Im building the HMT Olympic in 1/144 scale. I need a good material for the hull but i cant get my hands on fiber glass (never liked it either), i can make it out of aluminum with the rectangular areas for penatration but i dont know if aluminum is allowed, I want to use it to add to stability, strength, and a better feel for the manuverability. can anyone tell me if aluminum is allowed for the main part of the hull.
You can make the solid part of your hull out of whatever you want so long as the hull meets your clubs penetration requirements. Don't understand how you can't find fiberglassing supplies though. Local hardware stores carry it, can buy stuff online, etc.
If you can cast a hull from aluminum that would rock. You can find fiberglass either online, or in smaller quantities (8 square foot sheets) at auto parts stores in the bodywork section.
yea, the aluminum is also to keep the reputation that the HMT Olympic had for raming vessles and sinking them. fiberglass would fracture on impact.
And fiberglass wouldn't shatter at the speeds we use unless it was paper thin. And remember, there are WWI warship models with for-real ram prows that could return the favor in spades if someone started ramming I'd really recommend anything BUT a liner, even if it was armed in real life. Armed merchantmen tended to die very violent deaths very quickly when fighting warships.
not intentionally, the Olympic had a bad habit of raming ships, i just meant in the event that im looking one way with a turret camera and dont see the other ship or in the case that the manuverability of the ship isnt good enough to avoid collision. im not goin to spot a ship and go full steam ahead, its just to make sure the ship doesnt take damage beyond the penetration.
i know but i just started interest in this hobby, and im still learning how the ships work as far as building one of my own, i chose the Olympic because she's i liner that had guns and also had good speed when retreating...... the only problem is the small rudder.
Liners are huge floating targets. Your guns will be high and will be easy to slip under and shred your hull. Your guns will be singles and inspire no fear. You will turn like a dog. Nothing personal, just want to help you avoid frustration on the pond. I would echo the advice above and say 'Build a warship.' A WWI era warship will be smaller, lighter, easier to store, more fun, actually useful in combat, a harder target, etc.
fast-gun, 150psi big-gun limits the penetration of your shot as well as an upper psi limit (150 again I think?)
would i be allowed to make a small gun with a really long barrel that had a ton of range. and i mean like a really small diameter for the barrel
Fast Gun allows up to a 6" barrel but most are shorter and there are more restrictions in the actual rules. And all the guns have to fire BBs, so the diameter is kind of fixed. Trust me, if there was a super gun that wasn't against the rules, it'd have been tried before
idk how effective this is but, what if i used an old steamer from the 1870s, one that has diagonal turrets but still had the capability to broadside.
The ships have to be commissioned (initially put in service) between 1905 and 1945. There are loads of ship to choose from, and loads of free plans on the internet. Look around at what can be used in the combat hobby, and then tell us which ones are interesting and we'll try to tell you where to get plans from.
ok i see........ then ill go with my first idea when i saw a video of ship battling in this hobby. the USS Arizona aka BB 39
Olympic would be a huge, slow, unhandy target. I've actually seen a fibreglass hull in 1:144 and it's a canoe. Dreadnought hulls has one, and it's very pretty, but the rudder is pityful. It's primary mission would be to absorb damage while other merchants made good on their convoy runs.
The AusBG rules just say 'in commission 1900 to 1946', so I might one day build an en echelon turret ship (hence my avatar) -- but that's just hot air for the moment, as my entire fleet consists of 4 Golo ribs on a building board
