Radio controlled warships - with real guns

[Wilfrid]

Radio controlled warships

We built and sail 1/144 scale Radio-Controlled Model Warships from WWI and WWII which are armed with Co2 powered cannon and armoured in thin balsa. These vessels engage each other in combat on ponds across Australia, endeavoring to punch holes in each others hull with their cannon until one of the vessels sinks or flees. Yes, the cannon really do fire, the vessels really do take damage and sink, and yes, it is legal in all states and territories of Australia without a gun license.

Sounds like fun to me!

[capt. apathy]

sounds like a blast.  we had a romte control boat in highschool that we rigged to fire bottle rockets.  was a lot of fun.  never could find anybody interested in having a war though.  

it wasn't near as cool as the boats in the article though.  just a plastic 'police patrol boat' from the sears catalog that my friend had from when he was younger.  we removed the siren and lights from the top and replaced it with a rack of 6 rockets.  when you would push the siren button on the controler all 6 would fire at once.  we didn't have enough knowlege or parts to build anything where we could make multiple shots or aim independant of the boats stearing.

[Hangtime]

Seen this before here in the US.. BB Gun surface warfare. Was not very realistic without seconadry explosins and such.. doing terminal damage to the opponet was pretty hard to do with the guns.

Then a guy showed up with a Lindberg "blue devil destroyer" (Fletcher Class) and rammed a Japanese BB. Sent his bellybutton to the bottom of the pond without firing a shot.

Old Naval Adage:

To sink a ship one must not endavor to make holes that let air in. It is adviseable to instead make holes that let water in.

When they get functional r/c torpedos, I'll get interested.