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RC Battleship Combat
Tuna_Shooter writes "For you war buffs... These people have a LOT of free time on their collective hands...." I thought Slashdot had done a story on this hobby, but I don't see it in the archives. The RCWarships site is probably the best place to start.
Forget sinking other RC boats, I wanna take on the ducks in the lake outside my office!
In an unfortunate turn of events for Bismark captain Luke Simmons and crew, the german battleship was sunk in friendly waters just off the Bismark's home port, the dock extending 12 feet into the lake behind Capt. Simmons' summer cottage.
"He just refused to honor the rules of combat," Capt. Simmons lamented, referring to Timmy Levendowski's complete disregard for weapons conventions when forgoing mounting cannon on his own ship in favor of divine intervention from the sky in the form of airborne boulders measuring up to 3 inches across.
The Bismark was simply unable to withstand the continued barrage and sunk despite Capt. Simmons' best efforts, including a desperate call to Timmy's parents.
Timmy did not escape the encounter unscathed, however, as international condemnation from his parents after the sinking landed him trade sanctions which, among other things, withheld Timmy's weekly 6 AUD in international aid.
"It's not fair," whined Timmy, "I wanted to play and they wouldn't let me, and now I have to wait a whole 'nother week to get my new action figure. He wouldn't even let me try on his hat", referring to a replica German mariner's headpiece worn by Capt. Simmons whenever commanding his vessel.
paintball
The entire exercise is to have fun with relative merits reproduced, not anal realism. You go on about water tight compartments; why not fuss and bother over so many other wrongs?
Real battleships seldom fought at less than 10,000 yards (5 miles). These things are fighting at less than a ships length apart! Long range duels involve long delays between aiming/firing and results, plunging fire, precise aiming, radar, haze and good or bad optics, weather conditions, multiple ships and the fog of war. Why not require optics and radar and relays to shore based units to duplicate all these?
Different forms of armor. Real battleships had different thicknesses of armor in different places, at different angles, and different materials. There was side armor, sometimes one armored bulkhead, sometimes several. There was deck armor, sometimes several layers, sometimes a single one. Conning towers, turret armor (which differed on the front, sides, top, and backside, not to mention the barbette), there were magazines, fuel oil to catch on fire, boilers to explode, damage control parties. Heck, throw in crew expertise, training, naval doctrine, individual commander's expertise.
Unrealistic ammunition and guns. Battleship guns usually could fire one or two salvoes a minute, more or less. There were full charges which wore down gun barrels faster, low charges, high explosive vs armor piercing shells, delayed action fuses, duds. The Japanese developed a shell with a better underwater trajectory which got hits which otherwise would have missed. They also had the long range oxygen powered Long Lance torpedo which had the side effect of killing several Japanese cruisers when their torpedo storage was hit in battle.
In short, watertight compartments miss the point. The rules are designed such that small ships have a proportional chance of sinking bigger ships, and that's about it. It's all about reasonably cheap and accurate fun, not about realism down to the nth degree. Once you start worrying about watertight compartments, you are lost. My carrier, USS Midway CV-41, missed WW II by 10 days and would be eligible for these contests. She has 4000 watertight compartments, 12 boiler rooms, 4 engine rooms. How much of that do you want to duplicate?
Infuriate left and right
Imagine my shock at seeing the "magnificent obsession" on Slashdot! You may say I'm into this hobby a bit. For more information, be sure to check out Model Warship Combat, Inc.. Easily the most organized and largest group of model warship combat enthusiasts on the planet. The only organization with a national rule set so people can battle each other under the same rules no matter where they travel from. The MWC even has their own insurance and they're incorporated to boot!
For anyone who is curious, the hobby actually started in Abilene, TX during the summer of 1978 when two bored yokels decided to see if they could sink a plastic model of a ship by taking turns firing at it from shore with a BB gun. Needless to say, shortly after that they were successful in mounting a cannon on a radio controlled ship. The rest is history.
-V