:55 -0600, Tachikaze
>> <Tachikaze.h7lin@rcgroups.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >This season with our 1/72 scale this may be our first year with
>> >Battleships in the game, HMS Prince of Wales, HMS King George the V and
>> >DKM Scharnhorst. We have in our game Echo Class torpedo boats all the
>> >way up to the HIJMS Kinugasa ( which is currently are largest ship).
>>
>> Variety is great!
>>
>> >1/72 does allow us a wide variety of ships to play with, the battleships
>> >do get a little large to deal with.
>>
>> There's plusses & minuses to both scales. I doubt that there is a
>> perfect scale, where everything that you could ever want to build is
>> both large enough to be viable, yet small enough to fit in the back of
>> the car.
>>
>> >But in our game it is not so much
>> >how many guns you arm, but how well you drive your boat and how pretty
>> >they look.
>>
>> Different folks/clubs have different aspects of the game that they
>> appreciate. Personally, I wouldn't want to spend too much time,
>> effort, & money makeing a ship too pretty, if it's going to get all
>> shot up. We have some people that put lots of care & detail into
>> their ships. In general, they tend to be more tentative in combat.
>> However, if they're having fun, that's just fine.
>>
>> >The thing that I have noted as the big difference in 1/72 and 1/144 is
>> >that our battles last much longer because we have a limit to the number
>> >of guns in the boats to limit the damage inflicted.
>>
>> i belong to the North Texas Battle Group, which builds in 1:144 scale.
>> I'm curious how you know how long my club's battles last?
>>
>> >Even the battleships
>> >will be limited to arming just their primary guns. This may make them
>> >less effective than say a heavy cruiser, but they will have a much
>> >larger volume to fill and they do ( according to out rules) get a little
>> >thicker armour at the sites where they would have carried an armered
>> >belt.
>>
>> Reading this, it sounds as though battleships & cruisers will be
>> identically armed. It seems odd that a battleship would be less
>> effective than a heavy cruiser, & even more odd that this would be OK.
>> Granted, both ship types have their role in navies, both "real" &
>> scale model. A battleship isn't necessarily effective in a cruiser's
>> role, & vise versa. Part of the issue may have to do with having to
>> learn battleship tactics, having not used battleships before.
>>
>> Make sure you get help when you have to retrieve one that's been sunk!
>>
>> JM
>>
>

[Tachikaze]

http://www.nwlink.com/~pfleming/

this is the link to our club. in the menu there will be a section on the rules.
We upgrade the rules every January if there is a need. This year we have a vote with regards to letting the Duetschland Class remain part of the 726 Class, making a 1/2 lenght mine string for ships carrying 36 mines or less ( we had two Fairmile D British torpedo boats made, they carry 9-12 mines and there are those that feel they should not have the mine capability that a ship with 75 mines would), also to increase the minimum speed of the 721 Class to 30 knots, our current minimum speed is 25 knots for all ships.

[dreadnaught]

hi guys. thinking about getting into this game! one thing i don't get though, why don't you change the rules to make the game more realistic? i mean, why go through all the time & trouble to build a great model and then cut it all to hell so that it can be sunk easily??!! in real naval warfare it's just the opposite, and the "other side" would have to overcome improved armor, etc.
also, you should allow functional torpedoes, mines, depth charges, etc.
you would need rules to limit their power, of course; say to something like a good firecracker. don't talk about safety, either! you'll set off a ton of fireworks on the 4th and this is out in the middle of a lake! think about it.
you'd up the fun-factor by a coupla calibers!

[John Mianowski]

Actually, it's pretty easy to build a model ship that's completely
un-sinkable unless you use some method that's completely unsafe.

The "cutting it all to hell" is a rather recent change, brought about
by the introduction of fiberglass hulls. Originally, all ships were
built with a more traditional ribbed frame. The plating over the ribs
would be penetrable between the ribs only. This is behind the
"percentage penetrable" rules that most, if not all, clubs have.
Fiberglass hulls are cut up to simulate the effect of a traditional
ribbed construction and allow this easily-penetrable area.

Building a Kevlar hull that would stop all but a high-powered rifle
bullet while still floating & holding all of the necessary equipment
would be a rather trivial task. Piercing that hull would require
something to be shot at it that would be quite dangerous for somebody
standing on the far side. I've been hit by plenty of ball bearings &
I'd just as soon not stand in the way of anything that can punch
through even 1/32" of Kevlar.

Another consideration is that we don't want to drive people away. It's
very important for game-play to have others willing to play with you.
If you have to get so destructive that there's nothing left of
somebody's construction efforts at the end of the day, then they're
probably not going to come back to another battle next month. Keeping
it easy to repair is important, so that people won't get the idea that
once something's been shot up, it's gone. Keeping the hull easy to
penetrate means that we can keep the weapons' power down to a level
that is easy to manage safely.

Another consideration is the attention that would be drawn to loud
explosions, smoke clouds, etc. It certainly rules out any public
parks, & "authorities" tend to notice when you blow things up -
especially when those things have been engineered specifically to avoid
damage, requiring ever-larger forces TO damage them.

Another consideration is insurance. Insurance companies tend to frown
on covering activities involving explosives. It's hard enough
sometimes, just getting coverage for things that shoot small steel
balls.

Another consideration is that if my club, for example, adopted rules
such as you propose, every ship that every member has built up until
now would instantly become obsolete. I personally have several
thousand dollars invested in my small navy, & I'm not about to throw it
all away.

You're free to organize your own club any way that you & the others in
your club want to. It's a shame that you haven't had enough fun at all
of the battles that you've participated in. Most of us, though, would
like to be able to keep using the ships we have & use them more than
once.

How "realistic" do you want to get? In real, 1:1 scale naval combat
people die, sometimes in pretty large numbers.

JM

dreadnaught wrote:
> hi guys. thinking about getting into this game! one thing i don't get
> though, why don't you change the rules to make the game more realistic?
> i mean, why go through all the time & trouble to build a great model
> and then cut it all to hell so that it can be sunk easily??!! in real
> naval warfare it's just the opposite, and the "other side" would have
> to overcome improved armor, etc.
> also, you should allow functional torpedoes, mines, depth charges,
> etc.
> you would need rules to limit their power, of course; say to something
> like a good firecracker. don't talk about safety, either! you'll set
> off a ton of fireworks on the 4th and this is out in the middle of a
> lake! think about it.
> you'd up the fun-factor by a coupla calibers!
>
>
> --
> dreadnaught
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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