[BFG] Weapon Packs

[Fleafa]

I have considered doing this for a while but never got round to it. I would almost certainly be interested. Loving those midship modules...

[Munkey Joe]

Im Late.... But those are some sexy bits and Ideas you got there!!

[Islacrusez]

Fiddling with a dorsal design atm, currently a sort of gazebo gun.



Since then it's been shortened somewhat, to allow for a roof area within the 5mm height I've assigned myself. It might shorten further. The general idea atm is that I'm struggling with just how to make a gun turret to be gothic; the shape just doesn't lend itself to the design. As a result, the basic idea for dorsal and broadside turrets is that the guns themselves will be classic design (possibly borrowing from WW2 inspirations), while their setting will be gothic, so a gothic gun gazebo like above for dorsal, and gothic platforms for the broadside lance batteries.

Another thing that may yet happen is that the walls of this will be closed up completely, the entire thing squashed significantly, and a large barrel attached to one end.

Also on the table is a dauntless battery, and a rework of the main weapons batteries detailed previously.

[Islacrusez]

Ok, so the gazebo gun has been rebuilt from the ground up due to major issues inherent in its design. As a result. A minor alignment issue caused major setbacks when a 90 degree angle turned out to be 90.2 and half a building had already been put on top of it... Fortunately the arch areas were not aligned to it. So here's the latest iteration of that particular design "thread" and yet to come are the two branches - enclosed-structure and central-gun.

[Islacrusez]

In the meantime, the enclosed turret concept takes shape:



Sizes are actual.

[mangozac]

I'm not quite sure where you're going with this one so it will be good to see the gun fitted!

Edit:You posted before I answered! The gun looks interesting, but I'd like to see some more mechanics/elevation mechanisms where it joins the turret. I'm still not sure what the gazebo is for?

[Islacrusez]

[mangozac]

Ahh ok I'm with you now

While the open style gazebo is a cool idea, it won't be very feasible to cast (could be done but would be very fiddly and expensive).

[Islacrusez]

Yeah, there's some major issues with it; but it is doable. Just need to work out how. It's 3 pieces minimum, and that's a pain. Some very thin pieces involved though, and that worries me. Not too expensive; once the investment cast is done, it's done. Since so many of these pieces are so small, I'd likely end up with them all sprued together and cast as a single piece, and then separated for resin casting.

I'd probably end up splitting it with the base and the first layer of trim, as these will also contain some bits to beef it up. Then the upper half would be the columns and the arches with the roof. The final piece would be the gun, designed to slot in before the top is glued on.

[Islacrusez]

I recently started assembling my fleet, settling on a few thousand points worth of lances... After about £100 worth of ebay rescues, I've noticed that while I have all the ships, I don't have the lances. So I decided to return to this thread and put together some weapon turrets.

First up, two variants of a battleship main armament:




They're roughly the same size as the Desolator guns. More on the way, for various types of cruiser armament, unless anyone has any specific requests!


EDIT:

A few hours later, three cruiser turrets. These are all about 5mm wide, matching chaos turrets for the most part. Imperial turrets are a mil shorter or so, but for the most part they should still work. The gun barrels on these ones are about half a mil in diameter, which may be too small now.

[mangozac]

I like them, but those barrels are WAAAY too thin to use practically. Even if they print and you manage to cast them they will still be way too fragile and will break too readily. It wouldn't be too bad if you decreased their length and placed them so the two barrels are touching (to give some more rigidity).

[Islacrusez]

The gun barrels on the battleship guns are as thick or possibly thicker than GW's own battleship guns. I assume those should be fine?

As for the cruiser barrels, they are a bit on the thin side... Especially the ones on the far end, as they seem to have gotten thinner as I went. I'll probably shorten the thin part and reinforce the thicker section (either by attaching them to each other, or by giving them some turret to lean against as with the others). Are the near-end ones also critical? They're more in the range of 0.6mm...

Do you think I should cast the turrets with the barrels already attached, or have them separately on a sprue to allow a bit more freedom on the builder's side? It would also mean I can use thinner barrels if I provide some stock rods of either plastic or metal. Unfortunately it would mean I can't use the stepped-barrel design, unless I can... Say, could I insert a piece of wire into the mould when I cast, so that the resin sets around it?

[mangozac]

It's the length of the barrels on the battleship turrets I'm worried about. With a shorter length and that diameter they should be fine.

While 0.6mm barrels are reproducible, I wouldn't make them any longer than maybe 2mm.

Personally I'd rather have the barrels attached rather than have to screw around assembling them. Plus, although tiny, the step in the barrels generally is noticeable and adds a nice detail (on my scratchbuilds I turned up the barrels for any medium size turret and up out of brass).

[Islacrusez]

The battleship barrels should be no longer than the GW ones, although their ones are out of metal. I do believe they're also shorter than my Bismarck guns, which are also as thin but are the usual kitmaking styrene type plastic. Also they're a more reasonable thickness than the cruiser ones, in the 1mm range.

I'll get the measuring tape out and check the length of the cruiser guns.

[mangozac]

You shouldn't compare to styrene parts on injection moulded real life model kits, as they're not intended to wargaming use. Plus, 1mm styrene is actually fairly flexible. Ultimately it probably comes down to the resin that you use (and its hardness), so you would really need to try it out before committing designs to it.