How in the world do you guys mount 6 cannons if:

If I want to arm the rear turret with two guns, that would be illegal, because the cannons are mounted in the SAME turret.

If I rotated the two bow turrets, then I could fire one gun from each turret into any of three quadrants, but that would still only allow me to mount three guns total. Because, in a battleship, firing two cannons from any ONE turret into the same quadrant is not allowed by the rules.

How do you MWCI/ Polarbear guys arm Battleships?

[:@]

So if I mount three guns in a battleship turret can those guns all be fired off the bow or stern, but not to the side?

How does an Italian Littorio class BB fit these rules?
Ideally, I would mount 6 cannons in two rotating turrets... but,

Now you see one of the reasons I like Big Gun. Simpler. If the ship had armable weapons (over 3"), arm what you want, in the same positions as the original, of course. If it rotated on the original, it can rotate on the model (if you can figure out how).

Well, except for Western Warships, which places an absolute maximum on number of armed barrels.

Wreno

Hi Umi,

Thanks for the info on the smoke.

The MWCI rules divide a ship in to 4 quadrants. The forward and aft quadrant cover an area 15 degrees to either side of the centerline. The side quadrants cover the remaining 150 degrees on each side. That I know of, not too many fast gun ships use rotating turrents. On the Littorio, you can have all the guns aiming in the fwd/aft quadrants and even pivot across the quadrant. You can only have 2 guns per side able to fire in to the side quadrants. An example would be 3 guns aiming aft, 2 guns in the #1 turrent to port, and 1 gun in the #2 turrent to starboard.
On the Rivadavia, I have my last turrent with 1 gun to starboard for those low waterline shots. The upper aft turrent has two guns aiming in to the aft quadrant. My port sidemount has my 4th gun, aiming aft, about 45-50 degrees out from the centerline. Basically, I'm trying to cover my butt, since I'm slow and can turn really well and since my ship is under 720', I'm allowed a total of two sidemount cannons, but only 1 per side.

Here is an example for your first question. Assuming a ship over 720', you're allowed up to three sidemounts, but only two on a side. The third side mount would have to be on the oppose side. As for the fwd or aft quadrants, it's up to you, no limits.

It's not a matter of how many guns are in a turrent, it's where they are aimed. I think a lot of this came about for safety reasons, that's why smaller ships are limited or completely restricted from sidemounts. Those bb's still have a sting at 50'.

With two guns in one turrent, and a ship over 720', you can rotate through three quadrants, but you would not be able to have any other sidemounted gun, unless it rotated to the opposite side at the same time that the twin rotated. Basically, a slave control.

Three guns or more are strictly fwd/aft only

Those rather larger ships have special rules to allow for their ability to terrorize the rest of us. They can mount two twin side turrents, but those turrents cannot be on the same side. You can rotate them as opposes, so when on goes port the other will go starboard.

There are differences between pivot and rotate. Pivot is a movable gun, but it stays in it's quadrant. Rotate moves between quadrants.

As for the Littorio, 6.5 battle units. You could mount 6 guns, but then you would not have a pump and your lifespan will be limited. With 5 guns and a pump you could mount 3 aft, 1 port, and 1 starboard. Another combo would be 3 aft, and 2 rotating port/starboard. Yet another option would be 2 on a side, 1 opposite side, and two aft. Notice I never mentioned the fwd quadrant. In fast gun, the ships have the ability to back up fast, rather unrealistic, but really fun. As a result, fwd firing guns don't seem to be a very big item. If you mounted 3/3, then you would be limited to fwd/aft only. Take a look through some of the galleries, especially on the main club site and link to the Southeast attack squadron, they got some great pictures and videos.

I may just have to build a big gun Rivadavia too. But then, I like a silly challenge. haha

The reason we are studying the rules, is that some of the guys in 1/72nd took SO long to refit their boats between battles, that I joked we could fight 1/144 ships between 1/72nd sorties. Well now it seems like we may be hosting an ALL scale Nationals in Molalla, Oregon, next year.

I would rather battle with unrestricted turret options or big guns, but it seems like the reason MWCI rules are being considered, is that three of our guys is in San Jose, and the other is in Minnesota. So that puts them nearest to MWCI rules.

The Littorio Class at full load tonnage, 45,236 tonnes, puts them at "7 battle units" so I was looking at 6 cannons and one pump.

At this point, I would probably arm the forward secondaries, on each side, and rotate the bow turret.
That would use up the 6 offensive unit, and put the two side cannons in "different turrets". With a triple traverseing in the stern.
Jeez...[&o], I totally object to that guns must be in different turrent rule.[:'(]

It's like, someone at one time said, "We cant build twin or triple rotating guns, so lets just rule they have to be in different turrets."
I so had triple gun turrents in mind when we first proposed the 1/144 "filler" battles for next years nationals.

I'm too new in this hobby to really give any solid opinion, but I'd love to be able to arm all guns. Of course, I'm having enough trouble getting what I've got to fit in the hull. As for the Littorio, according to MWCI rules, she's not a 7 class, she's a 6 class with 6.5 battle units. The key here is that we go by standard tonnage, not full load tonnage. Otherwise, I'd have a class 6 Rivadavia. Who do you have from Minnesota? I'm assuming they are in or near the cities. Because we are fast gun, it's a nasty feeling to get in the sights of a triple stern. Just to drive straight across can mean 15 hits or more. OUCH!! If a fast gun ship is built right and has a really good pump, some can take over 100 hits before going down. On the MWCI site, link to the southeast squadron and check out the video on the "all versus nagato" it's a really good sink. It'd have been better if an allied ship went down. haha That's a moltke that's turning the sides of the nagato in to swiss cheese, using twin aft mount.

I didn't know there was a club battling with MWCI rules near San Jose, UMI. San Jose is where our Big Gun club battles (WWCC). Is there a fast gun club closer to San Jose than Southern California?


Rob

I think this is the club the guy in San Jose is reffering to...
http://www.rcwarshipcombat.homestead.com/

[8D]

Oh, OK- that's Norhern Califonia/Nevada - a long way from San Jose, but still within a day's woth of driving, RT.


Rob

Ok Umi-
Since you mentioned building according to fast gun rules, I started looking at big gun rules. It would be a while,but I think it'd be fun to have two Rivadavia's, one for fast and one for big. If I understand the rules correctly, (I looked at the Western Warship site), I could have 8 guns firing 7/32 load, I'd able to fire every 6 seconds. Since my main armor belt runs between 4" and 11", depending on location, I'd be albe to have 3/32 thick balsa sides. My reference book lists the Rivadavia at 22.5 kts, so that interprets to approx. 51 seconds. I didn't fully understand the reference to secondary weapons, (I have 16), but I did read the part about torpedos, got 2 of them. I'm just wondering how to fit all that in a 4 ft ship with an 8" beam. Also, how many shots does each gun have? In fast gun, the cannons have a load of 50 to 75 shots per gun, I'm guessing big gun is a lot less, since firing speed is more realistic.

I play 1/72nd, so I am not that up on the "big gun" club rules.

Basically we play number of guns by tonnage, no rate of fire, no ramming, and it seems like a lot of strategies. Like force an enemy ship to turn, so your team mate has a shot. Pumps are also limited by tonnage.

Most Big Gun clubs are about the same except:

[ul][*] Number of guns is unrestricted in our club. If the prototype ship had them, the model can have them if the builder can figure out a way to make them work. Our club allows anything 3" & above. I've never seen a ship that had all allowable guns, but the system does allow quite a bit of flexibility. For example, there are ships that don't have any main armament at all, but bristle with secondaries.[*] Our club enforces rate-of-fire restrictions for each caliber of gun.[*] 1:144 scale (although, if I had to start a club up from scratch again, with no ships already built, I'd lean strongly toward a larger scale like 1:72, to make destroyers, etc. more viable). As it is, you really need to fight with what you've already got, or what others nearby are using if you're just starting out.
[/ul]

JM

Having just been sunk twice by torpedo cruisers and destroyers in Sunday's battle, I would put our (1:144) club's Capitani Romanis up against any combat ship in any scale, and my money would be on the 1:144 Capitanis. And these are limited by our (WWCC) rules to a maximum of three torpedo barrels on each side. They sank every larger boat on the pond in less than 15 minutes. These are little more than large, fast destroyers, and they are awesome.

Consider:

- Three tubes with two 1/4" balls in each, at point-blank range at or below the waterline (that's six 1/4" balls in a 1" x 1 1/2" rectangle blown out of the hull)
- 41 knots
- Low profile puts them under a heavy cruiser or battleship's guns
- Highly maneuverable
- single shot, which means they get to race back to port to reload at 41 knots, which means they are only on the pond for a minute or two at a time.


Rob

Ok, so I am being talked into doing this by fellow 1/72nd combat skippers, from Aircoffee's response to Umi's question, I have a question. How many fingers do I need to fire all these different positioned guns?

Hi Tachikaze (hope I spelled that right)

On the Rivadavia, I've got 4 guns, and I can finally say they are all fully operational. WHOOPEE!! I'm using team delta relays hooked into my receiver and I've installed push buttons switches on the side of my transmitter. I've got 3 buttons to operate four guns and I only need one finger to do this. One of the buttons fires two barrels at once, some folks in MWCI have them hooked up to triples too. Using team delta relays you can activate two sets of guns per channel. My rate of fire is about 1 to 2 shots per second, kinda like a semi-auto, but ammo is limited. The Rivadavia can carry up to 225 bb's and would need most of that to put down a ship of equal size. Our bilge pumps don't have any actual volume restriction, but they do have limits on motor size, outlet discharge diameter, and limited to one pump rotor. I can push out 2-3 gpm using a scorpion motor on my pump.

Paul (aircoffee)