New player questions

[The Chauffeur]

indie, someone can prolly check me on this, but i believe for the "5 point raid" setup that is sort of the standard around here you can get a KM Bismarck class and a KM Adm. Hipper class, and also have it be historically accurate.

a counter would prolly be one of the not-iowa class US ships, like the north carolina, or the south dakota or something, and maybe a new orleans or baltimore class cruiser. maybe some destroyers.

100 bucks will get you plenty of GHQ stuff. i spent 60 and got a carrier, BB, 6 DDs, 2 CLs, and 5 VIIC uboats.

c

 

[Lord David the Denied]

See the last page of this thread:
http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=22604

Wulf

Who the hell designed those pages? They're terrible... :?

Anyone got any decent photos of the 1/3000 ranges? Most of those appallingly-designed sites didn't have any pictures at all...

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Anyone got any decent photos of the 1/3000 ranges? Most of those appallingly-designed sites didn't have any pictures at all...

I'm working on a set of comparative photos, once I get the other minis in.

As for the state of the websites, I stand by my comments from past threads. These companies are run by myopic old codgers slaving over a hot centrifuge in someone's garden shed. They don't believe in the internet, they've only just adjusted to colour television - and they certainly don't want your custom, if they actually got customers, they'd have to start running this hobby like a business, and that'd be no fun at all!

Wulf

 

[chaos0xomega]

I am in the USA, and I think I'll be going with 1/3000 scale. First of all, it is more in line with the weapon ranges(although still pretty far off), it is also cheaper, is pretty well developed with much support and many options, and allows for larger games. Plus, they have a Surcouf mini.

1/2400 is, I admit, a very attractive option: larger vessels, more detail..... but no Surcouf...

 

[Wulf Corbett]

I am in the USA, and I think I'll be going with 1/3000 scale. First of all, it is more in line with the weapon ranges(although still pretty far off), it is also cheaper, is pretty well developed with much support and many options, and allows for larger games. Plus, they have a Surcouf mini.

Two indeed, from Skytrex & Navwar. I have the Skytrex already, it's as long or longer than a destroyer, and pretty lacking in detail. Guns easily distinguishable though.

Wulf

 

[Fitzwalrus]

1/2400 is, I admit, a very attractive option: larger vessels, more detail..... but no Surcouf...

Panzerschiffe makes a 1/2400th Surcouf, at a whopping $1.50 US each. (Cheap, cheap, I say! )

It comes with the guns cast on the deck (as do all their minis) but it's no great feat to carefully carve or sand away the guns, pin-drill the front of the conning tower, and put in a couple pieces of Brass rod or piano wire to replace them.

The Surcouf can be fun in a campaign, but is definitely one of those "what were they thinking?" designs.... :roll: :lol:

 

[chaos0xomega]

I have a sick obsession with the surcouf... I hope to be there when they finall find it... Oh, and I intend to take the wine tanks w/ all 50k litres for myself, repackage it, and sell it.... think how much money that has got to be worth, 1920's era wine(not 40's, remember it has to age...)!?

And I know about Panzerschiffe(although I admittedly forgot), however as you stated, the details are.... eh.

The whole: cut and drill thing is a quick fix, but... too much work. I'll discuss it with the locals(my opponents) and see what scale they prefer...

Oh, and Fitzwalrus, in case you didn't know... I plan on fielding something like 30 Surcoufs as a single fleet.... Surcouf wulfpaks.... mmmmmm...

 

[Fitzwalrus]

... I plan on fielding something like 30 Surcoufs as a single fleet.... Surcouf wulfpaks.... mmmmmm...

:lol: :lol:
In the last major naval campaign my old LA group ran we were allowed to "buy" a certain percentage of our fleets' tonnage from designs that were built up to the campaign cutoff date. Our French player built four Surcoufs and ran them as a pack against the Japanese who had invaded a French island (the premise for the Campaign.)
He drove the IJN crazy by surfacing the subs at night and using their eight 8" guns to simulate a heavy cruiser bombarding the Japanese positions on shore, then submerging during the day while the Japanese tied up a huge amount of their air and surface forces looking for that #$%@!! French CA they knew had to be out there somewhere.

The poor Japanese player never did catch on ..... :lol:

My personal favorite candidate for the "What were they thinking?" award is the British WWI "fleet submarine" (M-class, I believe) intended to operate with the main fleet and so given steam power (smokestack and all :shock: ) and a single 12" gun as well as torpedo tubes.
Think about that one for a while..... :roll: :lol:

 

[BuShips]

My personal favorite candidate for the "What were they thinking?" award is the British WWI "fleet submarine" (M-class, I believe) intended to operate with the main fleet and so given steam power (smokestack and all :shock: ) and a single 12" gun as well as torpedo tubes.
Think about that one for a while..... :roll: :lol:

I used to belong to an R/C warship combat club in the Seattle area and we got our first member that figured out how to construct a submersible 1/144 scale sub. He built the entire class- M1, M2 and M3. They all had a deck-mounted gun that shot ball bearings (guess where?) at the waterline of the ships he was engaging. Because of his low profile, he was a very hard target to shoot back at, and was the bane of the surface ships, lol.

 

[chaos0xomega]

I personally think that the large 'capitol' ship style guns was a good move. From the way I see it, a submarine would be able to surface just enough to get the guns above the waterline so it coulf fire, but low enough to impact the enemy ship at or below the waterline(causing large amounts of damage, and a real shock!) as well as being low enough to submerge again before it could be spotted and any resistance enacted.

 

[DM]

Unfortunately ballistics and the physics of submarine operations would tend to mitigate against this, which is one reason why submarine cruisers didn't catch on. Another reason was that, when looked at globally, it was far cheaper to equip submarines soley with torpedoes and that torpedoes were a much more cost effective way of sinking ships. The cost per round was obviously higher than that of a gun but when looked at from a platform and force perspective torpedoes won hands down on cost and effectiveness.

 

[BuShips]

Unfortunately ballistics and the physics of submarine operations would tend to mitigate against this, which is one reason why submarine cruisers didn't catch on. Another reason was that, when looked at globally, it was far cheaper to equip submarines soley with torpedoes and that torpedoes were a much more cost effective way of sinking ships. The cost per round was obviously higher than that of a gun but when looked at from a platform and force perspective torpedoes won hands down on cost and effectiveness.

I never could understand the budget nitpickers back in the early 80's that complained about the million dollar Phoenix missile that was fired by the F-14 Tomcats. I think they could carry as many as eight missiles, but each could destroy an aircraft worth dozens of times its cost- a fair trade in my book :wink:. I always figured the nitpickers were just bad at math and felt sorry for them :lol: .

 

[DM]

Maybe they knew it didn't work

 

[Wulf Corbett]

Unfortunately ballistics and the physics of submarine operations would tend to mitigate against this, which is one reason why submarine cruisers didn't catch on.

A question I've been wondering about: did the guns have to be sealed when underwater then uncapped before firing? I would think having a barrel full of water (not to mention mackrel) would upset ballistics.

Wulf

 

[BuShips]

Maybe they knew it didn't work

Granted the American record is pretty thin on their effectiveness, but Iran must have had some translated copies of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising and been impressed by how they knocked a bunch of decoys out of the sky in a story of fiction :lol:. From doing a little reading just now off of wiki (I know :roll: ), it seems it worked OK for them (maybe 130 kills, with one missile getting four aircraft? :shock. Hmmm, I don't know. Where is Tom Clancy these days? :wink:

 

[Oly]

A question I've been wondering about: did the guns have to be sealed when underwater then uncapped before firing? I would think having a barrel full of water (not to mention mackrel) would upset ballistics.

I read somewhere that the M1 had some sort of automatic shutter system to seal off both ends of the gun when it was underwater. If that failed, and the barrel flooded, then the gun would shatter when fired. The gun mount itself was apparently free flooding.