From Tony Collins, AusBG TO.

Hi all, from your friendly TO.

Brett has asked for some information to be added to the news-letter and this is my first of, I hope, many of articles to come. In this, the first one, I will show some history of the AusBG and pictures of some of the ships that have been built.

First off we have the first active ship in the AusBG, The Deutschland.

This Bill built, using a Swampworks hull and kit he imported from the USA.
Here it is sailing at the Nov97 meeting of the AusBG. It was the first firing ship in the AusBG.
 
 
 
 
 

And here it is at the June99 meeting, slightly more waterlogged.

That is Steve Burden draining it, Steve's son Matt is the skipper of it, and this is the result of a grudge match between him and his dad's Houston. After it was removed from the bottom of the pond!

Notice the difference in the turret sizes! The second photo, Steve assures me, is in the scale size. This illustrates that the turrets will be bigger to accommodate the cannon we use.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Here is a close up of the forward turret. The gap between the deck and the turret is about 20mm. This is because of the need to accommodate the height required for the barrel bends. Something to think about.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Before we go onto some more ships here is a group photo from the first AGM in November 1997 at Bill Kirwan's house in Canberra..

Front left to right, there is myself, Bill Kirwan, Brett Farquarson (of the Bowning Shipyard fame), hiding in the shadows is Glendon Pryor, Richard Lane, Trevor Gotte, Grant Brodie and Mark Nettle. The first national meeting as Richard and Mark came from Sydney, Glendon from Newcastle and myself from Melbourne. In front of us is the majority of the ships at that time. They are in various stages of completion.

At that time, the next completed ship was Trevor's DKM Sea Slug. (Actually he calls it something in German, but I can't even pronounce it, let alone spell it.)

This is a Cimarron Class Tanker.

Trevor admits that he had made mistakes when building this. The ballast is epoxyed into the hull making it very difficult to change or convert. The main components seen is the speed limiting resistor in the first compartment, then the battery in the second compartment, then the main drive motors, followed by the two pump motors. In between the two pumps and the main motors is the mercury switch (white blob) embedded in a foam float. This switches on the pumps when there is water in the hull. Not fitted in the shot is the radio and another battery.

Also the process of completing at that time was Trevor's Scharnhorst.

From top to bottom we can see the 2^nd turret cannon, with the traversing drum mounted to one side of the accumulator. Then there is the gas bottle, with the bottle regulator fitted to the top end. To the side of this are the inline regulators.

In the stern you can see the twin main motors. This ship could have three shafts but the aft turret accumulator takes up this position.

Not seen is the radios, the batterys or the pumps. Under the bottle is the water channel.

Since this photo was taken the Scharnhorst has had a number of refits and now has a different cannon system.
 
 

Below is it on the water in March 1998

Then there was the Conti di Cavour, Skipper Grant Brodie. Here it is in May 1998. At that time cannon supply was limited to say the least.
 
 

This ships now berths in South Australia and when completed will have 4 turrets, two with twin 7/32" and two with triple 7/32". (Turret layout is a twin over a triple each end.). This is nice sized ship, very nippy in the water and a reasonable speed of 27 knots.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Also at the May 1998 meeting was Glendon's King George V. But I don’t have a shot of it at the moment. Unfortunately, Glendon had to pass this ship on. The last reported sighting of this ship was in Sydney.
 

Then there is the star of the May 1998 meeting, the USS Scorpion.

This is a Liberty Class freighter, which mounted a single barrel 3/16" cannon in the stern.

Notice the simple but effective fixed depression device.

Next is my famed ship, the USS Neosho.
 

Again a Cimarron Class tanker, the Neosho was made using the "baseboard and ribs" method, ie. Out of wood. Nicknamed the "the floating battery", I used the advice from the US to use batterys as ballast. It carries a 12v 7Ah battery for the motors, a 6V 4Ah for the pump and 4xAA for the radio. Even with this weight in it I was required to add about a kilo of lead to balance and trim the boat.
 
 
 
 

This ship has the dubious distinction of being the first combat sink in the AusBG. Sunk at Bowning in January 1999. Notice the float successfully deployed, and the bow poking out of the water.

You can see the big 12V 7Ah battery in the middle of the ship in this shot to the right.
 

Scott Gage from Adelaide made this PT109. Here is it partially completed. It was armed with spring launched brass slugs as torpedos.

To give an idea of size, notice the batterys, they are smaller than AAA's.

In 1998 the Burden brothers went into a building frenzy and completed numerous ships including the USS Houston and the USS South Dakota. And several Liberty's. And a tramp or two.

Here is an internal shot of the Houston.

Full, isn't it? A medium sized cruiser, the Houston, shows that volume is needed for cannon.

Compare the full hull above with Anthony's South Dakota below.

At the time of the photo, the South Dakota had Randy's (from USA) Mk2's fitted. Since then the ship has been fitted with Indiana style cannon.

Here is the "SoDak" prowling the waters at Bowning. Notice that the rear turret is fixed pointing over the stern. This makes it simpler to operate and control. The forward cannon can be traversed.

Here is a tramp hull and the South Dakota hull after cutting windows in the fibreglass hull.

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Cannon Photos.

At the moment there are two styles of cannon available from the US.

There is the Indiana style. Here showing the main components. These are available from The Midwest Battle Group.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The other style is the BDE (below),
The BDE style uses a modular style where every thing is in a "canister". The basic layout is shown below.

 
 
 
 

The cannon situation seems to be getting better as a few members are building, experimenting or planning to build cannon in the near future.

Variations of the basic designs are possible as shown below left on the Kitakami (Japanese Light cruiser). It has a 15-barrel single shot torpedo system mounted on each side of the ship. This was built in the USA, and is currently battling over there.
 

Above right is a submarine attempt that used a custom made BDE two-barrel single shot torpedo system from the US.

Well that is enough photos' at the moment. Next time I shall continue on and show more photos of ships and what people have done with them. If there is any technical querys or questions, please contact me. Or if you have an idea for article, contact me as well.

Keep on Battling,

Tony Collins, AusBG TO.