RE: Newbie here, how does it all work?
Umi.
Word has it, it was successful in practice runs, less so in combat. If I am recalling the scuttlebutt correctly, still working out the bugs. A couple of messages from the thread:
Rob Wood is busily modifying one of our club LSTs to have a clamshell door and a drop down ramp. For our upcoming game, we'll have an invasion scenario. The LST will have one of these tanks onboard, combat-loaded. The LST has to be escorted throughout a course while the opposition attempt to sink it. Ultimately it will end up at "Normandie" where the LST must run ashore (under concentrated fire from shore batteries -- we've got two of them -- and beach itself. The clamshell door will open and the ramp will drop, and the tank driver will have to drive off and up the beach. Cool, eh? We tried out a proof-of-concept at the last battle. At the time, the clamshell door wasn't ready yet, but the ramp dropped successfully and Rob drove the tank onto the beach. Awesome!
Ben
Just thought you guys might be interested to know that I have managed to build the operating clamshell doors and ramp for my LST for Sunday's WWCC invasion campaign game. On the bench, anyway, the doors open and close with a 4 second cycle to add a little realism, and the ramp raises to seal the tank deck against water intrusion, and lowers on chains. I can control the speed for that operation as well, having hacked a servo into a winch, using the PC board as an ESC. The RC tank rolls down the tank deck incline, onto the ramp and out of the ship as designed. The tank runs for 5 minutes and holds a charge over 30 minutes, which is more than I need for this mission.
However, I'm running out of time. I still have to install the pump, devise the ballast-shifting machinery and engineer the dual rudder system. (I may have to forego this and just go with the single rudder that it came with.)
At any rate, one way or another, the LST will be on the pond on Sunday, for good or ill. Wish me luck. (:
Rob
WWCC