Model warship combat

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Radio controlled combat of warships owes it's popularity to a small group of men living in Texas (USA) in the late 1970's. The founding fathers of the hobby are Stan Watkins, D.W. Fluegel, and Jeff Poindexter. Back in the day, these men "toyed" with the idea of using radio controlled ships and equiping them with some kind of cannon then engage in combat.

After much efforts, Stan created the "Mark I" cannon using an odd variety of plumbing parts and pieces. In those days, freon was used as a propelling agent and often their engagements resulted in little if any damage. After some time, and more engineering, They were able to "sink" an opponent in combat.

From this inauspicious beginning and after years of technological advances, the hobby has improved drastically in reliability and playability.

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Model warship combat is an international club activity, in which participants construct radio-controlled scale models of actual warships built by various nations during the early portion of the 20th century. These models are armed with pneumatic cannons, and fight against one another on ponds and lakes.

The model ships are fully workable, with small electric engines, working steering systems, and are generally armed with self-reloading pneumatic cannons. The cannons use steel balls from .177" to .25" in diameter as projectiles, and $C O 2$ is used as the working gas for propellant.

The most common construction scale for them is 1:144, although 1:96 and 1:72 scale modelling groups also exist. The exteriors of the ship's hulls are constructed of balsa wood, which allows the relatively low velocity cannon projectiles to penetrate them and damage or sink the model.

Extensive design conventions exist to provide that the fighting effectiveness under various conditions remain proportional to the prototype vessels. These conventions also dictate safety features as well as mandating design features to allow for recovery of defeated vessels.

The sport is divided into 'Big Gun' and 'Small Gun' clubs. About 80% of clubs are of the small gun variety, in which all ships use .177" caliber guns, which in most cases are installed in fixed mounts also all ships are fitted with 1/32" thick balsa wood 'Armor'. Big Gun clubs allow cannon caliber and armor thickness to be scaled to that which existed on the prototype. Big Gun ships allow weapons to be installed in rotating turrets if they were mounted as such historically.

Both 'Big Gun' and 'Small Gun' formats have annual national/international interclub events. International Radio Control Warship Combat Club (IRCWCC, one of the 2 major divisions of 'Small Gun' format) has "NATS". 'Big Gun' battlers have NABGO.