- A Conversation with a Prospective
Captain -
Upon digging
through my email archives for something else, I stumbled upon an email
conversation from December 2012 with a captain who was looking for more
information about the hobby. I found it linear, introspective, and sound advice
that has stood the test of time so I wanted to post it.
------------------------------------------Thursday,
December 6, 2012------------------------------------------
Prospective
Captain:
Hey there. Sorry if you are no longer
a part of this organization, but I saw your name on the MWC website for MN
contacts for warship combats. Are you still indeed a contact or have you moved
on from the hobby? I'm interested in investigating the hobby further so I
wanted to talk to someone. Thanks!
Veteran Captain:
You bet. Where are you from? There are
about 15 of us in the Twin Cities. We will be getting together monthly over the
winter to build ships and monthly over the summer to battle. You probably have
a bunch of questions, just like when I started, and I am your guy to work some
of the stuff out.
Prospective
Captain:
I'm from Minnetonka so right in your
stomping grounds. :) When are you guys planning on meeting? Do you guys buy
pre-fab ships or make your own? From your comment, it sounds like the latter.
How much does it cost to get involved?
Veteran Captain:
We do most of our battling in
Chanhassen. We do building wherever (lots in Chanhassen). Are you on the email
list yet? We can get you set up with that if you want, it is basically just a
place to talk about ships via email and set up meetings. I think we are going
to get together in a few weeks to build, that would be a good time to come by
and check out the ships. Most stuff is scratch built and takes anywhere between
$600-1000, depending on what ship you are building. Sometimes you can buy a
"ready to go" ship that usually takes a bunch of work to actually get
it up to building standards. Definitely talk with us a bunch before you buy a
ship so we can help guide your decision based on your ability, money needed,
style of battle, etc.
Check out my youtube site for battling
video:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bradblankenship
The MN web site is:
www.portpolarbear.com - there is some
good internal pictures of ships in the battle reports and building articles
section under the Inside a Warship section
Check out the main club web site:
www.mwci.org
Keep asking me more questions. If you want
to try to call some time my number is ***-***-****
Prospective
Captain:
and of course, what are the rules for
ships? Size, weight, composition, etc. Or do you just build whatever ship you
want and watch it sink?
Veteran Captain:
There are a lot of rules and if you
have never seen a ship or seen them battle they are difficult to understand
(that's where we come in). The main rules are at mwci.org, check out the rules section.
In general, it has to be a 1/144 replica of a ship that existed from 1906 to
1946. They get a max weight but usually battle better at a slightly less than
max weight. They get a number of units based on how big and powerful the ship
actually was and the units are either a gun or a pump, most ships have 1 pump
and between 2 and 7 guns. The guns each have 50 bbs. Most ships need to be shot
50-100 times to sink. The average hit rate is about 15-30%. The holes and
damage are easily fixed and repaired and battled again within 1/2hr of sinking.
The stuff that needs to be built water resistant is. In general, there is more
focus in our hobby on durability and combat than pretty scale pieces.
Prospective
Captain:
I'm guessing you have tonnage
allotments for a battle? A question I always ask groups I join, is there a gap
in the ships needed? I don't know what the popular ships are or the
requirements yet. I'll try to read that massive rules page in a bit to see.
Veteran Captain:
There is no max to any battle. Most of
the time especially at local and regional battles we try to spread the ships
evenly according somewhat to number of guns but moreso based on ability of the
captains. A great captain makes a crappy ship great. Nats is the only time (1
week long battle in the summer) where there is 40-50 people from around the
country participating that we try to hold our tradition of Axis vs Allies
regardless of what ships show up. usually for Nats there are some people with
multiple ships who try to bring a ship that will make things mostly even. For
the first time last year we split up into flag/no flag because the Axis were
crushing the Allies beyond any thing that had ever happened before.
As far as what ships are good it depends on what your experience is. The
Bismarck can be good but it takes a fairly experienced battler to make it work
reliably and not get crushed on the water. Rookies usually start with a cruiser
if they don’t' have a lot of prior hobby or RC experience (see my article
on the port polar bear web site articles area). People that know how to work
with Dremel tools, scroll saws, disk sanders, solder, electronic interfaces and
switches, etc can often start out successfully in a class 4 or 5 battle cruiser
or battleship (see Bob's article on the articles area of the ppb web
site). The only trouble with that is trying to figure out which one to build.
They all battle differently. A North Carolina is good for some people's battle
style while a Kongo is better for someone else’s, etc, and you don't really
know until you talk with us (the "veterans") a little more or go to a
few battles with a cruiser and learn the ropes. I spent my first 1.5 years in a
cruiser then moved up from there.
As far as trying to fill gaps in the fleets, don't worry about that. Like I
said, for the most part we can split it up as needed on the fly. The most
important part is building something you will like, because you will invest a
lot of effort time and money into the thing so you might as well enjoy it.
If you want, we can try to sort out a time for you to come over and see a few
ships first hand (I currently have 12 or so ships in my basement). That, with
showing up to a building meeting, will get you more info.
Prospective
Captain:
Seeing your fleet would be cool. I
think that would be a good start. If you are interested, I have the weekend to
myself as my wife works both days. So, if you wanted to show off the ships I
could see them then. Good tips on the stuff you've already highlighted.
It's such a new hobby concept for me that I should definitely take my time in
selecting a ship. Could be stuck with it for a while. ;)
Anyway, I'll poke around the website
for some ideas. I haven't watched your vids yet but they are in the queue for
activities later this evening. To understand the group, are you guys
history buffs? Care about the history of the ships or more about sinking
others? (You alluded to the later in a previous email.) Groups like this can
obviously have different takes on newbies so are there any pitfalls I should
avoid?
Veteran Captain:
Nation wide there are only probably
like 200 people or a few more that do this so we don't want to alienate anyone.
In fact we usually do as much work with you as we can on your first ship to try
to make it as reliable as possible.
The members are a wide variety of people, we typically all like history and all
like building stuff. Some like the combat aspect of it more than others. Some
like the building process more. Some like the comradery. Some like electronics
and try to advance RC technology. There are lots of reasons people
like the hobby.
Some pitfalls are building a ship that isn't good for a first build or the
wrong ship for your type of battle style. Building un-reliable ships is common,
these things need to be able to take all kinds of abuse and having a build that
isn't up to snuff is common until you get the hang of it. Probably the biggest
pitfall is doing something your own way when there are more established ways of
doing it. The best way to do this hobby is to take exact advice of people who
have well-functioning ships. I've seen lots of people come in and try
to re-invent stuff when they don't need to. I built my first 3 ships
exactly how Bob told me to and they worked great. I started adding my own
flavor after that, but generally stuck to the same principles throughout the
rest of my ships. When we tell rookies to do something it's generally because
it works well. Also, come into it knowing that no matter how well you build
your ship you will do stuff to improve it throughout the year or years to make
it better, so getting frustrated that stuff doesn't work well doesn't help, you
need to be motivated to fix stuff when it isn't working right.
This weekend doesn't work great for me to have you stop over, I'll let you know
when I figure out a better time. Have you done any RC hobbies before?
------------------------------------------6
days later------------------------------------------
Prospective
Captain:
Hey. Are you going to Bob's place on
Saturday? Would that time be a good one to meet some people? Oh, and no I
haven't done RC hobbies before. Wanted to get into planes, but it was
too much to do at that time.
Veteran Captain:
Yep, I will go for a little while
around 1 or so. I think that is a great place to meet people and get some ideas
going. You should plan on trying to make it over.
Prospective
Captain:
Ok, I'll attend. Where is it located?
------------------------------------------14
years later------------------------------------------
Veteran Captain went on to become the
IRCWCC president. Prospective Captain went on to become NATS Contest Director.
Both captains have built and battled several ships and enjoyed their time in
the hobby.
I think a few aspects of this
conversation really stand out.
- We all had the same questions when
entering the hobby. Veteran captains: provide information and resources, be as
prompt as able with communication. Prospective captains: continue to reach out
and learn as much as you can, it takes years to have a good understanding of
everything the hobby has to offer but it all starts whit that dream of sinking
someone’s battleship under cannon fire.
- Getting guys to push through the
initial phase of interest can be challenging. Veteran captains: providing a
“space” (physical space, conversational space, showing off ships, handing them
a transmitter at events, building a ship for them) and providing resources for
prospective captains are key components to getting people to fall in love with
the hobby like we did. Prospective captains: take a chance and reach out to us,
show up to events and get to know what we are about in-person as much as you
can.
Tyler Helland, published 2/3/2026