Hi Steve,
I'm Dave.D., and I just joined the group. Frank P. got me setup. I made
initial contact thru your webpage...I figured I'd "piggyback" onto one of
your replies that I read from my e-mail. Anyhow...
I'm new to R/C tanks, and have a burning desire to build at least one...
Want to try a 1/6th Jagdpanther!!! A concern is building something without
a turret (which I imagine will take some of the complexity out of the build)
versus the ammo loading of the marker issues that a lower profile vehicle
such as the Jagdpanther poses. Targeting issues are another concern, a
turret does give more flexibililty, but I'm still leaning towards the JP...
Plus it helps that I LOVE the look of the Jagdpanther, but then, who
doesn't!!
Then, my brother puts his two cents in and says that I better build TWO
vehicles, so I have "someone to play with", as my desire to do this R/C tank
thing is much greater than his is (I have a third brother who sort of got
this ball rolling by buying a slew of 1/16th Heng Long pieces of junk-I
might have some luck getting him to build a nice 1/6th model)... So I was
thinking to make future comabt kinda even, plus in keeping with the issues I
just outlined, of make a SU-85 or SU-100 too. This would compliment my
Russian heritage nicely as well. Grand dreams for sure!!
I have several fears though...
The worst one is going through all this effort in building a "metal monster"
(did I just coin a term?) or two, and becoming bored with them from a lack
of finding fellow combatants(yeah, Maryland is only six hours away...I
know-and it would be a honor for sure!!), as I will outline below. That
aforementioned third brother bought me a Heng Long Panther, that I've had
for over a year, and have ran it only three times...It's lost it's luster,
sadly. I have to think that a metal monster sporting a paintball marker is
a serious upgrade over a BB shooting HL model. Plus the pride taken in
building it yourself has to rate favorably into the equation...
SO...
I'm on Long Island, and despite it's 5 million inhabitants, there doesn't
seem to be an organized R/C tank club to be found. I did find one other
person but it was from a different site, and I haven't checked back to see
if he responded to my initial reach out message. I'd be willing to put the
effort in starting up a club, as I have always been pretty good at
organizing things. So an issue becomes, will there be a relatively local
fan base with whom to do battle with? With that said, I began contemplating
certain issues regarding battle rules and guidelines...
I aplaud your club's efforts to keep the tanks historically accurate, and
not allowing any design that hasn't been put into production. A question
that has been nagging me for some time is why doesn't the club pose
restrictions on things like tank speed,both forward, and perhaps more
importantly, in reverse. Turret traverse rates, and rates of fire would be
other concerns I'd have... If you strive to make the vehicles LOOK genuine,
why not follow through and make them act as close to historical norms as
possible??
I imagine the answer would be that it would be too complicated to get
everyone on the same page. I guess it's hard enough to get people to simply
build a tank, as huge a process as that is, much less put governing
restictions on what they build. I just find it interesting that you have
tanks that go as fast in reverse as they do going forward, can fire salvos
as fast as the paintball guns can pump them out, it's almost as if you're
merely creating a historically accurate shell to house some paintball gun
toting vehicle. Which then begs the question, why not let people build
whatever they want?--why stress the historical accuracy when the look of the
tank is the only thing historically accurate?
I also imagine that it's the beauty of building a piece of history that's
significant here, I guess I'm being abit of a devil's advocate. It makes me
wonder if you could have two types of competitions, the all out shoot as
fast as you can, speed around how ever, and all that, and the other where
say, rate of fire rules are made, for a start. I imagine that a delaying
device coupled with the firing mecahnism wouldn't be all that hard to
accomplish...
And maybe I'm missing something here, which is the reason for my e-mail, so
that you can shed some light as to what I may be missing or have overlooked.
I guess it can be argued that rates of fire don't really mean a thing if a
strict ammo limit is established for each combatant, based on the tank's
historical number. It's widely known how many shells each tank carried, if
a combatant wants to blast his load in one big burst, that's his
perogative... Like I said, I'm going by the relatively little that I've
gathered from viewing some battle videos. Perhaps if I saw a combat in
person, I would understand the reasons whay things are as they are.
So, I know I've been rambling just a wee bit, but I think you get where I'm
coming from. I guess I just wanted to hear from you guys as to how you
tackled some of these issues. I have other questions concerning build
issues (another e-mail perhaps), but I guess I have to make an informed
decision as to whether I should begin building a tank in the first place.
Part of me wants to get started yesterday, but the rational spec I have set
aside in my brain says to proceed with some caution.
So, in closing, if you can give some insights on;
1) What governs combat rule creation?
2) Are there any clubs, members, tank enthusiasts that you are aware of on
Long Island?
3) Guidelines, helpful hints in getting a club off the ground....
I would be be greatly appreciative of your response.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Dave D.
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