Ron Thibault - 9/18/89
The Zara
| My First Warship Nationals - 1989 |
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I would like to start out by thanking everyone at Nats for the enjoyable time I had and the camaraderie shown by everyone.
About 2 weeks before Nats it looked like I would not be able to come due to a lack of a ride, everyone's vehicles were full. However the local members managed to verbally reshuffle the loads so I would have a space. As it turned out however because of some last minute dropouts I was able to ride down with Marty Hayes with a minimum of problems.
We started out early Saturday morning in caravan with Dan Schultz in his $200 wonder car (wonder how it ran). Having caught a local bug the day before we left I was not much help driving on the way down, the previous night was not spent sleeping, so Marty got to drive the whole way. Other than that and Dan's occasionally misbehaving car we had an uneventful trip.
We found the hotel with no problem, unloaded some stuff, and headed for the lake, or at least tried to. We managed to just miss Stan at the Pavilion, and were locked out. We did find another parking lot, and finally found the lake. Except for my initial, unfounded, worry about trying to recover my ship if it sank under a bridge the lake looked very good. The best part being the shallow depth and clear water. However I could tell even with my limited experience that there was going to be no place to run if (when) I got into trouble. The other thing that impressed me was the carp in the lake. These fish ranged in size up to, no kidding, two foot. Both sides spent a good amount of the limited spare time trying to devise methods of using these U-Boats, I was Axis after all, against the other side. The Allied idea of making the Axis glue tacos to the bottom of their ships for visual identification won out over any Axis plans I heard for equipping the U-Boats with miniature torpedoes.
After viewing the lake we headed back to the hotel and found some of the other combatants at the restaurant across the street. These included the missing Stan. I still can not figure out why he would want to take a break, from waiting for us to straggle in at all hours, to eat. After dinner we all headed back to the lake to unload.
The American Pavilion, the "shop", was cavernous (huge, wet, dark, and moldy). Knoxville should be ashamed of their poor maintenance. We left our stuff and returned to the hotel for some much needed sleep.
Sunday was spent meeting more people and testing my ship. I can not emphasize enough to anyone who has never come to Nats to bring everything!!! I brought every hand-tool, spare piece, and anything else that was not bolted down; and used most of them. I have another ship that I am working on as well as the Zara, and I brought most of the mechanical parts from it including it's radio. I therefore had two radios, plus 3 additional sets of crystals, spare servos, and three extra motors. This was fortunate as, because of frequency conflicts, I ended up using the second radio. In addition, because of the conflicts, Jass borrowed one of my crystal sets. During the course of the week I also lent out my other radio to Dan Dees when his died, and a radio receiver switch to someone else. I also had to replace one of my drive motors during the week, as it was causing radio interference problems. So all the equipment came in handy.
Also I would recommend that you bring your stuff in a plastic tool box. During The Thunder Storm Wednesday my steel tool box leaked through the seams on the bottom damaging some of the contents. Also bring a copy of the rules and READ them before hand so that you can reference them if a dispute arises.
Back to Sunday. After testing the ship to see that it still worked, I headed for the main lake. Do not send your ship under a steel beam bridge while standing on it!! There were many interesting tricks performed by everyone's ships during the week due to this. Some of the more interesting ones were: Gerald Robert's? cruiser making a 90 deg. turn and running full speed into the cement wall, breaking the deck rim about 2 in. from the bow and bending it up at 45 deg.; and someone's ship going under in one direction making a 180 and coming out the same side, while he stood on the opposite side wondering where it was.
Monday, finally, and the battles started. First battle, first sortie. Neither Will Montgomery nor I recall exactly how it came about, but I do remember, vividly, watching the South Dakota backing into and over the Zara. He stopped and pulled forward, but it was to late, the Zara had been turned on its beam-ends and filled rapidly through the hollow stack. I stood there in shock for a moment, then brilliantly, and uselessly, turned on the pump, as the entire ship from stern to foredeck settled under the waves. About this time it occurred to my numb brain that it might be a nice idea to get into the water. I managed to reach the Zara just as the tip of the bow slipped under. Not the best of beginnings, for either Will, it cost him any chance at repeating the Championship, or me, this dunking was the start of my rudder control problems due to the previously mentioned motor. No structural damage was done and the water tight boxes held so I was ready for the next sortie.
I started to develop the rudder problems at this point but not bad enough to stop me for the next battle.
However it was during the first sortie of the second battle that I discovered the main disadvantage of this lake, Radio Interference in the largest part of the lake. This discovery limited me to the middle section and to opposite end the rest of the week. A local RC type had warned us of this Sunday but the extent of it was a surprise.
The surprise came in the form of my poor innocent Axis ship going out of control running right between two South Dakotas, and stopping dead, literally. By the time I managed to regain control the vicious Allied captains had given me 11 belows 4 to 5 ons and lots of aboves!!! You haven't had fun until you run the length of the lake and back with your constantly pumping cruiser, with three battleships in hot pursuit! Amazing everyone, including myself, I stayed afloat for my five minutes.
What to do now, I have a Swiss cheese boat and one more sortie? I decided the ship had already sunk once so that was over with so why not go out again. I did and I expended all my BBs and still stayed a float. The Zara may be old (I bought the old hull from Rick Schultz), ugly, and lack about half the normal amount of ribs, but it can pump, its a good thing to.
Before the third battle in testing my ship the rudder problem came on full force. Every time I turned on the drive motors the rudder kicked over full throw. I isolated it down to one motor and replaced it. The problem disappeared, I thought.
The third battle was uneventful enough, compared to the previous two, that I don't remember anything specific about it.
We found out Monday that, instead of lugging all our equipment the quarter mile from the Pavilion to the lake and back each day, we could pull up in the cars unload and then go park by the Pavilion, so the ship went "home" with me each night thereafter.
On Tuesday, disaster, the rudder problem resurfaced with a vengeance. Not the best way to fight a battle! So for two sorties I called five right away. Despite the help of many people I could not fix the problem at the lake. I therefore was unable to run the Zara for Convoy, and acted as the Convoy Commander instead. This probably was a blessing considering the rate that Axis ships were sinking in this battle.
Tuesday night I went to work on the rudder problem. More caps and grounding everything helped, but didn't cure the problem. Finally, while testing other motors, I found that when the motors were on test leads the problem disappeared. Not being one to argue with the fates (good Italian Gods), I simply lengthened the motor leads on the offending motor by 18 inches. Not the most elegant, or satisfying solution, but it worked for the rest Nats and is still working. I have since had a similar problem with the pump motor. This was cured by replacing the motor, the shaft got rusty and caused enough vibration to upset the brushes.
Wednesday came, and I was ready to battle again. I was challenged to a one-on-one by Leif. He wanted a one sortie battle at first but changed his mind after the sortie. We went out and I got several hits on him, including a beautiful hit about an inch below the water line went he turned at just the right (wrong?) time. His bow gun was real weak, so he either got none or one hit on me I don't remember which.
It was during the second sortie that I disgraced my Axis heart. Fluegel I'd send the blackboard with "I will be an vicious Axis slime." written on it a thousand times, but the Post Office won't accept an envelope that big. About 5 min. into the second sortie Leif's ship started to list badly to port, so I stared to shoot at all the nice red showing on the starboard side. This was fun! A couple minutes later Leif lost control of his rudder and called five. Now it was only halfway through Nats and Leif was a fellow rookie, and was having enough problems of his own. So rather than take advantage of his troubles and tear up his ship, I told him to go ahead and take his ship out of the water. Thus Fluegel's comment about "some gray in his heart", whatever that means.
Night battle was different. It was both frightening and exhilarating. Before the battle started I was getting increasingly nervous about running my ship when I could barely recognize it, let alone any other. This lasted through the first few minutes, then it started to become fun. Unfortunately at about this time the Zara's guns stopped firing. The lake had cooled down considerably since the afternoon, and I had not left the ship in the water long enough for the tanks to cool before I tweaked the guns. I had lots of BBs but not enough uumf to shoot them.
I only remember one of the battles Thursday, I believe it was the second. In the first sortie, while trying to maneuver away from two South Dakotas, I lost forward propulsion. After another period of being pounded with side mounts, I regained intermittent forward. I ran around on five, while being chased by Dan Hamilton. After pulling my ship out I noticed that my throttle trim was in full reverse. Dumb, dumb, dumb. At least now I know to check the trim more often. Fortunately? the Dakotas had been to close during the pounding and had not given me nearly as many belows as Monday. However they had really torn up my superstructure, as well as giving me enough holes to worry me about the next sortie. Mike Deskin's Jean Bart had a big hole in the bow, and the Kirishema was chewed up. All three of us were willing to go back and fight the second sortie. Fluegel decided however, that we should call five and run, as we were ahead in points and could win this battle if we didn't lose to many ships.
So the second sortie started and Mike and I called five and ran. The sneaky Allies however had launched a couple battle ships on "our" side of the lake. Dan Hamilton chased the Jean Bart and the Zara while, I assume, the others concentrated on the Kireshema. I figured that I would try to stay between Dan's QE and the Jean Bart, while trying to avoid being shot of course, as the Jean Bart had a lot of holes as well as the big one. I didn't think I was in terrible danger of sinking and could take a "few" extra hits if it might save the Jean Bart. Also if I sank it was a lot less points than the Bart. Mike probably didn't need my help, but I'm that kind of guy. Unfortunately while trying to maneuver between Dan's QE and the Jean Bart, I rammed Dan's ship, and put a hole in the bow above the WL. At least it was the only time so far this year that I've damaged someone (by ramming). After he patched the hole we resumed. The Jean Bart had left so Dan concentrated on me, for some strange reason. He followed me into the back lake and we got into a circling match with me on the inside. Dan was trying to hit me with his side mount, and of course I was trying to avoid it. The night before someone, I think Dan Dees, had said that was a lot of crud in this part of the lake so I was hesitant to go in it. The lake was not too bad, however I did spot a plastic bag floating in one part. I assumed Dan had seen it also, so at first I just tried to avoid it. As we were circling I noticed that at times Dan got vary close to the bag. It dawned on me that he hadn't seen it, and a nice Axis idea formed. I circled a little wider on the next pass and just missed the bag. Dan who was on the outside ran right over the bag and stopped dead in the water. This was GREAT, this was FUN, for me. Dan didn't seem as please at my maneuver as I, who was rolling around on the ground laughing and shouting "I did it, I did it!". He was a good sport about it though, he didn't hit me with any suitable blunt objects. After I recovered my composure, and ship, Gerald Roberts came over and congratulated me on running the British into the mine field. The Jean Bart and Zara had done as ordered, and survived. The Kirishema however had not and sank about 7 or 8 minutes into the sortie. The loss of this ship and at least one heavy cruiser put us over the top and we lost this battle. O'well I had fun at least.
It was at dinner that night that a certain British "gent" informed me that, as I hadn't been sunk by gun fire yet that week, my "a was grass" on Friday. See if I lend him any more silkspan. Now considering the condition of my superstructure after two close encounters with Dakotas, the prospect of being mobbed Friday was not all that appealing. However after the initial case of shakes wore off, I decided that, as an Italian, if they going to sink me my ship might as well look good going down. I therefore spent a couple hours Thursday night repainting my ship to cover all the yellow splotches. This exercise while not only being an act of defiance, also helped stop my hands from shaking. Rick Schultz had also been told the same thing, but being more experienced, had told them to go ahead and try.
Friday morning arrived and the battle started. I spent a great deal of this battle being chased by Dan Hamilton and British "gent" Bob Amend, along with a variety of supporting players. The Zara survived, barely. The Doria (Rick) had not however. Rick having a Battle Cruiser had stayed in the thick of the fighting, while I practiced the hit 'em while you can and stay away otherwise routine better suited to a Cruiser. This left me the only Axis ship not to sink due to gunfire during Nats.
Dinner Friday night was fun. We had a section reserved at the restaurant but they started sitting other people there any way. The majority of Axis showed up in uniform and about the time that the Axis leaders stood up to present the Allies with a sword we looked around, and we were alone again. I would like to thank Will Montgomery, the Allied admiral, for realizing the superiority of the Axis side and signing the surrender papers even though they won.
I was deeply honored to receive the Brian Spychalski award; and plan to keep it forever, you can't have it back, ha ha.
Note: The Brian Spychalski award ( it is a traveling trophy - you return it the next year for it to be awarded to the next person) is given to the person at Nats who the Executive Board determines was the most helpful to his fellow battlers (on both sides). It is given in honor of Brian, who died in a car accident shortly after he started battling. He was I believe 16 or 17 at the time of his death. (By the way I did return it the next year.) ;-)
When they talk about taking No-Doze to the rules meeting they are not kidding. I think we got out about 2 o'clock in the morning. It was good to be at however. Two things I think should be changed are: If someone has a huge rule change proposal he should be made to present it (written copies to participants) at least a day or two before the meeting so it can be studied, and a mechanism so that explanations of changes could be sent out with the ballets, if the person brings a copy. The first would have allowed us to catch the typo excluding some Battleships entirely from the large class change rule. The second would reduce the load on Fluegel to get explanations out in "HULLBUSTERS" before the dead line, and give some of the changes a fair hearing before most of the ballets are already in.
Saturdays trip back was uneventful. I wasn't sick this time and was able to relieve poor Marty of some of the driving chores.
I've had the Zara out a couple of times since Nats but had the pump motor problem. I've mainly been concentrating on finishing my USS Louisville however and will have her ready for Regionals next week. I'll bring the Zara along as backup, she hasn't been reskinned so may take a lot of damage if used.
Note: I battled the Zara at the following (1990) North East Regoinals and my brother David fought it at a later meet. The rest of 1990 I fought the USS Louisville. I later sold the Zara to get funds to build the USS Arizona for 1991 (the 50th Anniversary year of its' loss at Pearl Harbor). After this brief fling with the Axis side I have since "reformed" and fought hard for the Allies. In 1991 when I switched to the Arizona, my son Adam took over the helm of the Louisville. This year (1997) my son Matthew started battling at the helm of the USS Wichita.
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