Eric Dowe, Ceara Maxwell, Keith Maxwell, Danny Lowe, Phill Lowe
The first sortie pitted the Warspite (Darrell's new baby), The Roberts and the Deutchland against the Richelieu, the Suffren and the Adm Scheer.
Just before battle was called the Deutschland was pulled from the water with a prop problem. The battle started out with the usual mulling around as captains tried to gain an advantage in position. During the jockying, the Suffren and the Warspite tangled. The Suffren found out the hard way that the new Warspite has a sharper bow than the old one did. With it's pump working hard, the Suffren headed to shore. Just a few minutes later, the transmitter battery on the Richelieu started going down fast. In the process of trying to get it swapped out quickly, something went wrong and the transmitter went dead. The Richelieu was hauled onto the beach for the rest of the day. Phill took the helm of the Montcalm for the first time in nine months. With a smaller ship and a choice of a large and a small target, the Montcalm took aim at the Roberts and let fly. The battle settled down to lots of maneuvering and occasional shooting. When the bb's ran out the battle was called. Significant damage was found on the Roberts.
Andrew got his prop problem sorted out between battles so the Deutschland joined the fleet for the second battle. Tom Rovegno showed up with the Graf Spee to join the fray. The patch on the Suffren dried and all the ships headed back into the water. The Suffren decided to go for the hard target and soon emptied her guns at the Roberts. Some time later the Roberts slipped below the water. This is probably the first time that battle damage actually sunk the Roberts. The Suffren and Deutschland played a little stern one-on-one without doing much damage. The Suffren had to retreat when the Warspite showed up. The Montcalm tried the same grazing maneuver that had left a hole in the Suffren and was rewarded with a nice below waterline hole. (Reminder: the Warspite's bow is sharp!) With no ammo left, the Suffren just buzzed around trying to cause trouble. The Graf Spee was having trouble with her new stern guns but kept mixing it up with the other ships. This proved to be a bad idea when she locked superstructure with the Warspite and greater mass dictated the result. Battle was suspended while the Graf Spee was removed from the bottom of the pond. Battle was resumed until the remaining bb's were used up.
Between the battles Danny was playing with an R/C hovercraft and Phill was testing out the Fond Du Lac. The batteries on the hovercraft ran down and it just danced around in a circle out of control. The Fond Du Lac went over to try to push it to the shore and fairly quickly went dead in the water. The Roberts was launched to try to push the other ships to shore but ended up in trouble when she banged into the Fond Du Lac and shifted her battery. With the holes from the previous battle, she soon filled and rolled over. Since it was a rescue run the gun hadn't been hooked up to the co2 system and the gun, barbette and forward deck was lost in the muck at the bottom of the pond. The drysuit was hauled out and the various ships pulled out of the water. Twenty minutes of searching failed to find the Roberts gun.
We decided to go after less dangerous targets so the convoy ships were hauled out for the third sortie. The Graf Spee had taken water in the radio box so was out of action. The Komit and Fond du Lac were put in the water with Ceara and Danny at the helms and battle called. The first run started off fine but at the first bouy, the Fond Du Lac went dead in the water (this radio system is history!). She drifted on over towards the side of the pond and stopped. Gary brought the Montcalm in carefully and placed a dozen hits right on the waterline with the Montcalm's bow gun. the Fond Du Lac drifted on for a while but it was clear that it was just a matter of time before she gracefully went under. Once again, the Suffren was rammed and headed to shore. The Komit was well defended during her run. The attackers,lacking both experience and firepower were unable to do enough damage to threaten the Komit. After three runs, most ships were out or low on bb's and the convoy battle was called. Ceara and the Komit have done very well in the convoy battles this year!
With a sigh of relief all the captain's packed up ships and gear while the conversation turned to various refit plans for the winter. Discussions with the captains at the battle and with other later on have lead us to decide not to man a booth at the Puyallup Hobby fair in February. Our efforts at the fair during the two last years have not brought a single new captain to the club. Our efforts are going to be directed towards helping get the ships under construction ready to battle instead.
There was not a cloud in the sky at lunchtime on Tuesday. The silt in the pond had cleared up and the water was very clear. With drysuit, mask, snorkle and fins, it took less than five minutes in the water to find and recover the Robert's forward deck, barbette and gun. Now the refits can begin!
Warspite (keith), Adm Scheer (Ceara), Suffren (Paul), Deutchland (Andrew) - flying black flags
Richelieu (Danny?), Montcalm (Alex), Graf Spee (Melissa) and Roberts (Gary) - flying none
Note that only Ceara was battling a ship she was experienced with. Andrew was having problems with one of his guns and finally got tired of messing with it and launched with a single gun working. In the two minutes leading up to battle, I spent time working out problems with several ships and called battle only to find my ship (Richelieu) already in the battle having been stolen by Danny. The Roberts immediately went dead in the water so instead of retrieving the Richelieu, I set out to revive the Roberts. That being done I turned my attention to the Graf Spee and blocked it's CO2 tank again so it wouldn't list.
By this time, the only ships with bb's left (as usual) were the Warspite and the Richelieu. Danny reluctantly handed over the control and for the first time of the battle, Keith found the Warspite under fire from the Richelieu's stern gun. After a few minutes of the Richelieu baiting the Warspite, all bb's were gone and the battle called. Andrew had been having problems with the Deutschland not turning well to one side and after pulling the ship out of the water he found out why. He had lost one prop and the entire propshaft. So that's why it seemed to be pumping hard!
The clammor was for Convoy action so the Fond Du Lac and Komit were brought out and readied for action. Alex and Melissa didn't participate in this battle so the Graf Spee was left on the beach. Danny took over the Montcalm and the Adm Scheer was run by Chuck Amos who had come to watch as Ceara wanted to run the Komit. Andrew plugged hole left by the missing propshaft and with only one gun, returned to the water. This sortie turned out to be pretty intense with the Richelieu going all out with the dual sidemounts trying to get revenge on the Komit for it's almost un-molested cruise during the last battle. The Warspite's batteries started to fade and she wasn't able to keep up with the Komit to protect her so the Warspite tried chasing the Fond Du Lac. This didn't work out too well either as the Fond Du Lac is the same speed as the Komit. The lack of experience showed through as lots of manouvering and firing took place but limited damage was done. Just before the Komit made it in to the harbor at the end of her second circuit she gently settled, stern first but perfectly upright, to the bottom in a picture perfect sink. The Fond Du Lac completed three circuits and not seeing any other operational ships on the water, claimed victory and came in.
The second convoy sortie deserves some sort of name for the carnage that ensued. Ram'athon comes to mind though it wasn't that simple. The Montcalm sat out the battle and Danny took over the Graf Spee. We were able to get Andrew's second gun working but no spare propshaft was available. Gary didn't turn the pump on soon enough and the Roberts had taken four hits to the bows, a rare enough occurence, and she rolled over and sank only to have the forward three inches of the bow appear as she is slightly boyant with the new battery. I didn't see what happened but the Adm Scheer headed towards shore in very bad shape but continued to move forwards with just the mainmast above the water. She came to rest in the shallows with the tip of her mast above the water. The Richelieu has started the sortie without the CO2 turned on and she played (large) wall between the black flags and the Fond Du Lac for a while. When the offense broke up and scattered, she came back to the beach to have the CO2 turned back on. After this was done, the stern was full of water so the pump was turned on and the water pumped out. She was returned to the water and an assessment made of the state of the battle. By this time she was low in the water in the stern again and further investigation found a huge ram hole in the stern. She was pulled onto shore and all systems turned off.
At this point there was a group of cruisers dogging the Fond Du Lac, both defenders and offense. Sitting very low in the water, she rounded the bouy, one of the offensive cruisers cut her off and she bumped into it and sank. Shortly afterwards the Warspite proved to be in very bad shape as the pump priming issues had not been resolved after all and with a new captain things got a bit out of hand before the extent of the problem was realized. The Warspite rolled on it's side while still moving forward and was just starting to lose forward speed when it reached Keith's outstreatched hands. Ceara kept the Komit running for another circuit but it was clear that the remaining cruisers were out of bb's and the battle was called.
Walking around looking at ships show that most ships had ram damage. Some of it was minor but much was not. The Liberty ship had taken a modest amount of damage and the Komit quite a bit but all well above the waterline. Oddly it hadn't seemed like there had been that much contact between ships on the water.
Gary was drafted to retrieve the ships that were in water beyond garden boot reach and a tired bunch of captains packed the ships up for the day. Andrew gets the "Tenacity" Award for steaming into battle with one gun disabled and only one prop. Paul gets the "Up and Comming" Award for taking the Suffren (not for the first time) and causing much more damage than he received. We may need to make sure his Suffren is NOT finished this winter!
New ships tend towards teething problems and all three of the new ships proved this. Eric's new USS Augusta wouldn't fire and a round of all the tool boxes only allowed a single gun to be made operational. Muttering of "just two more weeks" was heard several times during the day. The USS Augusta proved herself to be nimble and ready to hit back with the single working gun. Darrell's long awaited HMS Warspite (aka Warspite II) showed up with damp paint. Unfortunately, before the start of the battle, one of the Warspite's props seized up. With all the other ships in the water ready to battle, it was decided to unhook the prop shaft and go into battle with a single shaft. The Warspite was visibly slow turning to the off side during the sortie and was replaced by Warspite I for the rest of the day. The KMS Komit was tested the day before and found to be quite top heavy. A tour of the tool boxes resulted in a number of lead weights and the resulting ballast settled her down nicely. With her small size, she is a difficult target during the campaign battle.
NW Regional Captains:
Eric Dowe, Ceara Maxwell, Keith Maxwell, Danny Lowe, Phill Lowe
Teams were as follows:
Red Team: FS Richelieu, USS Augusta, DKM Adm. Scheer
Blue Team: HMS Warspite, FS Suffren, HMS Roberts
As the battle got started the Richelieu became the primary target for the
blue team with some effort being made to baptize the Augusta. The Adm.
Scheer took advantage of not being the center of attention by getting in
some nice surprise attacks, and then getting out of the action. The
Roberts sank halfway through the battle leaving about 2 inches of the bow
sticking out of the water. This sink would end up being the difference in
the battle. Eric did a great job keeping the August out of danger, an
impressive feat with a new ship and only a couple of battles on a borrowed
ship! At times it looked like a ballet as the Suffren and Augusta running
side by side, flared out trying to line up aft cannons. The three cruisers
went on 5 at approximately the same time. The Richelieu and the Warspite
stayed out on the pond for quite some time manouvering and trading
occasional shots.
USS AUGUSTA
The Roberts was retrieved after the sortie and it was discovered that it had sunk due to a friendly ram from the Warspite not battle damage, so it was repaired and sent out for the second sortie. There are disadvantages to having the only WWI style bow on the pond......
C02 and BB’s were reloaded an six ships returned to the water for a second sortie. Once again the action centered on the Richelieu and the Warspite, with the cruisers engaging each other as best they could. Warspite and Suffren were both able to catch the Augusta with their dual aft cannons at different points, but on the whole Eric did a very good job of staying out of trouble. The Roberts took a few good shots at passing ships. For the second sortie of the day Ceara was able to be the forgotten ship. She maneuvered the Adm Scheer and take pot shots at will. Adm Scheer took time to give the Roberts some personal attention and was able to put some holes in hardest target in the fleet, something that the combined fleet has failed to do in the past. BB's expended, the battle was called.
When counting damage after the second battle it was noticed that the Augusta had several exit holes. The Augusta'’s internal armor(craft mesh) had been shot to pieces. Since many of the other ships use the same armor, all ships were carefully examined. It seems that the Augusta has a larger mesh size. It will be replaced monday night!
Scores were as follows: Blue team: Above On Below Sink Points Warspite 27 2 8 720 Suffren 21 0 2 310 Roberts 4 0 0 1 640 Total 1670 Red team: Above On Below Sink Points Richelieu 63 1 6 955 Augusta 22 3 1 345 Adm. Scheer 5 1 0 75 Total 1375 Red Team won by 295 points.The fleet battle was followed by a campaign battle. A course was laid out and the contest was to see which team could get their cargo ship around the course the most times in a half an hour. Teams were as follows:
With his warship out of action Phill braved the blackberry bushes and went to the far side to rescue the Fond Du Lac. The rescue mission was a success and the Liberty ship came limping back in an attempt to complete its lap. Unfortunately with no escort the Suffren and Warspite made quick work of her, and she too was sent to the bottom. About this time the Augusta made a reappearance on the water. The Suffren and Warspite ran interference and Ceara did a great job of keeping the Komit out from under the gun of the Augusta.
Final score: KMS Komit 10 laps USS Fond Du Lac 0 laps
Batteries for the Roberts and pump problems for the Richelieu caused them to be packed up and the remaining ships headed back out for more fleet action. The battle turned out to be quite short with the crusiers emptying their guns quickly and the Warspite blowing a CO2 supply line shortly afterwards. It was quite late so we decided against another sortie and choose not to count the new holes. A quick vote was taken though it was mostly for form.
Most Damage: Richelieu
Least Damage: Adm. Scheer
Most Feared: Suffren
Best Sink: Richelieu
Best time: Everyone present!
With light broken clouds and generally warm weather, we decended on Hanson's pond to do battle and try a convoy battle. Greg brought along Melissa to take pictures and Jodie took the video camera to help document the action. Eric Dowe showed up again and admitted that he had bought a kit and is building a cruiser. We put him at the helm of the Montcalm, Patrick from TX at the helm of the Graf Spee and Phill with the Richelieu on the yellow team. Ceara/Adm Scheer, Keith/Suffren, Greg/Inflexible and Alex/Roberts made up the blue team.
The first battle started out slowly with several new captains staying out of trouble. The middle part of the battle saw the Richelieu pull a stipid stunt and the Inflexible laid a long line of holes down her side to remind the the Richelieu's captain not to do that again. The dual between these two ships continued while Keith tried to hunt down and shoot the rookie cruisers with the Suffren, not a very rewarding task. At the end of the battle both the Richelieu and Inflexible had taken a beating while the cruisers where pretty much untouched.
We chose to do some patching and hold the same teams. Everyone was interested in the playing with the Liberty ship so we decided to jump into the convoy battle next. This is the first time we have played the convoy game. Yellow team chose to run the convoy ship first and a bouy was placed near the shore quite a ways along the side of the lake. The blue team was chased away from the launching beach and the convoy run began. The yellow team chose chaos as their operational strategy and most of the credit for the first sortie goes to the mostly unescorted cargo ship captain for holding to his course. A semblance of an escort formed up for the last third of the return leg when ships were spread over a large area of the pond. The liberty ship took a beating but made it back to the launching beach in about 6 minutes. All ships were brought in and rearmed and the liberty ship drained. The teams returned to their stations and a box was formed around the liberty ship for the start of the next run. Inexperience on the part of some rookie captains and erratic response on the radio of another ship caused the box to collapse and the blue team surged in to do more damage. Near the bouy, the threat of weeds caused both teams to back off and regroup but time was running out. About a quarter of the way back the accumulated damage to the liberty ship was enough and her bow pointed towards the bottom.
Paul braved the still cold waters and brought her back up and all ships were brought up for repair, rearm and lunch.
The next sortie saw the blue team on the defensive with the liberty ship. Very little damage was done during this sortie except by ramming and jostling near the far bouy. The distance from the launching beach to the bouy eliminated any possibility of being able to judge where any ship was in relation to another or to the bouy or to the liberty ship. After rearming, the blue team set out again. This time the liberty ship stayed close to the shore and braved the weeds. The Richelieu was able to get in close and fire away with sidemounts. Though it seemed pretty effective, the results were a limited number of holes. Though harrassed for much of the run, the liberty ship made it back with little trouble.
By this time it was late in the afternoon and we had run most of the ships through 5 sorties so we called it a day. We will use a couple of bouys next time and keep all of the ships much closer to the captains in the future. These changes should dramatically improve the convoy game, as will finishing the KMS Komit so that we can run a convoy ship on both sides during the same sortie.
We were excited to see Andrew's new DKM Deutchland though it turned out that she was unable to battle due to several small problems. Paul had come with Andrew and is impatiently waiting for the delivery of his Suffren kit. Gregg had talked Steve and Alex Price into making the trip from the Tri-cities to watch and Alex took the helm of the Montcalm for the first two battles to get a taste of combat. Patrick drove up from Portland to watch as he had been planning to do for several months. He suprised us with the Derfflinger hull he is building. It's the first time we have ever seen aluminum water channeling. Eric drove up from Seattle, seduced by the descriptions of mayham on the website. It's great to see so many new and Rookie faces.
It seemed to take forever to get ships into the water for battle. The Graf Spee was missing a crystal so it got shifted to a spare set of crystals. Turns out that there was another ship on that freq so she sat out the first two battles and the Inflexible sat out the last. We finally gave up on getting the DKM Deutchland in for the first battle and chose teams. About this point we found that both of the 20lb CO2 cylinders were out of gas. (How? We had just filled one of them....) Steve Price volunteered to drive into Cle Elum and see if he could get one filled.
The bad guys got red flags and included the Warspite, Invincible, Lutzow, Montcalm and Roberts. The good guys included the Richelieu, Inflexible, Suffren and Adm Scheer. Battle was called as the wind dropped back so we had fairly flat water. This battle saw a lot of mulling around as the teams weren't seperated to start with and there was still confusion as to who you could shoot at. The ships soon sorted them selves out and the battle changed into a manouver and shoot at targets of opportunity. With one of the greatest concentrations of large ships in the club's history, we saw a central battle between the Warspite, Richelieu and the two I boats with cruisers wandering in and out. There were a few pretty solid rams, one of the best was between team mates. The battle petered out as ships ran out of bb's and peace decended on the pond. Steve showed up and told us that CO2 wasn't available in Cle Elum but he had gotten hold of the guy in Ellensberg and was willing to swap tanks there for us. Wow! That's the type of "onlooker" money can't buy!
Lots of ram patching and refilling of guns was mixed with more work on the DKM Deutchland. Shortly, the Deutchland was put in the water for testing. About this time the wind came up and blew fairly hard. After a few minutes of cutting the water nicely, the Deutchland went dead in the water and headed sideways towards the island driven by the wind. When she hit the island, her stern slipped below the surface while clothing was removed to reveal a swimsuit. Upon retrieval, it was found that the radio box was wet, probably a result from earlier repair work and reluctantly the Deutchland was retired for the day.
The CO2 showed up to everyone's delight and bottles were filled for the second battle. Since there hadn't been a decisive victory and we are basically lazy, the same teams went out for the second battle. This would not prove to be the Red team's day. The early part of the battle saw most ships near the shore as the wind was brisk. All of the ships were having trouble manouvering so shooting was sporatic. Alex Price took the Montcalm out clear of the main group to get lined up for a good shot. He then learned the challenges of a light cruiser as a blast of wind rolled her over and down she went. A few minutes later the rookie captain of the Roberts watched the waves wash right over the deck and fill her up while mistakenly thinking he had turned on the pump. The whole fleet closed in on the beach, partly because Alex's Lutzow has tired batteries and was loosing speed. Barely able to move and unable to pump, several ships and time contributed to the Lutzow's slowly settling to the shallow bottom.
By the start of the third sortie, it was getting fairly late but the wind had died down. Alex had abandoned his Lutzow in favor of the Montcalm with working batteries. The battle started much as the last one with activity close to the shore. It's impressive to see a large battleship using the foot of water next to the beach as the way to get past other ships...... It's more impressive to see the battleship later with a few prop blades missing...... The pump on the Montcalm refused to start up and out of fear she lay quiet near the beach. Several ships turned up and add a few holes until she went down. She was drained and put back on the water and proceeded to sink again and again until the photographers refused to even think of taking another picture of her. Further out, the Warspite went dead in the water and was pushed towards the island by the wind. The Richelieu choose to try to push her to safety instead of just filling her with bb's. After much work against the wind, the Warspite suddenly regained control and started trying to put holes in the Richelieu. The Roberts went dead in the water and though several ships shot at it, it calmly drifted out to the island and was swamped against the shore. The Graff Spee spent most of the early part of the battle staying out of trouble. As her rookie captain started feeling able to close with other ships, she was rammed hard by the stern of the Richelieu and the battery shifted. She turned towards shore but was not fated to make it very far before she went under. Great cheering was heard when her bobber popped to the surface. A mild groan was heard when the deck it was attached to floated free a minute later. After that point, the battle started winding down as few bb's remained. As is becoming common, the last few minutes featured the unarmed Richelieu playing cat and mouse with the Warspite trying to tease her into wasting the few remaining bb's.
With that the battle and day was called and we started draining water and packing up. Everyone had a good time. We got a club record 9 ships on the water. With the promise that there will be more next time. (Maybe I should add a spare radio to the repair kit....) Steve Price turned down payment for the CO2 fills. This after driving 40 minutes to go pick it up! A major thanks to Steve for helping us make this day a success! We need him to build a ship so we can lend him parts to make it up to him!
We were quite pleased to have Greg join us with his newly commissioned HMS Inflexible. We should do more recruiting on campus judging from his very nicely detailed ship. Something about choosing between writing a paper for class or working on the warship produces very nice details. However the Inflexible would sit out the first battle as the CO2 tank was put through the hull at the last minute.
With several of the usual cast of characters absent, we scrounged up captains from those who don't have ships completed. The result was Paul at the helm of the Suffren, Andy at the helm of the Montcalm and Gary at the helm of the Roberts.
The first sortie progressed slowly with most ships trying to get comfortable while avoiding either the Warspite or the Richelieu. The Suffren showed off it's dual sterns and turning to put a number of bb's into both the Richelieu and Montcalm. Concentrated fire finally put a couple of holes in the Roberts. This redressed the total lack of damage to the Roberts in the last battle!
Things were much more mixed in the second battle. The Richelieu targeted the Inflexible but got caught on her rigging. For a couple of seconds the Inflexible pumped bb's into the Richelieu and the Richelieu shot right over the top of the Inflexible. After breaking off, the Richelieu resumed the attack until it was clear that the Inflexible had taken some damage.
By this time, the damage from the previous battle and tired batteries made it clear that the Montcalm was in trouble. The Suffren and Warspite took advantage of this as the Richelieu came to the rescue from the far end of the pond. The defensive moves were too late and the Montcalms stern sank in 18 inches of water with the bow bobbing forlornly on the surface. Great cheers were heard as she went down.
The Richelieu and Warspite then took up the dual until someone noticed that there was smoke coming out of the Roberts. The Richelieu came over and started the difficult process of pushing her back to the beach. Much later, with help from the Warspite and lots of talk about building a rescue ship, the Roberts made it to shore. One of the wires had pressed against the hot resistor and shorted out. Suddenly the Warspite decided it was time to finish the battle. Within a very short time the Richelieu was out of BB's so a drawn out dual started with the Warspite trying to bring her guns to bare and the Richelieu playing cat and mouse.
The Warspite's captain had other commitments and the batteries in the Montcalm gave up the ghost so the remaining ships prepared for the third sortie. The Seattle Sunshine started in earnest and by the time battle was called everything was pretty wet. Problems showed up again when the Inflexible lost most of it's speed. When the Suffren ran out of bb's the Richelieu was able to attend to the beached Inflexible. Too soon the Richelieu was out of bb's. In the post battle inspection it was found that the Roberts had managed to melt a hole in the co2 hose with the speed resistor.
The steady downpour and rapidly diminishing number of operational ships made the decision to call it a day quite easy. Serious battling and Good Fun was had by all. With the new addition, the Washington Cascade Column now has twelve operational ships.
The Warspite showed up for the second sortie and quickly demonstrated one of the less attractive aspects of the hobby by dumping all of the power from one battery into a frozen pump motor. The resulting smell had everyone headed upwind. Darrell headed home to pull the pump out of his partially built ship. Andrew took the helm of the Adm Scheer and Gary moved up to the Montcalm. His younger brother Gregory took over the Roberts. The sortie progressed along much the same lines as the first with the Richelieu not chasing as hard and occasionally actually firing guns towards the targets. Andrew did quite well with the Adm Scheer. Gary decided he wanted to go back to a simpler ship. What was most impressive was the 20 people lining the pond to watch the battle.
The third sortie saw the Warspite finally operational so the French in the form of the Suffren and Richelieu took on the rest of the fleet. Part of this sortie was devoted to the Richelieu and Warspite working for position. The Warspite did get stuck on the sand bar for a short time and received appropriate attention from Suffren. When battle was called the Adm Scheer and Suffren headed south to prepare for Ceara's piano recital.
The last sortie saw the French take on the world with the Richelieu and Montcalm working together against the Warspite and Roberts. The batteries in the Montcalm ran down and she tucked in against the shore for easy retrieval. The Warspite tried to manouver sidemounts into place without getting stuck on the sandbar. After running out of ammo, the Richelieu then tried to put her hull between the Warspite and the Montcalm. In the process, she found a rock and stripped 7 of 8 blades on her powered props. She slowly limped away. The Warspite ran out of bb's and the battle was called.
We packed up and headed home. On the way, we were geeted with pouring Seattle sunshine. (aka rain) Later counting found the Richelieu had taken 8-15-106, the Roberts 0-0-0 and the Montcalm 1-3-8. Monday saw an additional flurry of activity as Andrew ordered a kit from swampy and a radio from tower. Thanks to Andrew, Gary and Gregory for taking the helm of ships that would not have made it in to battle otherwise.
We got to add another boat the fleet. The Richelieu made her debut. Richelieu shows a lot of promise. She showed a surprising amount of acceleration, and tuned better than I would have expected. The long high freeboard makes for a nice target for the fleet of cruisers, but her ability to inflict belows will make for some interesting scores. Phill has done a good job with damage control, only patching belows between battles and was never in danger of sinking. I really hate those large Swampy pumps...........at least until I get a boat that can have one too.
In the first battle we were able to put 8 ships on the water, matching our club record set last summer. It was the battleships against the cruisers.
Warspite - Darrell Lowe Richelieu - Phill Lowe VS Invincible - Al Schumer Lutzow - Alex Schumer Suffren - Keith Maxwell Adm Scheer - Ceara Maxwell Montcalm - Matt (a guest) Roberts - Mike Morril (building a Northampton)
As Ceara called a start to battle it was "Attack the Richelieu" time. Everyone wanted to get some shots at the big battleship. It didn't take Darrell long to come in with guns blazing to let the cruisers know that they were going to have to pay attention to him as well. Al and Phill were playing slug it out with side mounts while Darrell was keeping the cruisers busy. Montcalm went dead in the water, but still shooting when anyone got close so was left alone as everyone was having too much fun trading bb's to pick on the new guy. Suffren was first to call 5. Shortly after the other boats started running dry and calling 5. The last boats on the water were the Warspite, Lutzow and the Adm Scheer.
The Second sortie kept the same teams. Moncalm and Robert sat out this sortie. The battle started with Invincible and Richelieu again going after each other. Suffren and Warspite kept each other busy as well for much of the battle. Richelieu had its only real problem for the day when the pump failed to start. Phill beached her before she sunk and played with the pump. No problem was found and the pump worked fine the rest of the day. The Lutzow developed power problems and was in and out of the battle. Adm Scheer cruised around taking pot shots, and doing a good job of getting in the thick of things. Once again Suffren was the first to call 5 followed shortly by Luzow. Warspite and Adm Scheer chased each other around the pond for a few more minutes before they too ran out of bb's. At the end of the first battle both Richelieu and Warspite had a lot of above waterline holes, but not many belows. Warspite, and Adm Scheer were both pumping. Suffren had taken (4) separate rams in the first (2) sorties. 2 from her own team. Adm Scheer took quite a lot of damage many above and 4-5 belows.
Al and Alex had to leave after the first battle. Teams for the second battle were French Vs. The World.
Richelieu - Phill Lowe Suffren - Keith Maxwell Vs. Warspite - Darrell Lowe Adm. Scheer - Ceara Maxwell
First Sortie of the second battle the French boats decided to pick on the Warspite. Suffren attempted to pin Warspite behind the twin aft cannons and Richelieu tried to bring her twin side mounts into play. The funniest event of the day way the panic in Ceara's face as Richelieu decided to give the Adm Scheer some personal attention. Once again Suffren was the first out of ammo. So much target so few bb's. At the end of the sortie Richelieu, Warspite and Adm Scheer were all pumping. Adm Scheer from the attention from Richelieu. Warspite and Richelieu had not patched from the first battle, and were counting on there pumps to keep them out of trouble.
Danny showed up in time for the last sortie of the day. so the Roberts joined with Warspite and Adm. Scheer. The 2nd sortie went much like the first with Warspite getting most of the attention from Suffren and Richelieu. Roberts was low on reciever batteries and went out of control almost immediately, turning circles in the water for a time then going dead and finally sinking after the battle was over. Suffren took her worst damage of the day getting behind Warspite and getting a taste of her own dual stern medicine. By the end of the sortie Warspite was starting to get into trouble and settling lower in the water with the pump running full time. Phill did his best to finish the job with Richelieu, but her guns had too much down angle in this sortie to aim effectively at a moving Warspite.
(Beautiful weather and a calm pond greeted us Sunday morning. The lack of rain reduced the creek's flow into the pond so we didn't have the torrent to deal/play with that we saw in November and February.)
Ceara made her rookie appearance as Captain of the Adm. Scheer. She did a good job of staying out of trouble only taking (4) hits. Radio trouble took the Adm. Scheer out of action for the remainder of the day.
Suffren made her maiden voyage and experienced some teething problems in the first (2) sorties. She showed a lot of potential with her dual rudders and dual aft cannons. (read this as she didn't do much.)
In the first sortie The Suffren was running slow and was relatively ineffective. The second sortie the guns were adjusted too high and she was unable to do any real damage. The third sortie she showed what she will be able to do by sinking the Invincible
The first sortie was pretty uneventful. The Graf Spee went out early with a bad list and rudder problems. There was very little damage done as everyone emptied there magazines.
(Sitting back and waiting for a chance, the Montcalm landed a clean shot it the side of the Suffren. This blooded the tenth ship in our fleet! An event to be celebrated!)
(Late in the battle, the heat of the resistor melted into the wires of the Roberts. It shorted out causing the Roberts to suddenly jump up on a plane. The Roberts is not too stable in this configuration and can't shoot at anything but Danny thought it was great!)
The second sortie was similar to the first. The Adm. Scheer never made it to the water with radio problems. The Montcalm also developed radio problems and had to stay close to home base. Graf Spee again developed a bad list and made the mistake of coming in and beaching in front of Montcalm. Phill had some fun with a stationary target.
The third and last sortie the Graf Spee finally was able to stay level and was able to get involved in the fight. Montcalm still had radio trouble and stayed close to shore. Suffren had worked out some of her first battle problems and went from hiding in the outskirts of the battle to getting into the middle of the fight. The heaviest fighting was between Suffren and Invincible. John learned something about the circle of death. Invincible sunk due to a large number of holes inflicted by the dual aft cannons of Suffren and a faulty connection to his bulge pump.
(Randy took the helm of the Roberts and had a good time wandering around the pond and was quite happy to avoid all of the action. He brought two wooden hulls that he is working on for us to see.)
The pond is also in very good shape. Limited rain plus a much deeper dredging during the summer have prevented the silting we saw last year.