168 hour battle

one week-7 days. Back in the earlier days (mid 80"s) in IRCWCC I came up with a idea about running NATS as a whole week long event (24-7). I only had a few years under my belt and the # of combatants who had ever battled at a RC combat event was still in the 2 digits. I mentioned the idea to several of the guys. A couple liked the idea but all said it would never fly.
Basically it would run like this:
Axis vs Allied, convoy runs, base attacks from the sea, a ship from either side had to be on the water at all times (max of gap: 15 minutes), 2 or 3 daily planned engagements, dawn assaults, etc.
I never got around to figuring the point system or many of the other details, (or it's been that long and I forgot), but I was thinking of the simulation of a real war and the fun/excitement factor. Also the team work that would be needed and the management of the fleet (i.e. which poor sole got to patrol the waters thru out the night). I even typed up a fictional story based on the idea and included the cast of the combatants at that time. (I think I called it NATS 2020). I was thinking about submitting it to Hullbusters for a several part series to try to promote the idea. . But it never made it. I actually saw the disk it was on back in oct 2002.
I would love to see this idea made into a reality. I would even volunteer for the grave yard shift. But I think it is just too big of a idea to execute without $$. You would need a humongous lake with bunk houses and work shops on both sides plus all the other little things needed to make it fly. Maybe if Bill Gates or Warren Buffet wanted to sponsors the event.
Danny

 

I actually like this idea... It would also need a large amount of ships, and a reason for them not to just be attacking each other all the time. Like three+ sides, can't just attack one side & decimate yours & their fleet... The other countries would just come in and destroy you. Protecting shipping, eeh.. I donno.. kinda dull for 5 days straight.


I think it would be best if there were some 'off limit' times... like midnight to 8am.
What happens if your ship sinks? Are you done for the week? Salvage operations?
Perhaps successfully shipping supplies means you can reload all warships with ammo & gas, or 'recover' a sunken ship?

 

Or, maybe "national" interests that take precedence over those of allies? For ex., the US fleet may have its own interests & objectives. Likewise, the UK fleet has its own interests & objectives. Where the interests of each overlap, we have harmony & cooperation. Other times, though, there can be tension. Kind of like the real thing, like the politics between US, UK, USSR during WWII. Each country has what it wants, & needs the cooperation of the others to get the job done, but they aren't always in harmony. The enemy alliance could try to exploit the differences, even possibly to the point of a breakup.

On the other hand, that could make for some interesting moments if somebody tried to launch a surprise action in the middle of the night. Suppose you've got a scenario going on that works somewhat like the Risk board game. To be able to conquer some territory, 1st you have to move troops into the adjacent country(ies). While the enemy sleeps might be a good time to try to move some number of tonnes of "war materiel" to a forward base, unopposed. An unpleasant breakfast could be in store for somebody! It could be a lot of fun to have somebody going around in the middle of the night, pounding on motel doors to inform the captains, "The British and Americans are invading!", kind of like in occupied France on the morning of 06-June-1944. Then, everybody scrambles out of bed, rushes to get ships ready to defend the coast (or not).

I'd declare temporary local cease-fires to salvage sunken ships. Sort of like a partial-course yellow flag in some types of auto racing. Battles ebb & flow; when there's a break in the action, call cease-fire long enough to retrieve whatever needs it. Close ports in the area. With a big enough pond, there could be other areas to fight over if anybody needs to, otherwise it's a chance to gas up, arm up, & change batteries for the next go-round. I've seen plenty of all-day battles that run that way, so it should be no problem for a multi-day battle to do the same.

Certainly a possibility. You could even go so far as to define ports in terms of what supplies & equipment they have available. Ports could offer ammunition, repair facilities, fuel, or even soldiers or raw materials. For example, if you want to be able to patch a ship, you've got to be able to sail it into a port with repair facilities. Same thing for fuel (fresh batteries), ammunition, gas, or any other supplies you might need. If the enemy happens to capture all of the ports that have what you need, you may find yourself SOL! Or, if you want to mount an invasion, 1st you may need to transport some number of tonnes of soldiers, tanks, artillery, fuel, food stores, bullets, uniforms, etc. from the various ports that these things come from, to your "marshaling" port. To counter an invasion, somebody could either try to interdict the shipments of supplies, weapons, & soldiers, or they could try to build up their own defenses. Maybe, require a 4:1 superiority + food, fuel, & ammo for 2 weeks to invade (then roll dice or cut cards?)?

Lots of possibilities, & would need lots of ships & lots of people to make it work on that sort of a scale.

JM

 

I remember in the scenario (NATS 2020) I typed up, the grid was 640 acres. We had advance batteries (size of cigarette). A pack could enable a ship to run all day. The ships were still radio controlled but now each ship had a control room the size of a half shipping container with tv screens which were linked to various cameras on the ship (some on the guns, the bridge and look-out points) . They had a crew of 5 or 6. A Captain - big cheese of the ship, he would drive the ship and order everybody else. Navigator, Fire Control, Gunners mate- self explanatory, Boatswain's Mate-they stayed down at the docks and took care of the ship from maintenance to loading guns and would serve as the Captains gopher. Larger ships would carry several gunners mates. There where 4 hour watches in which each captain and crew was required to serve on patrol. Plus the daily maneuvers. There was a advance recovery ship that would find and savage the sunken ships (you sink you lose the ship, forget what happen to them). There was various ports and Naval Bases along with military targets and amphibious landings ( using all types of landing craft from mike 8 boats carry tanks, to the jeff craft (my naval tour was onboard a ship used to develop the LCACs). Don't remember who paid the bills. Maybe it was the big corporation. It was written as a fantasy for the hobby about 20 years ago. I don't think the hobby will advance to that degree in the next 12 years.


Danny

 

In kennewick, there are a bunch of small, shallow channels that go through the city. I'm planning on using them for testing, however they would be an interesting place for a battle on a grand scheme. Unfortunately, it would require a ton of walking.

 

Of course it won't, as long as everybody's satisfied with "status quo" or less. Those who are "threatened" by anything more than a small segment of a declining hobby will put up a bigger fight to remain that way than they ever would to actually accomplish something useful. Imagination is sorely lacking; initiative even more so. Nothing you suggested couldn't be done right now, if somebody were willing to make it happen.

Nice job of "brainstorming", though. I wish more people would be willing to do that sort of thing.

JM

 

A 7 day, round the clock battle would likely be too much.

But, a round the clock weekend battle would be awesome! Say start Saturday morning and end Sunday night.

A long battle would definately suit a fleet style action, rather than one on one slugfests.

 

I remember last year's Campaign Battle in the WWCC. The Axis were stomping on the Allies, so they secretly launched a LST to hide on the opposite side of the pond so that there would always be an Allied ship on the pond, even if the battleships were in drydock for temporary repairs. I was assigned to hunt down this boat with my 42 knot cruiser Luigi Cadorna. Unfortunately, this was the only time my boat ever had an air leak, meaning one side of torpedoes was going to be useless after about five minutes of sailing, so I had to be fast. I sprinted around the pond, checking to see that my boat was on course as the bushes at the water's edge flashed by. I found the transport captain moseying along at the furthest corner of the pond, staying out of the muck and weeds (this was also the furthest down wind, where all the junk gets blown). I came in for the attack, still catching my breath from the sprint. It was a head-to-head pass, I watched the rocking of my boat so I could fire just as the torpedoes lined up with his waterline, and fired. A huge explosion of water erupted on my starboard side. The transport was on my port side; I'd fired the wrong side of torpedoes. I circled around and this time made sure I wouldn't make any stupid mistakes. I fired. Nothing happened. I tried the firing stick a couple more times, but remembered that my remaining torpedo was the one with the leak, and I had taken so long getting there and lining up the shots that the cannon had lost so much pressure it could no longer even operate the MPA-7 actuator to fire the darn thing. I took off running back to port as fast as I could go. After reloading I was reassigned to help with swarming and sinking the 20-year-old USS Alabama. The transport slowly worked it's way back along the shore to find out about the big commotion that was happening at home. After the big boat was safely put away in Davey Jones' Locker, my brother was assigned to take Spahkreuzer to deal with the transport. He caught it, and was lining up his shot just as a time-out was called back at the main battle, and spent the whole time out chatting with the transport captain about his previous kills. As he talked, he described in gory, balsa-crunching detail how it would only take one shot to bag a boat that small. The transport captain wisely surrendered the moment the battle resumed.

Lesson: sailing long distances and running around the pond sounds good on paper or as you acknowledge orders from your admiral, but it really sucks to actually do it.

 

Ha, I remember that battle fondly. Describing how extensively the LST's hull would be shattered when my Spahkreuzer was through with it, and how I had demonstrated such destruction on numerous ships in the past, was great fun. I was about to begin speculating how long it would take for the LST to sink, when the time-out ended.

Anyway, I do have one concern about doing extended, round-the-clock battles. Namely, ship recovery during night battles. If you battle ships at night often enough, eventually one will sink. Unless you're prepared for that eventuality, that ship is going to be on the bottom for a long time before you can recover it. If the recovery float fails, standard spotting and triangulation tricks will not work for locating the wreck. And even if you do locate the ship, water tends to get cold at night. Very cold. And swimming for sunken ships in very cold water is not very good for your health.

If you do an extended-duration campaign like this, I would strongly recommend that you cease fire at sunset. I know that historical navies don't do this, but historical navies also don't have to worry about recovering their ships once they get sunk. And besides, you can still launch attacks at dawn's first light, if you're enough of a masochist to get up that early

 

very nice idea indeed. Also you dont need to rent a bunch of bungalows, just stay on tents kike camping! An avarage tent has a capacity of 3 person. I assume that a team would be 12 person or less you would be needing 4 tents plus one to put your ship and equipments. This way you want be needing bill gates to support I have a tent with 3 person capasity and its very large enought to let 3 people play monopoly comfortbly, and that tent costs about 400 TLs(turkish liras)-about 200 dollars- and you wont get cold easly or wont get effacted from rain becouse of its coating.

I have lots of friends who camp in plains for flying rc stuff.(im a rc pilot too might join them one day)

PS: i just LOVED the dawn assoult idea!

 

Couple of suggestions.
1. Maybe only 3 or 5 days, to increase.
2. If people can't come the whole time, they come part-time as 'reinforcements'.
3. All ships must stay on water unless being repaired. That way, teams can plan a 'pearl harbor' and attack in the middle of the night... with submarines! XD

 

Hey I like the idea. Everything on each side could be arranged in shifts. Lots of action. I won't go into what sort of fleet battles could happen but one thing that could be done is to invite all 1:144 scale clubs regardless of build differences. Invite the press too. Could be good for recruitment. Tickets could be sold to the public for the chance to win a small boat, already combat ready, perhaps a class 2 or 3, something to get more people intersted in our hobby. Cost could be cut down by having the event sponsored by local businesses which we would promote at the event. Regardless they are a thousand reasons everyone can come up with why it cant be done but it only takes one to make it happen, and that reason is because you want to because its fun. The very same reason we do what we do. So on that note....who wants to battle?

 

Heh. In other words, look at the date of the last post and perhaps rethink resurrecting it before posting.

 

Sorry, I thought it read 2013. I didn't have my glasses on. But i still like the idea.