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Posted by: Gascan Oct 1 2004, 08:23 PM

I was looking at the rules of the Queens Own and I noticed a major area of naval combat that was completely ignored: submarines. Having seen two 1:144 combat submarines in combat (dynamic diving, two single-shot 1/4" ball bearing torpedos), I know that they would be even easier to build in a larger scale. It seems as though they could have an impact on this hobby, so I wonder how they would be armed? What is your opinion on combat submarines?

This is purely out of curiosity and speculation. My hands are quite full with school and finishing a refit on a 1:144 Scharnhorst.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Oct 1 2004, 10:59 PM

Hi Gascan, welcome to the forum. Nice to have new people in here once in a while.

We did submarines back in the 90's but just one season.
Two M-1 submarines were built. In response, the destroyer captains built "hedge hog" style depth charge launchers.

It turned out that the destroyer captains could accuratly put 5-8 rounds at a time inside a hoola hoop or even a smaller pattern. Since the rules at the time stated that a hedge hog round within 2 feet of a submarine was referee'd as a sink, the subs were often sunk 2 or three times each in any 20 minute sortie.

The sub captains declared "no joy" and the club, having to dedicate a referee to each sub just to count the sinks, decided to stick to surface vessels.

However we still have one submarine in the club, however I don't think it has seen any combat.


Attached image(s)

Posted by: baratacus Oct 2 2004, 02:53 PM

problem with subs, if the sub skipper can see where it is to pilot it, the enemy can see where it is to sink it. Employing onboard camera would help, but visibility is extremely limited. Radio signals are lost much past a few feet and floating a radio signal buoy would defeat the purpose of being able to dive below visual spotting range. There are problems that seemed insurmountable before that can now be tackled with new technologys. Maybe a fresh look at it and some creative thinking could bring sub capable combatants into the hobby. Some day if you free up some time, and get that life raft secured, take a stab at it!

Posted by: Gascan Oct 3 2004, 11:15 AM

Interesting. How were the subs armed? How did the hedgehog device work?

The subs in our club don't come out much because they are old and difficult to run. When they do come out the only ASW weapon we have is ramming, so they cause a lot of chaos.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Oct 3 2004, 01:24 PM

The British M1 Submarines, like the French Sucouf, had ship guns mounted to the conning tower. The M1 had a single barrel. The two M1 models would surface and proceed to put holes into peoples hulls.

It was decided early in our submarine proposals that, "if you chased anything long enough you could ram it." We pulled most "ram" rules out of our games a long time ago. The rules caused to much dispute at the pond as to who rammed who, and who cut who off and forced or caused a ram. Ships don't just stop. Once we threw out the "ram" rules and penalties,... we still had collisions, but instead of arguments we got apologies and a continuous and fun game.

Destroyers can out maneuver the subs, so the submarines typically found themselves being attacked by the destroyer deck guns as often as they surfaced. And as soon as they surfaced there was a destroyer at the back of the pond waiting to drop hedge hog rounds.

The "hedge hogs" were typically launch tubes set at a 45 degree angle just in front of the Destroyer's bridge. The could lob a set of bearings about 20 yards down the pond, and then drop them into a hulahoop.
The loading mechanism was kind of an upsidown "y" shape. the straight side acting as the chamber and barrel, and the short angle in, the magazine. The magazine was arched down and then up behind the chamber.

The Chamber held about 8-12 rounds. each time the "Hedge Hog" was fired, the rounds would exit the barrel in front of the bridge, and the blow back air would force the magazine rounds back. When the rounds in the magazine rolled back down, about 8-12 rounds would drop back down into the chamber, and be set for the next volly.

There was not really any penetration force to the rounds other the gravity. Sinks on submarines were all about proximity, and referee decisions.

Umi

Posted by: Tachikaze Oct 4 2004, 11:58 AM

I have plans for and the frames prepared for the construction of the heavy French cruiser submarine Surcouf. I was originally planning on constructing this ship as part of hte Axis fleet for the Queens Own. When I found out about the rules with the use of the Hedge Hog I placed the construction of this ship on hold.
The hedge hog unit places the submarine at a tremendous disadvantage, it would be way to easy for a destroyer to acquire and attack the sub, compared to the ability of the sub to attack the destroyer. The Surcoug is a big boat, bigger than an American Benham or Mahon Class destroyer. I figured that as a ballasted ship, the surcouf would take me 45-55 seconds to surface and fire and perhaps 15-20 seconds to submerge. This places the ship on the surface for more than a minute, if you are lucky to be in the right place to fire the gun and not have to manouver.
There has been discussion in our club to remove the hedge hog as an offenseive weapon and limit the ASW to the standard surface guns of the destroyer as teh sub would only be using its surface guns to attack. This would still place the sub at a disadvantage as one would be easily able to see the sub as she starts to surface and while diving. The sub is slower and far less manouverable than teh destroyer.
We have been playing with the idea of creting ballasted ships that would hve a penetrable superstruture that would fill, this woul dmake the boat top heeavy and unable to maintain a even keel. This would be the determination of a sink.
Until then the Surcouf will probably remain in the box until other projects are done.

Posted by: Skuggan Oct 4 2004, 11:10 PM

Hi everyone
I thought this was a thread for me
Tachikaze if you look up ThierryC under the subcommitte, I bet he can help you, I know that he has built a surcouf himself and a whole lot of other subs
And as everyone knows by now I am to building a submarine for naval warfare altough Im going for a little more technology specs so that I dont have to spend time at the surface.
My weapon range is torpedoes and missiles if I will have the time/money/interrest to finish them.
Gascan are you interrested in building a sub for warfare?
have you built a sub or anything like a sub before?

Posted by: baratacus Oct 4 2004, 11:32 PM

I came up with a depth charge idea for Skuggan about the time that I was developing guided missiles... yeah bad idea.... but the depth charges were a pretty good idea, I'll try to find a link and post it.

Posted by: Skuggan Oct 5 2004, 12:12 AM

hehehe baratacus we shouldn't walk that path again
yes the idea for the depth charges are great.
they should work like a charm!

Posted by: Gascan Oct 5 2004, 09:43 PM

Yes, the idea is about combat submarines, although I don't plan on making one YET. I have only been working on a Scharnhorst (1/144) for about a year, so my building experience is not up to what I would like. I would love to have one, and it would be easier in 1/72 than 1/144 so I was trying to find out what is allowed, what you can do, do I have to build a coastal sub to get torpedos...
The whole hedgehog thing does kinda make it impossible to run a sub, so I would wait until not only do I have more experience but more fair ASW weapon is created before I would attempt it.

Haha, I was just thinking about the I-400 (one of the subs we have in the WWCC) in 1/72 would be as big as Scharnhorst! According to tonnage, its in the 725 class with five guns, but the boat only had one 5" deck gun. At five and a half feet long you'd have little trouble fitting anything you want in like auto leveling, depth regulator, video camera, waterproof rotating cannon... I'd have to be a super genius to get all that stuff in there, but I bet it could be done.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Oct 5 2004, 10:16 PM

Yeah we kind of did the whole "sink bomb" thing.

http://www.microrccenter.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20954&hl=depth+charges

The biggest problem we have is not the design so much as what is safe to publish.

Posted by: Skuggan Oct 6 2004, 05:43 AM

Yes somehow this have not been the place to ask if it is possible, its more like am I allowed to do this hehe
Gascan 5 feet that would be almost 2 meters right?
there are alot of subs with all the equipment you stated in that size my sub is 172cm and space is not the major problem. The major problem is off course the price, if its small, then its expensive
kind of like jurassic park... is it heavy? yes!? then its expensive
There are alot of vendors selling submarine kits, altough I don't know about the I-400.
If you go to the subcommittee (www.subcommittee.com)
and follow the links vendors.
there you will find a whole lot.
And keep in mind you get what you pay for.
Some vendors are very expensive but you get one hell of a sub.
Altough I would not recommend a expensive one as a first one.
If I where you I would start with a robbe u-47 its a very nice sub, very controllable and have a nice speed and nice manouvering.
Altough the robbe model is a static diver which means you will have to apply thrust in order to dive!

This is why the sub is so cheap, on the other hand it is good to start with, when you feel more confident you can start rebuild the sub and make it a dynamic diver, all the stuff required is available at different vendors.

and for any questions you have this forum and also subcommitte of course

Posted by: Rob Wood Oct 11 2004, 11:28 AM

We've done a lot of work in our 1:144 club on this subject, so I'll just outline the basics of what we have determined at this point, for what it's worth.

Generally speaking, "declaring" something as sunk does not excite anyone in rc warship combat. It's more like a war game than war, if you follow me. The only way submarine warfare in either 1:144 or 1:72 can be both fun and fair for everyone, is if the sub can be damaged, disabled or sunk by surface warships. Since our clubs (and insurance) would not allow exploding depth bombs, we're left with our simulated guns and torpedoes, or passive devices, such as nets or weighted lines.

In the club Gascan belongs to (which is the one I also belong to: Western Warship Combat Club), the submarines we see in combat are dynamic divers. That means they are only slightly positively buoyant, and don't have ballast tanks. A destroyer can theoretically drop a modestly weighted line and drape it over the sub, causing it to sink, or alternatively, foul its propellers. Not easy - but possible for a skilled skipper. Another passive device is a weighted net. Another is a line with grappling hooks that can be dragged behind a destroyer. (This device was actually used in WWII to "troll" for submarines lying on the bottom in shallow waters.)

Our club allows a "depth charge gun." This is a downward-firing 1/4" gun, specifically for engaging submarines. In order for this to work to actually sink the sub, the top deck of submarine must be penetrable. Not easy, but possible.

Finally, the minimum that would keep people interested would be actual superstructure damage that is "declared" fatal, i.e., put holes in the submarine's conning tower or blow its periscope off, and it's sunk.

Rob

Posted by: Skuggan Oct 13 2004, 11:47 PM

Well if you have a mold and build the sub kind of like a warship that would be no problem, but if you are going to build it from a kit, then you are bound to go with plastic and stuff, I don't think that the bb will be able to penetrate the hull of for example my sub, on the other hand I have not seen how much power is released from these cannons.
But if you make a wet hull sub there should be no problems at all with a hull that can take damage, the only problem is that it will only take damage the sub will not sink, since with a wet hull sub you flood the entire sub so a whole in the hull won't make any difference.
If you build a dry hull then you will get results on the other hand you will flood your electronics and there goes youre sub
But if visual damage is enough to fill your pleasures then it is possible.

Posted by: RiverRaider Oct 15 2004, 04:12 AM

Rob,

When you say the "top deck of submarine must be penetrable" is it correct
that this penetrable area is for scoring hits or counting as a sink and is
not for allowing water into the internals of the sub to actually send it to the bottom?

RiverRaider

Posted by: E. N. May 31 2005, 05:23 PM

Hows this for an idea....
Have all subs have the top third of their hull(excluding the bow and stern) sheeted with 1/32 balsa or balsa windows in the plastic hull. The subs are the wet hull variety but have an air pocket in the top of their hull that makes them able to float but still submerge. They can be dynamic or static divers except that they have to sink without the air pocket. And to make it more realistic the sub may have a penetrable bag in the top of their hull that is hooked up to the gun pressure system so if their hit and start to sink they can emergency blow the bag to rise to surface and keep from sinking. But this makes them an easy target on the surface so they have to run for home or, if their brave enough, try for a counterattack.


EN

Posted by: Tachikaze Jun 1 2005, 08:01 AM

We have thought of that what you have to look at is that the subs will run either as a dynamic diver or a ballasted ship. If you have the ship set up so that this air pocket in the sail and upper hull is a component for its ability to remain surfaced, then how do you retrieve this ship if it fills and the ship sinks?
Submarines are very difficult to keep on an even keel. You would have a better chance of keeping a dynamic diver on an even keel than that of a ballasted ship, but you motors better be good enough to pull that extra weight up as the ship floods.
What we have thought of that might work is a very small area that fills up either on the port or starboard side of a ballasted ship. As this area fills it will shift the weight of the boat and it will list, this would be the indication of a crippled or sinking submarine, one that can not remain on an even keel.

Posted by: E. N. Jun 1 2005, 09:27 AM

Have a switch on your radio that releases a float and line like on the ships. Also have the air pocket in a compartment so it cant move around upsetting the balance.

Posted by: Paleozoic Jun 3 2005, 02:16 AM

But if it is underwater, you wont see it sinking, until it is too late, you might lose signal. So it has to also be set off via loss of signal.

Posted by: E. N. Jun 4 2005, 01:08 PM

You could use pcm failsafe and preset it release the float in case of signal loss. That is, if you dont mind spending a lot of money.

Posted by: baratacus Jun 5 2005, 03:23 AM

all it would require is one channel and one servo.

Posted by: E. N. Jun 5 2005, 03:55 PM

You could also put a small device in the top of the air compartment that deployed the float if it sensed water.

Posted by: baratacus Jun 5 2005, 06:42 PM

yeah that would be so much easier, just a couple electrodes, when the water starts coming in, it jumps the circut and your float deploys. Great thinking!

Posted by: Gascan Jun 6 2005, 05:19 PM

Subs can sink or get trapped underwater without springing any leaks. Personally, I'd think a submarine "failsafe" device that detects loss of radio signal, then does something. If you can't find it, just turn off the radio. Subtech has something made specifically for that. I think its too bulky for 1/144 subs, 1/72 has more room.

Posted by: baratacus Jun 7 2005, 09:16 AM

that would be good for a sub to have, but i was just talking about for the hit indicator floodable compartment.

Posted by: E. N. Jun 7 2005, 02:59 PM

You could have both systems. The radio one as emergency backup.

Posted by: Gascan Jun 7 2005, 05:24 PM

In the WWCC, the advantage of a sub is that you can dive out of the danger zone, not escape vision altogether. However, you must sacrifice speed to get that ability.

Pros: submerge to escape

Cons: very slow, lightest armor, can't attack when submerged, extra complexity, vulnerable when hit (can't dive, flooding will interfere with submerged running)

It seems like a fair trade-off to me. One hit anywhere and you can't dive. Without diving, a sub is just a slow target. Unless there were problems hitting subs when they were surfaced (they DID need to surface to shoot their cannons, right?) having a special weapon that only attacks one kind of ship (hedgehog) when the target can't retaliate seems entirely unfair. A fair game is a fun game. I believe that if you disallow hedgehogs, subs might reappear. After all, subs played a huge part in both wars, so why should they be excluded?

After that, a captain should be able to do what he wants to his ship. My personal preference would be to have just a failsafe device to deploy an emergency float with a blast of air (like a cannon, but with a float...) to help it on it's way. Having a water sensor on it's own is not enough (subs can be lost at sea without taking on water, I've seen it happen), and having one in addition to a failsafe just seems redundant and extra complexity. We are talking about submarines, which are inherently complex, but the more you have, the more that can get screwed up

And a question: How did subs do when attacked at close range, as if they were a normal ship? Were they hard to hit, normal, or a fat juicy target?

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Jun 7 2005, 05:50 PM

I laid a set of mines during one of our games that included submarines.
I trapped a small four piper USS Ward in the tangle of string and bobbers.

When I attacked the Ward, One of the submarines attempted to take advantage of my preoccupation with the Ward and surfaced to attack me. I backed away from the submarine, but I also got stuck in the "mines". I started using my rotating front turret to fire on the sub, and the Captain started yelling for assistance.
It seems his submarine could not move or turn fast enough to get out of range of my guns.

So it would seem that as surface combat ships, they would be better night fighters where they can hide in the dark. Rather than be visible and vulnerable on the surface during the day.

Hey, that is just like WWII tactics.

Posted by: Gascan Jun 8 2005, 08:19 PM

Thats one thing I love about this forum over the Biggun email discussion group, you guys have tried just about every little special device that most biggunners only think about. You always have a story to tell. I could easily see myself building and battling in 1/72 if I every live near a club.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Jun 9 2005, 09:58 AM

Well you do know Gary Powel, I assume....

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 6 2005, 03:09 AM

Hi you guys

Im about to trade my typhoon hull for a 21 hull, that way I would get a 1/40 scale sub which will be able to fit working torps, camera, sonar, working nav-lights, trim tanks and some other goodies, as failsafe I use a boay that sits tight on top of the sub, when the failsafe can't sense any radiosignal the boay afloats, of course it has a string attached to it.
I will start updating this project as soon as its underway.
I have a problem getting to the city were the sub is at the moment to send it away as part of the trading, but someday I will have the time to do it

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Sep 6 2005, 07:47 AM

Why not have the failsafe just blow the ballast and return the whole boat to the surface? It seems that is how most modelers set up the boats.

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 8 2005, 08:40 AM

well I guess it will blow the ballast aswell altough its not always a possibility to blow the ballast, thats when the bouy is pretty handy to have

Posted by: baratacus Sep 8 2005, 04:13 PM

Handy idea, if you lost signal because your sub was sinking you wouldn't have any air to blow your balast, You should have a lead from your antennae on the bouy, that way you might be able to regain signal and bring the sub up on its own power.

Did you finish the typhoon? Thats a lot of time into it, hopefully your new sub will be able to hold all your gear.

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 9 2005, 08:20 AM

No the interior was never completed altough I have wtc tanks and sort! yes quite alot of time on it!
Yes the 21 will be able to hold all the gear and since its a little more time accurate I dont have to worry myself or the FBI about stuff like gps guided missiles hahahaha

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Sep 9 2005, 09:13 AM

Stop saying that, you will get us all flagged again!

So you are starting a new submarine from scratch?
I'm telling you, if you want to create a combat club, start with small destroyers or cruisers. Once you get some good battles going then you can sneak up on everyone with the submarine.

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 9 2005, 10:21 AM

Yeah but since Ive already have a sub and I just love subs, I thought hey I can finish this up, and then start working on a ship, but I need some manufactures my friends and myself included don't want to start from scratch one the first ship, want a kit that we can assemble and then when we know how its supposed to be built we can start scratch building other ships, since nobody does anything remotly close to this there is nobody to ask in IRL here.
I once found some other vendors apart from swampworks selling kits but alas I have lost the pages and can't seem to find them again.
Anyone here have any good vendors that sells kits?
Both 144 and 72 is good.
Have to start somewhere

Posted by: RiverRaider Sep 9 2005, 12:42 PM

Hi Skuggan,
Swampworks has the complete 1/144 small gun (BB shooters) ship kits.
http://www.swampworks.com/
Being a 1/72 guy I only have some experience with the 1/144s.
I would suggest the DKM Lutzow/ Graf Spee or Adm. Scheer
Blade and I each had one and they are good two gun ships.
We had alot of fun fighting and customizing them. If you are looking for complete
kits Swampworks is the way to go and if you want to fight with big guns
http://www.bderc.com can help you there. They also sell plans for there guns.
If there are others interested I suggest that you guys should buy two complete ships that are the same. That way you can learn together as you build them
and when you fight the ships are equal and only the better captain will win.
Later,
RiverRaider
Falcon (NF)

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 10 2005, 12:31 AM

Hi River

Well as I said I know about swampworks, but are there any companies selling none complete kits out there then?
Bderc.com were great for building your own or buying your first pair of cannons.
Great with different calibers as well then you can arm the secondaries and stuff.

A couple of months ago there was a chap in here telling us about some system that would direct all the cannons onboard the ship to a designated elevation and direction does anyone know what happened to this system? was it ever completed? Having a secondary capten onboard controlling the cannons with a system like that would be very cool and you could have teams and stuff which could possibly get more people to participate!

Posted by: Gascan Sep 10 2005, 01:20 AM

That was me mentioning it. The guy who designed it is a member of the North Texas Battle Group.

http://www.jkmiller.net/ntxbg/pgOnTheWays/pgBlackPrograms.htm

He is on the Big Gun Yahoo group. He has built a test model to show that his theory is sound, but he has not installed one in a ship yet. He is not planning on developing it further until he gets more time/money. The two things just about everybody could use more of. It would be a lot more useful if you've got lots of rotating, depressing guns to deal with. In other words, it won't do a lot in 1/144, but a 1/72 battleship with main and secondary cannon armed and rotating could benefit a great deal.

On the note of 1/72 battleships, I just visited Joe Moore's house. He is in the WWCC and used to come visit the QO and battle with them up north. He showed me a 1/72 Scharnhorst he has under construction. That thing is MASSIVE! He may not intend to battle with it, but he says he'll arm it just for fun. I wish I had my camera so I could have gotten a picture of it to show you guys. Ah well...

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 10 2005, 04:57 AM

Well if you want to see see some awesome models take a look at
http://www.bismarck-class.dk/shipmodels/shipmodels_menu.html

Yeah a system like that would be sweet to have onboard, also if you make some kind of defense system for your home harbor a system like that would be perfect have multiple cannons that fire at the same target!

Posted by: Rob Wood Sep 10 2005, 03:32 PM

Sorry, I just saw this message for the first time. I mean penetrable as in "let water in, and maybe sink it." What is the difference between sinking a submarine and sinking a surface ship? In WWCC, we are just about done with the idea of "declared sinks." The fun is in taking the real risk of getting damaged or sunk (or causing same on the opposing side).


Rob

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 11 2005, 03:03 AM

Well for one, when a surface ship gets sunk most if not all interior is protected from water, but if you are going to sink a sub that means putting a hole to the place where all the electronics are and that means saying goodbye to your sub.

If you use a dry hull sub that means you have a little area inside of the sub thats full of air, the only way to sink that sub would be putting a hole in that area by doing so the sub is lost as with all inside.

With a wet hull sub you have small tubes of PVC and the same principles goes there you can pump how many holes in the hull as you want but as long as you dont hit the tubes nothing will happen to the sub since its already full of water!
And if you hit one of the tubes all the electronics in that tube is bye bye.

Perhaps you could make a double hull which would hold air inside and when hit it would leak and the extra weight would sink the sub! altough It would be very hardwork creating this double hull it would be kind of cool!

Posted by: Gascan Sep 11 2005, 08:46 PM

Absolutely, positively, beyond any doubt FALSE and NOT NECCESARY.

There is a guy in our club who has two unarmed cargo wessels, one that he drives and one to lend out. Every battle day he sinks at least once, often multiple times. All his electronics get soaked through. He pulls the boat up, pours out the water, sprays the radio and servos (ignores the motors) with Corrosion-X, the mystical and amazing spray he uses (kinda like WD-40, only better), lets them dry out, and he is good to go with both boats in less than half an hour. Other people have found ways to water-proof their electronics (Something called scotch-kote is very useful, if you want details I can look them up for you). You can buy water-proof marine ESCs that are sealed in a case of epoxy or resin. Just so you know, the guys I know are more worried about cannons when they sink than they are about electronics.

The submarine guys don't know how to deal with water and electronics. Their method is to keep water from touching anything electrical.

Any model warship combat person who really knows what they're doing knows that fresh water really won't hurt electronics. You just can't let the water stay in the electronics for long, or it will corrode. CORROSION is what causes problems with electronics. My brother went out to retrieve a sunken ship with his cell phone in his pocket. WHen he came back to shore, he opened it up and let it dry out, and gave it a bath in rubbing alchohol and everything was fine.

And, in a 1/144 sub, you simply CAN'T FIT a WTC in/ along with everything else you need. So, it's probably best if you forget the idea of a WTC completely. I bet, using the proper waterproofing techniques proven through the harsh rigors of combat time and again, you could probably build a better wet hull sub without a WTC, anyway.



Sorry for the rant. All I'm really trying to say is fresh water really won't hurt electronics unless you let it sit for too long. There are ways to protect individual components so you don't have to flush them out with alchohol/WD-40/corrosion-x every time you sink. All you need to do is ask the people who need to deal with getting shot, holed, and sunk.

Just my 25.125 cents

Posted by: Skuggan Sep 14 2005, 01:27 PM

Hi Gascan:)
no worries.

I really didnt know you could do that in subs, I knew that you could protect the electronics in a boat but not in a sub where the electronics have to stay underwater for a long time!

Good thinking

Posted by: Gascan Sep 15 2005, 01:22 AM

I don't know how much you 1/72 guys have to deal with this, but in 1/144 you really don't have enough room to get much of a WTC in, especially in small destroyers. We've just learned to adapt. The submarine guys have a relatively uniform hull shape that allows WTCs to be made commercially. They never really have to deal with servo's getting flooded routinely.

This is why I try to get in contact with other RC combat groups. We have so much to learn from each other. I'm sure the rest of the big gunners would love to here from sll you.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Sep 15 2005, 07:51 AM

I would be happy if any of our group would post here.
Even when I post weekend results, everyone posts there experience, and their comments through e-mail.

Apparently posting here is too much trouble for the old membership.

As for submarines, we don't use them. One word,..."Hedgehog".
The submarines we did have all used a WTC. Plenty of room in 1/72nd scale.

Posted by: Gascan Sep 15 2005, 10:53 PM

Adunno... Although hedgehogs were used in real life, they strike me as very wrong for a GAME. They make submarines simply impossible to play with, which to me is not fair especially if submarines are limited to deck guns for attacking. Subs are very vulnerable, one hit in the hull and you can't dive. They are also slow. It sounds like they are very difficult to use, and something that can "kill" them very easily is imbalanced. Perhaps a depth charge gun mounted through the hull would be more fair, and easier to judge (if the sub is found on the bottom with a bb hole in the side, you got 'im)

But, it's your club and not mine, so I'm just spouting off steam.

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Sep 15 2005, 10:59 PM

When it comes down to it, there are only three people that were really interested in making submarines work in 1/72nd scale. Two of them have retired from the club, the third person, much like me and the LST, sees so many possiblities.

But with five people from Vancouver BC down to San Jose California that play regularly, it is difficult to justify running a submarine when a destroyer just plops in and goes. And I already have two destroyers and no submarines.

Kind of an easy choice.

Posted by: Tachikaze Oct 25 2005, 07:47 AM

I have reciently acquired one of the few combat submarines in the QO club. I obtained this ship to learn the fine details of submarine construction. Regardless of whether the ship is combat or not, the construction and operation remains the same.
You can have a sub function in one of two ways or a combination of both. Dynamic, where the ship is positive balanced and the speed of the ship and its dive planes control the diving ability or ballasted, where ballast tanks flood and vent to control ships dive position.
You can use either one in combat, but both will have problems. In a dynamic ship, if you break the sealed hull, the ship will flood and she will go to the bottom. In the ballasted ship, if you break the hull you will not alter the ships performance, you would have to break the ballast tank, and those are pretty sturdy.
I have postulated that a dynamic ship would tend to work the best for combat. Like a surface ship, if you put holes in the ship it will sink. On the submarine you can mount a float that is released when signal to the reciever is lost. If she looses signal for any reason, the float pops loose and you have a ship location.
I am opposed to the use of a hedgehog. In combat the hedgehog and sonar where the most effective means of dealing with a submarine. If the submarine can not use its torpedos ( no effective way of making torps work in R/C combat) then the surface ships should not have that type of weapon. It will be difficult enough for a submarine to be able to surface and fire and withdraw compared to a surface ship.

Posted by: Gascan Oct 25 2005, 02:52 PM

I believe you are talking about the differences between wet-hulls and dry-hulls. Dry hull is just what it sounds: no water is ever supposed to enter the hull. Wet hull has a free-flooding outer shell with a water tight cylinder inside to provide all the bouyancy and protect the delicate guts. Dry hull can be shot and penetrated and the boat will sink. Wet hull can be shot and penetrated, but the WTC will keep it afloat, so it would be unsinkable. Dry hull boats leave no room for arguement at the pond about being sunk. In general, most dry-hull subs are dynamic diving (with diving planes) and most wet hull subs are static diving (with ballast tank). Its not that dynamic divers can't be wet hull or that static divers can't be dry hull. Its just that a dry hull, dynamic diver is very simple and a person willing to build something more complex is most likely willing to do both a wet hull and a ballast tank.

So far, the three subs that have been built in the WWCC have been dry hull, dynamic divers. These antiques were made with older RC equipment (no mini servos or RX's or ESC's). Because they are difficult to ballast and seal properly, they don't come out to play often. Even with 200% oversize diving planes, they need to go faster than their scale speed to fully submerge.

Modern RC tech has opened up some new possibilities. I know of at least one sub in the planning phase right now that will use an ESC to control a motor and propellor mounted vertically at the center of bouyancy to pull the boat down. It's not exactly scale, but then again, neither is shooting round steel balls at balsa armor.

It would have the "sinkability" of a dry hull and the ability to do static diving (like a boat with ballast tanks) and stay submerged while waiting for an unsuspecting target to come by. And it does this without most of the bulk of a ballast tank. By carefully adjusting the ESC and using modern RC sub electronics, precise depth control is possible. Comparing this design to the current subs would be like comparing the Hunley to a US Fleet Sub.

Posted by: Skuggan Nov 2 2005, 01:50 PM

Gascan sounds like a very cool idea with the sub.
Please keep us (me) updated what happens with it
Is this sub going to shoot with the cannon?
I have some minor memories of Umi telling me about 2 inch slugs that were used as torps, If he builds the sub as a static diver and intends to play as a wolf, why not equip with those slugs? just stay put get close to the enemy and slug away, then return to port.
Depending on model of sub he could put a camera.
As I mentioned earlier I have changed project from the Typhoon to a U21 and intend to put a camera in the front, this would hopefully help out with the aiming.
What I have seen on the images of your ponds they do seem to look very dirty... so might not help. just some quick thoughts

Posted by: Gascan Nov 3 2005, 02:24 PM

2" slugs are torpedos for the QO, and only allowed for PT boats and similar. In the WWCC, torpedos have three varieties: reloading, non-reloading, and submarine. Realoaders fire one 1/4" ball per barrel. Non-reloaders fire two 1/4" balls per barrel (double tap) but must return to port to reload. Submarines are allowed the option of any of the above but can also fire a non-reloading 1" slug. When it was first used, the slug would exit the tube and tumble until it hit the target, causing much greater damage. The trouble is that each one must be built before hand in sufficient quantity for the day (unlike ball bearings, which come all ready for use).

It may be possible to design a reloading torpedo cannon that can fire above and below water, but it would be difficult. When I last talked to the builder, the plan was to make the I-402 (a sister of the I-400 that was converted to a submarine tanker). It will have four non-reloading tubes in the bow that can be operated by remote (all the others must ram to target to activate a plunger in the bow). Due to the small size (30-something inches) there is no consideration at all for a camera. Some people are experimenting with cameras on battleships, though...

Posted by: UmiRyuzuki Nov 7 2005, 09:24 AM

Ok, at least now I understand what your club defines as a "double tap". Double load might have been more clear. I thougt you guys were double tapping the fire controls to fire two bearings in rapid succesion.