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Post by hairy apple on Mar 20, 2009 15:58:06 GMT -5
Alright, before you all go, "oh man, those are the ugliest models I've ever seen." they are not just model ships. They are 1/144 scale RC warships built from 1900-1946 (although 99% are ww2) and they are made of thin balsa wood and armed with bb and ball barring guns powered by CO2. We went out once a month and fought with them. These have all either taken heavy damage and been quickly and badly repaired or were never finished. Plus, being stored for 11 years with no use hasn't been kind to them either. A lot of the people I used to do this with had amazingly detailed ships. Stuff that you couldn't believe they would allowed to be shot up. I always had the function over form mindset and never went too crazy with the modeling part. Although the Dreadnought and Kidd used to look really good before they got shot to hell and never fully repaired. If you've never heard of this I don't blame you. Check it out, it's nerdy but rad at the same time. Nothing like spending countless hours building a model just to watch it blown to bits and sink. www.westernwarshipcombat.com/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1HMS Dreadnought (Pre ww1 British battleship) Badly damaged in it's last battle and never fully repaired. USS Wichita CA-45 (US heavy cruiser ww2) Damaged and started to rebulid but never finished. German heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen Never finished being built. Too bad becuase it would have been awesome. USS Kidd. DD 661 (US ww2 destroyer) I built this one from blueprints when I was about 12 or 13. This was my baby. It was damaged pretty badly in the last battle I used it in and never finished repairing it when I moved away from San Jose. I actually got to tour the real thing a few years ago. Last year I started rebuilding parts of it just becuase it made me sad to see it sitting there all smashed up.
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 20, 2009 16:22:45 GMT -5
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Post by toboggan on Mar 20, 2009 19:31:57 GMT -5
wow. those are really nice. i wish i had the time, and the money. most importantly the money. lol i'd love to try tinkering with something and making one though!
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mccallion
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Post by mccallion on Mar 20, 2009 20:49:00 GMT -5
thats awsome i was once thinking of doing that but never got around to doing it
mccallion
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 20, 2009 21:38:18 GMT -5
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. But it was also a lot of money (although airsoft can be too). It was neat to see a 6 foot model ship sink. The battleships were awesome, the turrets rotated and depressed and they had pumps to pump out the water as they were damaged. I never did get a full sized battleship. I actually thought the little ships were more fun. The subs are just cool, not super easy to use but really awesome.
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Karl
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Post by Karl on Mar 20, 2009 21:45:46 GMT -5
That would be awesome to make RC Fighter aircraft to dive bomb the ships, and possbly have an aircraftcarrier.
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Post by toboggan on Mar 20, 2009 21:46:00 GMT -5
I don't think i could figure out how to put a gas system to shoot bb's out in there. and how to feed them.
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mccallion
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Post by mccallion on Mar 20, 2009 22:20:30 GMT -5
they had submarines?
mccallion
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 20, 2009 22:46:15 GMT -5
Well, the airplanes are about 2 inches long, so way too small for RC. The bb/ball barrings are pretty simple. Powered by CO2 from a paint ball tank, they have little valves controled by RC servos. Servo hits the valve, CO2 is released and shoots out the gun. The BB/barings are just gravity fed and it works well. The ships are armed to be to scale of what the real ship had. In other words, a small DD that would have had 5 inch main guns, gets to shoot BBs. The torpedos are a set of 2 1/4 inch ball barrings side by side. The battleships that would have had guns that are larger would be using 1/4 ball barrings. There are two other sizes of ball barrings in between to repersent cruiser and battlecruiser sized main guns. There are aircraft carriers and they are armed with 1 1/4 ball barring gun for each 10 planes it could carry. They are also speed controled to scale speed to each other. Scale speed to the real thing would be Guy on a short busedly slow. The subs in 1/144 are pretty tiny. The only subs I ever saw working were the I400 (huge Japanese sub) and a huge French sub. Normal size type 7, Gato, even the large German subs were just too small for the guts. Things may have changed since I did this as RC guts have been shrinking a lot in the last few years. The subs were awesome though, although even the smallest crack or hole they would sink like a stone. Here are some quick photos of the guns and pump on a cruiser.
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mccallion
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Post by mccallion on Mar 20, 2009 23:41:07 GMT -5
what do the subs use dor torpedos?
mccallion
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 21, 2009 0:07:41 GMT -5
2 1/4 ball barrings. The thing is, it was ALWAYS a 1/4 hole or two under the waterline, so pretty nasty damage. Some have a servo fired torpedo and some the valve is on the outside of the sub and it actually has the ram the ship it's shooting to activate the valve. This was becuase there really wasn't any room in the subs for guts. I think the I400 in the picture there actually had a servo so it didnt' have to ram, but it still had to get really close. Very cool though. I loved the subs.
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Post by toboggan on Mar 21, 2009 13:26:34 GMT -5
wow. this is very interesting. i'd love to try it, about how much has it cost you for a simple battle ship?
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 21, 2009 18:41:50 GMT -5
Hum, buying is much cheaper then building. I bought the Dreadnought for $200... Without radio I think. RC stuff in gerneral is cheaper then it was when I was into it, but it's not a cheap hobby. I have no idea how much these things cost anymore, it's serously been 10 years since I was really into this... Google RC warship combat, or big gun RC warships, or something like that... read up and see if there is a group in your area. Then contact them and see what rules they run, how they do things in there club.
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Post by zbear on Mar 23, 2009 12:06:11 GMT -5
So are you selling your ships?
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Post by toboggan on Mar 23, 2009 16:54:24 GMT -5
i dont think he is. i think he just posted this topic, because its super cool. lol
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 23, 2009 17:02:49 GMT -5
No, not selling. Mostly just thought people here would be interested in seeing them.
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Post by Dan "doc" Perez on Mar 25, 2009 13:05:53 GMT -5
That looks totally fun! I love miniatures and small hobby stuff like that. Growing up I was into building models and whittling stuff too, but nothing close to that. Most the time though I made my ships out of Legos, and put motors in those, let them loose and tried to shoot at them with my BB gun before it naturally sank, or set them on fire and watch them sink... But those ships you have look great, and I would have a great time having glorious sea battles! I would want to attempt to make a pirate ship, like those old tall ships and have small cannons using the same BB method.
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Post by hairy apple on Mar 25, 2009 15:28:23 GMT -5
It was a lot of fun, I keep thinking about getting back into it. There are a number of combat clubs in California. Most are up in the bay area, wwcc is the one I use to belong to. These guys are in Socal.. might want to check them out. They have an allied side somewhere as well although I can't find a working webpage for them. scbgaxis.home.att.net/
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Post by tinydata on Mar 30, 2009 20:43:00 GMT -5
nice, a guy I know builds all sorts of ships and planes- he has nearly 400 (that's right, FOUR HUNDRED) 1/700 scale warships on a table- Essex class carriers, Fletcher class DDs, all sorts of cruisers, and of course, my favorite, the Yorktown class carriers
anyways, he told me about these a long time ago, great to see some real examples!
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Post by Kampfgruppe Peiper on May 21, 2009 16:49:42 GMT -5
I also have about 125+ 1/700 scale warships built, and about another 70 or so still in box. I have Most of all the major Battleships. Yamato, Iowa, Nelson, Tirpitz, Hood, Kongo, South Dakota, Scharnhorst, King George V, Fuso, Arizona, Ise, Deutschland, Nagato, Richelieu, Plus CVs, CVE's, Heavy and Light Cruisers, DD's, DE's, Torp boats and subs. Then if i added up all my 1/18th , 1/25 , 1/64 scale cars, and 1/35 1/72 and 1/144scale scale armor and aircraft. And a few sailing ships, more than 1,500 easy.
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Post by Fusilier on May 22, 2009 15:28:40 GMT -5
I'm into the 1/16 scale R/C tanks. Got a King Tiger and Pzkfw III. Neat stuff!
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 17, 2010 21:44:41 GMT -5
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Post by Fusilier on Jun 17, 2010 23:10:56 GMT -5
Did I mention my tanks shoot???
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Post by CharleyNovember on Jun 17, 2010 23:26:05 GMT -5
Ball bearings?
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 17, 2010 23:40:56 GMT -5
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 20, 2010 0:49:30 GMT -5
Got most of the internals fitted into the Kidd today as well as the guns into the cruiser.
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 22, 2010 16:03:09 GMT -5
..... and this will be what I will work on building at some point. Way back around 1996 or so one of the local guys had the USS Lexington and I loved the idea of a CV. I have always had smaller ships and I think it would be awesome to build a capitial ship, and I've always loved the look of and the history of the Yorktown class.
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Post by shadycadence on Jun 22, 2010 18:10:49 GMT -5
One of the guys in the local VN reenacting group showed me pictures of the R/C destroyer he built.
But uh, it's not a fighter. You'd need to arm it with shotguns. It's sixteen feet long.
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 22, 2010 19:40:00 GMT -5
One of the guys in the club had a 1/72 scale Yamato.... it was about 18 feet long and almost 3 wide... it was nuts. You could ride in it if you wanted to. I don't remember if it was armed or not, but it was pretty awesome to see.
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Post by hairy apple on Jun 23, 2010 21:32:08 GMT -5
TINY little airplanes. I built the two Wildcats, Sheep built the Devastator, and the German float plane I've had for a very long time. We still need to add the motors and props and landing gear, but they look pretty good for our first try.
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