Rc boat combat.

Hey, turns out there is some interest in this.

I was an early officer in MABG, and helped build a bundle of boats for competition. Hey, some of em are still active https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/mabg-introductions.444718/

Anyway, I have a few ship plans in 1:144 and if you don’t mind that I literally last looked at my boats about 9 years ago :slight_smile:

Rcwarshipcombat seems to be the flagship site now, WWCC is likely the most active big gun format club going.

To get a competition group together, it will take at least two boats/captains to shoot at each other and make splashes… and a lot of time recruiting to get more players.

WWCC does demo’s at makerfaires in CA. It takes most novices about a year to complete a combat model, some less some more. A lot depends on availability of components. There is no reliable manufacturer of the bb cannon that this format uses, and therefore the cost to machine one is pretty high.

Not impossible if you have the tools… but the intersecting angled holes are a bear.

Anyway… if people are interested, I could help on some builds.

Okay, I mailed wwcc to see about getting current on their mailing list.

The hive is well set up to facilitate building these models. Looking at the classroom tables, I think 4 or 5 models could be worked on fairly easily. There are experts on electronics, and a wide variety of skill sets which will be needed to do a boat start to finish… which is a series of small projects really. Most builders need a jam session or two to get noggin power on an issue they are stuck with, or trade build skills to get something working.

The advice given most novice builders is start large… ie a battleship is recommended. Part of the system safety is keeping the firing platform level. Since the models do fire 1/4 inch bearings, to keep the crowd and nearby windows safe, they are not supposed to fire above parallel to the water. The larger ships mass and center of gravity makes this much easier than say a destroyer… which is adding 3/8 inch to scale depth for stablity, and cants over when turning at speed. Some advise building a cargo ship, but really… everyone wants to shoot. And without the combat models, the demo is not splashy sinky fun.

That being said… I can bring in what plan sheets i have, and maybe even round up my combat model… but I warn you, I have been innactive about a decade.

I have two builds I’d be tempted on… a scharnhorst class bc, and a fench cruiser algiere. Oh, and the french sub Surcouf… but hey… that is a tough build in 1:144. Oh, and an armed freighter Jervis Bay… Dang. Build list grows quick.

I’ve been poking about. It looks like the WWCC is dead, since their website has stuff from 2014 that hasn’t been updated. RCWarshipcombat.com seems more active, but I’m not seeing anything about rules and requirements.

Questions:

  1. What’s the nearest local club? How often do they meet, when do they have battles? I’d prefer to know there’s a decent number of people interested, rather than spending a ton of time and money building a boat and then find out it’s largely dead.
  2. What’s the average cost of building an RC warship?
  3. What are the rules? Seems like WWCC had some rules, but they seem to be dead now.

If there are no rules, and no clubs then that means we can largely do whatever we want. Could we complete a couple of boats in time for the next maker faire (6 months away)? Might make for a very cool exhibit.

  1. Nearest club. Likely the Treaty ruleset guys towards Dayton. My preferred format is basically kaput in terms of clubs in this area. WWCC is not dead, the website might be poorly maintained, but since they are doing the maker faire demonstrations can be argued is the lead format. I prefer the vanilla big gun ruleset. I will see about getting the Treaty guys to come do a talk.

Bottom line? If you and one other person are interested, that makes three if I can free my schedules :slight_smile: So… the next part is finding a pond… which to a great extent dictates gameplay and scoring. Midwest battlegroups pond was close in… WWCC ranges over a wider area I think. MABG’s regular spot was mid sized.

  1. Depends… some people already have radios, co2 equipment, a large shop… but figure 600 bucks for a cannon system and 400 incidentals for a BS and you are not far off. Best bargains are used ships, sometimes you can find a good deal.

  2. Picking a ruleset is kinda a foundational and group decision… Lots lean toward whatever has the largest organized competition. So, if standardization to maker faire demos as is is the lean, then WWCC makes sense. I prefer the “If you can model it, you can arm it” approach of the more vanilla big gun ruleset if you will. There have been efforts to standardize rulesets… but most all construction concerns can be balanced by scoring… which is always being tweaked. I worked quite a bit on the MABG ruleset, but the Texas guys and the Aussies are pretty similar.

lemme do some emails/calls…

  1. Nearest club. Likely the Treaty ruleset guys towards Dayton. My preferred format is basically kaput in terms of clubs in this area. WWCC is not dead, the website might be poorly maintained, but since they are doing the maker faire demonstrations can be argued is the lead format. I prefer the vanilla big gun ruleset. I will see about getting the Treaty guys to come do a talk.

WWCC did a maker faire in 2014, nothing since. Dayton doesn’t seem too bad.

Bottom line? If you and one other person are interested, that makes three if I can free my schedules :slight_smile: So… the next part is finding a pond… which to a great extent dictates gameplay and scoring. Midwest battlegroups pond was close in… WWCC ranges over a wider area I think. MABG’s regular spot was mid sized.

Eden Park has mirror lake, a 3’ deep pond which is very large. Seems perfect at least for testing everything but BB cannons. Not sure where to get a pond that could be used for an actual event. The maker faire is at the Hamilton Country Fair grounds, and it doesn’t seem to have any sort of pond or water feature. It seems like these sorts of things require a very large amount of space (with the boats being between 3-6’), so building a pond doesn’t seem possible, so maker faire is out. Wonder how the WWCC people managed building and filling a pond for the maker fair?

  1. Depends… some people already have radios, co2 equipment, a large shop… but figure 600 bucks for a cannon system and 400 incidentals for a BS and you are not far off. Best bargains are used ships, sometimes you can find a good deal.

Assuming I have none of that, but lots of modelling equipment, sounds like ~$1000 per boat.

I’ve asked about the treaty guys doing a demo, if they are game, I will put them in touch with hive leadership.

Yeah, I am out of date… the maker fair demo is an assemblage of boards and plastic… which works well enough :slight_smile:

Pond location/availability is always a concern. I should get in touch with a few fellows within the week.

Bottom line though, Lets assume we get 2-3 people seriously interested at the Hive… everything goes right and competition is possible within a year. Build events, event visits, can start really rapidly. And the vast majority of the time in the hobby is building, not competing… but hey, the competition can be a blast.

The two cannon designs to get the most models are triple 1/4s and tripple 7/32. In magazine sizes of 3, 4, and 5 inches. The key machining difficulty for me is fixturing for the intersecting angled holes.Quad 1/4s are another favorite for the Richlieu class… and double 1/4 is the next most popular for bismark/hood etc. Given I’ve since had classes in Cad, inventor, and other programs… I had better hit the drawing board… er… computer screen.

Torpedo cannons are kind of custom… but also used to simulate air craft carriers. The accumulators are not terribly hard to build. I was in small clubs, carriers were planned, but never advanced on the build lists. They can be cheaper… but the rule sets across clubs for use differ a good bit.

Well, ignore the mess… this is where life got away from reasonable constraints. But hey, there is the Gneiss… and in the rafters a Nelson, a scharnhorst, a Jervis bay, ww1 hull of some sort, and a really rough destroyer hull of some kind.

I could try and get the Gneiss ready for a static display, sans co2. It’s all there somewhere.

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Dilemas… I need at least 6x 2.5 to work on my plansets… but spacewise I likely should pull the shaper out, along with the workbench along the right wall, and replace with the gorton mill and the 15 inch lathe… Frig though, the shaper is 7-8k lbs and I really don’t want it back off the concrete. (yes it needs lots of repairs) Then I gotta totally clean and unmothball the whole shebang…

ah well, nothing like deadlines to make ya work eh?

These guys seem to have a similar interest, and a lake to run things around in. Located in the west side of cincinnati, which is a shorter drive than the guys in Xenia.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/CincinnatiModelBoatClub/about/

We saw one of the nationa competitions at the San Francisco makerfaire… as a rc enthusiast I will warn you prepare to spend A LOT of money and A LOT of time with this type of boats. Lol I have a twin brushless deep v hull that flys… and it’s pennies compared to these… and u have about 7 to 8 hundred in mine… yet it still needs parts lol.

Yeah, it seems there’s a company with complete kits. Generally they seem to be running between $700-1200 depending on what you want. And that’s just the kit, which doesn’t include paint, glue, clamps, tools, etc that you’ll also need.

http://www.strikemodels.com/products/ships/

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… Damn you guys …

… ummmm … anyone have droid prints ? …

I really didnt need to know this existed , if my Dad knew … oh man … >=)

Speed boats are apples and oranges… these models move at a brisk walk… that is it man… 12 volt dc motors that you might find in a drill… or smaller for cruisers and such.

But hey, if they will share the pond… it’s workable.

Ya don’t count the incidentals… Strike has big gun kits? Hmm. Well, for a typical american bs floating 5 inch mags, the raw cannon cost is 780 from strike models. But… this cost is also what drives people to turn their own magazines and such on a nice lathe like at the hive :slight_smile: For a typical 4 turret ship… the cost in cannon alone is 1020 bucks. So yeah, entry cost is high if you cannot make your own parts. Used to be a decent plan set for sale for the cannons. I bought it, then begged Dad for the old lathe… and well started another hobby too. Most long timers in the hobby are sporting a 7x10 and an x2 at a minimum… and most clubs that are active have a few machinist types, or aspiring learners bangin away on designs. The fear of course of selling these things is liability.

And the fear that somebody with cnc will be able to mass produce em and cut the price and kill the market so making them and selling them won’t be profitable because well market crash…

I dunno, that carbon fiber stuff 3d printing might be strong enough. They are an open breach design, one bearing goes out the barrel, the rest ramp back up the feed and back into the magazine. Versions that close the breach are in developement, but not in commercial production. There was a neat pressure dump firing cannon, but the one way valves and controls to make it fail safe were complicated, as the high pressure to shut the valve was also enough to partially fire the cannon when bled.

So yeah, big project… but there is a mill and a lathe in the shop :slight_smile: The soft plastic problem in the 3d print could be solved by stainless inserts. More ways than one to lower costs.

Show him some vids… and I’ll challenge my Dad to build up also :slight_smile:

Fair enough, let’s break down the costs a bit. I’m going to look at the Iowa, since it’s the most expensive, and we’ll omit stuff we think we can make.

electronic speed controller - $145
Co2 tank - $55
Co2 Regulator - $65
Bilge Pump - $32
Servos - $32
Transmitter/Receiver - $50 (Turnigy i6)
Motor - $30
Hull/Super Structure - $50 (5x5 birch plywood)

So, without any cannons, we’re at ~$500.

I have no idea what the cannons should cost, but guessing another couple hundred, so let’s say $700 for a boat that’s listed with engine or controls at $1150 on the Strike Models site.

So it appears that going totally DIY we might be able to get ~50% off, which makes even the cheapest boat ~$300-400.

We could get this going pretty easily however the hard parts comes to the details and the old guys that put on the makerfaire tourney were spot on. The huge cost you left out on your list is batteries and all of the hardware for rigging the vessel as it has to me marine grade… Once we knew exactly what our onboard were drawing we could easily calculate the mah packs needed. We could fabricate our own fire control and gun battery but would just have to make sure its all inside the scaled turret. Now for the good and bad… This would be an awesome fun project that requires time and detail. When not in the water we could set it up at maker faires and fire the cannons at foam board with a plywood backing making for a cool piece to show off the Hive and get the faire thinking about bringing a battle pool lol. The bad would be it by NO MEANS a one time fee lol. Repairs and downtime will cause batteries to die over time thus bringing costs up quick, especially at a competition. Given our laser cutter if we get digital plans and can quickly cut bulk heads and the hull would be GREAT but is there a digital file lol :slight_smile:

We could get this going pretty easily however the hard parts comes to the details and the old guys that put on the makerfaire tourney were spot on. The huge cost you left out on your list is batteries and all of the hardware for rigging the vessel as it has to me marine grade…

Yup forgot the batteries. OTOH, I saw one guy using a ~$15 6V acid battery. In the same thread they were commenting that the NiCH would be about 3x, so let’s say $50?

Everything else is quote from the price break down on the Strike Models site, so I think it’s marine grade, or at least enough for this. Could be there are better or worse alternatives, hard to say.

The bad would be it by NO MEANS a one time fee lol. Repairs and downtime will cause batteries to die over time thus bringing costs up quick, especially at a competition.

I could see batteries, some people claiming they last for a year or two. It seems that a majority of the damage and shots are focused on the sides, which are required to be balsa wood, so maybe $30-50 for new sides. BB seem like a very definite consumable, I’m seeing $10 for 1,500, when the magazines typically take 50-75 per gun. After that I’m not sure. What else do you see needing to be replaced?

Oh, and I’ve been doing some poking about for how to do a temporary pond. Sounds like a decent sized amount of pond liner (enough to create a pond like they used in SF) is around $500. Add in some source for water, some wooden supports, and away you go.