Warships firing BB pellets?

I have seen those, as well. It's pretty popular in some places to simulate combat with them. I have a Sherman tank that does the same thing, but the BB's are actually made of vinyl, so there's very little damage. Fun to annoy the cat, though.

demono69

I sail two of these ships in 1/72nd scale.

A lot of the warships, that you see on the water, in this gallery are Combat Model warships.

http://rongeorge.com/modules/Gallery/ships

Mine is the Italian destroyer Scirocco.
http://groups.msn.com/ModelsandMiniatures/rcmodelships.msnw
It is a WWII Grecale class Destroyer. It is armed with
two air guns firing 3/16"(4.76mm) ball bearings.
Each gun is allowed 50 rounds, and are fired using
Co2. The Scirocco was built in 1988, in one month, and
is still currently sailing and fighting.

Here is our web site, you can click on the Links page to find some other clubs.

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

Aimee

Umi that looks interesting.....

I've seen those ships as well and have seen them in action once at a lake near Houston. The ships were actually sinking and the guy would have to wade out in the water and retrieve his sunken ship. Was funny as h*** watchin a guy bring a ship out that he had spent months or even years building only to have it sunk in 10 minutes. LOL!

If you are looking for R/C Model warship combat, look to www.swampworks.com and they will show you how this very cool sport works and show you how to build a ship from their plethora of kits in 1/144 scale.

1/144 scale is nice, because you can build larger ships in that scale and keep them less than 6 feet long.

But I like to see more than a block of wood on the deck for superstructure.

Here is a video of my ship sinking. It actually got run down by two destroyers in a fire fight. The captains did not see the battle I was having with another ship, an just broad sided me.
It was the second time I had been run down that year. The first time was by an eight foot heavy cruiser. The ships sailed three more sorties after the incident in this video, the first sortie only 8 minutes after recovery.

The Video.

http://mysite.verizon.net/res1tf1s/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/Sciroccosinking.mpg

That;s cool actually....sorry for your demise but hope you get the picture.
it must be hard to see the child of your labour to go down...lol
hope you got a measure of revenge.....

For me and some others, it is not hard to watch it go down at all.
We are typically the ones that are still trying to sail the boat home, and shoot targets on the way down.

However, you are right, there are others that will run their ships aground, or purposely into the weeds, and then charge, screaming down the pond, "IT'S A CRIPPLE!!! MAINTAIN ONE SHIPS LENGTH DISTANCE!!! STOP!! IT'S A CRIPPLE!!!"

You have to wonder how they have managed to play in the club for 10 years. But a heavy cruiser bringing six 1/4"(6.35mm) ball bearing guns down on your destroyer can do that to some people.

I typically close the distance and slip under the gun range, then I empty 50 rounds into their hull. This is definetly not a hobby for the faint of heart.

As for cost effectivness, It takes a bottle of glue, some paint, and one sheet of balsa to keep a ship afloat a year or two. We cast all our own detail parts, and it adds up to maybe $20 dollars in resin.

What is the range on the guns, seems like it could be a dangerous sport for spectators. It looks like a ton of fun. I wish we had something like that around here.

I have been working on a 1/72 scale Ticonderoga for a year or so, and the folks at the model boat pond in town look at me like I am crazy. The only build sail, or gas hydros. I would love to put some guns on it an shred a few sails, but it would probably ruffel too many feathers.

For the large heavy cruisers, the range can easily be 25 yards.
It often depends on who is crewing the ship. For destroyers 10 yards is typically the maximum range.

If you are sailing a modern warship and do not mind the "dirt",
I would work out one of the vertical launch tubes to fire a model or bottle rocket.

There are two decks, the bow deck, and the midship torpedo deck, that can be exchanged with pyrotechnic decks. For displays, my ship can then shoot 25 bottle rockets off the bow, smoke from the stern, 2 flares off either side of the bridge wings, and either 10 more botlle rockets or 12 more flares.
http://rongeorge.com/modules/Gallery/ships/smoke_screen


A 1/72nd scale Tico' should have plenty of room for fun.
(As long as you don't mind the powder burns.]

Umi_Ryuzuki,

Thanks for sharing the web links and photos. Everything looks awesome. I take it you guys do a lot of research to get your ships looking just right.

I read a bit on your club's web page about the armament. Is there a way to simulate different sized guns? In other words, do some of your models have more powerful guns than others?

Regards,

-Drew

The biggest gun was a shore battery that lobbed marbles up over the pond. Nothing ever came of it.

The current largest caliber is 1/4"(6.35mm)
That size Ball bearing is used to represent naval weapons 8" and larger.
Everything else, 6" guns down to 3" are reprsented by 3/16"(4.76mm) ball bearings. Anything smaller would be standard bb's. A lot of ship strength is represented by the number of guns and magazine size. There are some ship specifications listed in these pages.

http://www.nwlink.com/~pfleming/QORulebook/2003_Rulebook_8-22-0203.html

There are some great images of the gun systems in the armament, and support section of the website also.

The game hardly represents actual naval combat, but there is still a lot of strategy being played out on the water.

Oh lord and my wife only thought she got me away from the RC Hobby....Cool video.
I feel a project coming on!
Chris

QUOTE: Originally posted by HistoryinScale Oh lord and my wife only thought she got me away from the RC Hobby....Cool video. I feel a project coming on! Chris

Well if you are not on the West Coast be sure to check which scale clubs fight in your area. While I would spout praises of glory and sing of great battles in 1/72nd scale, to have you join us, It would be no fun for you if you had to travel clear across country to play once a year. We do get people from as far as Michigan, and Utah at our national event held in Oregon, But these are definitely true believers. We would welcome you.
We believe we build the most dependable and best working ships in the combat arena.

However I do encourage people to check for local clubs. Other wise you have no targets, and just sailing back and forth can get boring.